Frog Spotlight: TCU’s Savion Williams embraces new role

From outside receiver to running back, Williams can do it all.

It’s taken over two months, but the TCU Horned Frogs have seemingly found their RB1. While not the most obvious candidate, now-hybrid receiver-running back Savion Williams has excelled as TCU’s go-to rusher. Williams has mustered 144 yards and a touchdown over the Horned Frogs’ past two games. Additionally, the 6-foot-5 wideout has hauled in eight passes for 108 yards and a score over the same stretch.

Williams has donned the TCU for purple for quite some time now, but he’s primarily been used as an outside receiver. Savion began his collegiate career in 2020. However, he played sparingly as a true freshman, only recording a single reception. Williams’ game took off in 2022 as a big-play threat. The Marshall, Texas native caught 29 passes for 392 yards and four touchdowns. Expectations were high for Williams entering his junior season following the departure of the Frogs’ top-three pass catchers. Coincidentally, as TCU struggled to meet expectations as a team, so did much of the roster. Williams led the team in receiving yards but only managed 41 catches, 573 yards, and four scores—not exactly a breakout performance.

After a disappointing 2023, Williams decided to return to Fort Worth for his final season. Savion began the year with an impressive performance against the Stanford Cardinal. He brought down 11 receptions (tied for a career-high) for 85 yards and a touchdown. While Williams and the receiving core impressed, the ground game suffered. Cam Cook, who began the season as the starter, rushed for 81 yards and a touchdown against Stanford—his best game of the year. Cook and the ensemble of backs failed to make a difference over the next month. Freshman Jeremy Payne looked to be an emerging playmaker after a stellar performance against the Jayhawks, but he failed to see meaningful snaps in the following games.

Then, after a loss against a 1-4 Houston Cougars team, the Horned Frogs coaching staff felt a change was needed to boost the ground game. Despite Cook’s bounce-back performance against the Cougars (77 yards rushing), he came out of the gates slow against Utah, totaling negative rushing yards in the first half. The Frogs mixed in fellow running back Trent Battle, who saw some success against the Utes before ultimately using Williams as a wildcat quarterback to move the ball on the ground.

Prior to the mid-October contest against the Utes, Williams had carried the ball 14 times in his collegiate career. Although Williams was inexperienced in the backfield, the coaching staff trusted the senior with the game on the line. Williams recorded 39 rushing yards in the fourth quarter and sealed the win with a powerful two-yard rush on fourth-and-one with just over two minutes remaining.

A week later, the Horned Frogs fully bought into the hybrid receiving-rushing role for Williams. On the first drive of the game, Savion rushed for 46 yards, including an electric 35-yard run where he used a spin move to get by the last defender before escaping into the end zone.

Two drives later, Williams scored again. The 6-foot-5 playmaker lined up in the backfield, next to Josh Hoover as a running back. Instead of taking a handoff, Williams ran up the seam, right by his supposed defender. Williams hit 21.7 mph on the play—the fastest recorded speed of the weekend.

Williams finished the game with 11 rushes for 72 yards and three receptions for 81 yards. He ranked first on the team in rushing and second in receiving. All of the sudden, the former X-receiver is now the team’s best rusher. Even though he’s seen a shift in workload, Williams remains a threat through the air. His week nine performance came with praise as Savion was named the Texas Star of the Week by the East-West Shrine Bowl, Reese’s Senior Bowl Stock-Up Offense Player of the Week, and an Earl Campbell Award Honorable Mention.

It’s been an arduous season for Horned Frog fans. Fortunately, it appears Savion is saving the season with his dual-threat capabilities. TCU is now 2-0 in games where Williams has recorded more than 70 rush yards. Look for the coaching staff to continuing employ the senior receiver as both an outside receiver and running back moving forward.