Ryan Coleman-Williams opened his junior season at Alabama with a mixed bag against ECU on Saturday. The wide receiver posted his first 100-yard receiving game since Sept. of last year, but he also dropped two passes that brought back memories of the issues that plagued his 2025 campaign. Despite the drops, Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer made it clear the Crimson Tide has no intention of scaling back Coleman-Williams’ involvement in the offense.

“We’re going to keep feeding him. He’s a relentless worker. And he’s going to keep getting the ball,” DeBoer said.

That’s exactly what Coleman-Williams needs to hear. The truth is, when you look at Saturday’s performance as a whole, the positives far outweighed the negatives. Coleman-Williams was electric with the ball in his hands, highlighted by a massive 58-yard reception on an in-breaking route where he showed confident hands, caught the ball in traffic between a safety and a cornerback, absorbed a huge hit, and kept going. He was also involved in the return game, handling both kick and punt return duties.

The drops are a concern, but context matters

The two drops were bad. There’s no sugarcoating that. Both were body catches Coleman-Williams tried to make but couldn’t come down with, and they looked too similar to what held him back throughout his 2025 season. That’s the kind of thing that gets in a player’s head, and there have been stretches where Coleman-Williams appears to do exactly that.

But here’s the thing. On the very same afternoon, he took a 20-yard in-cut and turned it into a 60-yard gain with two hands on the football. That’s not a player lacking ability. That’s a player who can flip the script when he stays out of his own head. He can go vertical; he can go north and south with the best of any wide receiver in college football. The talent has never been the question with Coleman-Williams.

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Feeding him early and often is the key

The way I see it, the formula for getting the best version of Coleman-Williams is straightforward: get him involved early and keep getting him the ball. When he’s confident, he’s a game-changer. When he starts pressing, the drops creep in. DeBoer and the Alabama coaching staff clearly understand that dynamic, and their approach isn’t going to change because of two drops in a blowout win. The Crimson Tide need him to be a consistent weapon in the passing game, and the best way to build that consistency is to keep feeding him targets.

It’s also worth noting the timing. Much better to work through these issues against ECU in a game Alabama controlled than to have them surface against Kentucky or in a bigger SEC matchup down the road. If Coleman-Williams can put the drops behind him and maintain the confidence he showed on that big catch-and-run, Alabama’s offense is going to be in good shape.

The bottom line is this: Ryan Coleman-Williams had a good day on Saturday. Not a perfect one, but a productive one. The drops need to be cleaned up, but the talent is obvious, and the coaching staff isn’t flinching. As long as Alabama keeps getting him the ball, Coleman-Williams has every chance to turn his junior season into a breakout year.