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What does a team do after losing its leading tackler? If you’re the Oregon Ducks, you replace him with his brother.
Evan Williams was never supposed to end up in Eugene.
After his breakout 2021 season with Fresno State, the draft seemed like a likely destination for a safety who tallied 90 tackles, three interceptions and generated plenty of buzz with scouts who saw a high-to-mid-round draft pick despite playing outside the Power 5.
But of course, Evan is a Williams. And things haven’t always gone to plan for the family. Just like brother Bennett, whose own 2021 breakout at Oregon was stymied by a leg injury, fate struck Evan a blow in 2022 with a knee injury that shelved him for a month.
And that changed everything.
“If he had the same type of year, this year, as he had as a junior, he was going to come out for the draft,” said Dani Slavin, Evan’s mother. “In fact, we were sort of planning like, ‘Well, that’s gonna be weird, we’re gonna have two kids preparing for the draft at the same time.’”
That would have been cool, Bennett admits. He’s been preparing for the draft for the last month at the California Strength program with 11 other NFL Draft hopefuls, including former Oregon teammate Ryan Walk in Los Gatos. And he knows how hard Evan has worked for this. It pains him to admit, but his younger brother has always been the harder worker, using his slightly smaller frame and underdog status as a driving force.
“I think that just fuels him,” Bennett said.
However, neither Bennett nor Dani or the Ducks are too upset about how things have played out. Because while the Ducks are losing a team-leading 72 tackles in one Williams, they’re now replacing him with the other.
And Bennett has a secret about Evan:
“He might even have a little more athleticism than me, to be honest,” Bennett said.
Evan knows what he’s getting into, too. After returning from his knee injury to help lead the Bulldogs to a Mountain West Conference championship and a steamrolling of Washington State in the L.A. Bowl, Evan sat in the stands of Petco Park in San Diego to watch Bennett and the Ducks take down North Carolina in the Holiday Bowl. It was Evan’s first time watching his brother play since becoming a college student.
He just didn’t know he was watching his future teammates, too.
“I had no clue,” he said. “It’s funny. I had zero idea what I was gonna do at that moment.”
But the scouts who loved Evan’s tape wanted to see more from him after the knee injury. And if he was going to come back to college, they were clear that they wanted to see it happen against consistently stronger competition.
“[The portal] really gave him the best opportunity if he was going to really try to up his stock…,” Slavin said. “It was very difficult for him because he really gave everything to Fresno State and believed in them and they believed in him. He knew people wouldn’t understand, people would be upset… He’s so loyal. It was super hard for him.”
So when speculation arose that he made his decision selfishly, it was tough for Evan, in so many ways an ambassador for Fresno State, to cope with.
“I felt like I did a lot for that program,” Evan said. “Also that program did a lot for me in terms of how people see me and how people view me. They put me in a great light.”
Previously, Evan had never entertained the possibility of transferring. He felt his mentality meshed with the blue-collar nature of the Bulldogs and even as multiple top-tier Power Five schools reached out to him as a junior and senior — despite him showing zero interest in leaving — he was never swayed.
“I was a betting girl and I said, ‘There’s no way he’s coming back. He will go to the draft,” Slavin said.
And she certainly didn’t see him returning for his final year of eligibility, only to relocate schools. But, she contends, secretly, she was hoping he’d come back. Mom wasn’t quite ready for the collegiate stage of her sons’ careers to finish.
“I wasn’t done at Autzen Stadium,” she said. “We were there for Bennett’s senior night and I felt melancholy about football being over. But there was something about it, I’m like, ‘I don’t know why, but I feel like I’m gonna come back here.’”
Consider it motherly intuition, because Evan committed to the Ducks, and one season of playing in front of the Autzen crowd, last Tuesday.
For coach Dan Lanning and the Ducks, it’s a quality add amidst an offseason brimming with them. Lanning has buffed up the front seven through the portal and behind that potentially improved pass rush, the Ducks’ secondary — a unit which was at times left vulnerable and gashed on deep-passing concepts — might be able to shore things up in 2023. Collecting plug-and-play players like Williams on the open market certainly helps that vision come into focus and his list of suitors should only add to the point that he’s a serious infusion of talent.
Soon after Evan entered his name into the portal, even his mother couldn’t go on social media without receiving messages from coaches attempting to reach her son.
Mario Cristobal phoned Bennett from Coral Gables. Coaches from Florida, Florida State and Notre Dame contacted the family, too. So did most of the Pac-12’s programs. The Ducks, with the familial bonds in their back pocket, made a strong push. Although, really, they didn’t need to. Bennett had already subconsciously crafted the recruiting pitch for them.
The Williams brothers are close. They talk frequently enough that Evan was aware of what Bennett’s two-year stint at Oregon meant to him, of how it molded him.
“We definitely talked a lot about it,” Bennett said. “You hear the parents talk sometimes and it’s just parents’ talk, like, ‘Okay, Mom, I know you want me to do what’s best for me.’ But when it comes from a brother who’s done it before, played there, seen multiple different colleges, I think he definitely was valuing my opinion.”
Evan and his parents took an official visit to Eugene the weekend before his commitment. He had never had a chance to tour Oregon — outside of a 2021 road game against the Ducks — because of his own rigorous football season and the differences in the academic calendars, but it reaffirmed his previous thoughts.
“It was a tough process, not gonna lie,” he said. “There’s a sense of urgency about the whole decision… Once I saw all my options, I thought, what better a place than Oregon?” Evan said. “It just seemed right at the end of the day. It wasn’t easy by any means, I had to deliberate a lot.”
The day after his commitment, Evan was already on his way back to Eugene, set to move into the house which Bennett spent his fall trimester in and take over his portion of the lease, joining several other Oregon players who still live there.
“I love that he’s going there… I think he’s gonna learn a lot,” Bennett said. “I think he’s gonna develop a lot. So really, I’m excited for that. I think he made the right decision.
“I developed my football IQ so much just in a year under that staff, and so I just shared my experience with him, knowing that he has a lot of the same traits I do.”
Evan’s a bit more of a true safety than Bennett, but they share plenty of qualities. He’s a strong run defender who finishes tackles with force. On the back end, he’s rangy and possess the ability to highpoint the ball and make plays. He played man coverage only sparingly at Fresno State, but then again, Bennett entered the Oregon program with aspirations of improving in that department, himself.
Bennett envisions Evan stepping in and demanding respect early. He expects him to work to take over the leadership mantle in the Ducks’ secondary. And, for that matter, he can picture Evan struggling with the same things he struggled with in his early days in Eugene, too.
“I think the biggest adjustment is like, ‘Okay, these guys are all used to being that top dog,’” he said. “And I’m the underdog. Evan’s used to being an underdog in this situation.”
Ultimately, Bennett knows fighting for a role alongside 4-and 5-star players will help Evan, a former 3-star, thrive. It might be a bit of a shock to the system at first, but once he finds his footing?
“Oregon fans can expect to see a very similar game to me, but probably even ramped up a notch,” Bennett said, once more putting aside his ego.
Up a notch?
“What else did he say?” Evan later joked. “That doesn’t sound like Bennett. He would never say that to me… That’s an honor.”
And those Oregon fans?
“They’re gonna love [Evan] and I don’t say that because I’m his mom,” she said.
“Well,” she added, “maybe a little bit.”
— Shane Hoffmann
@shane_hoffmann
