MOBILE, Ala. — Mobile and Baldwin County have a history of producing stars in the NFL. This week, the spotlight is on former Blount Leopards running back Sherman Williams.
Williams remains a familiar face on high school football sidelines. He is in his second year as head coach of the Murphy Panthers.
A 3,000-Yard Season at Blount
Before coaching, Williams was a star at Blount, where he became the first running back in Alabama prep history to rush for over 3,000 yards in a season.
That figure deserves a moment. A high school regular season typically runs 10 games, with playoff games beyond that. Three thousand rushing yards across such a schedule requires averaging well over 200 yards per game — a workload and a productivity level that few backs at any level sustain. Being the first in state history to do it meant clearing a bar that decades of Alabama running backs had not.
Alabama and a National Championship
Williams went on to play for the Alabama Crimson Tide, where he was part of the 1992 national championship team.
The 1992 Alabama squad finished undefeated and beat Miami in the Sugar Bowl to claim the national title, with a defense widely regarded as one of the most dominant in modern college football.
Williams was also a second-team All-American and first-team All-SEC in 1994 — the recognition that established him as one of the premier backs in the conference in his final college season.
From the Senior Bowl to the Second Round
He was a part of the 1995 Senior Bowl Game before being drafted in the second round, 46th overall, by the Dallas Cowboys.
The Senior Bowl, played annually in Mobile, is the premier college all-star game in American football and functions as a week-long evaluation for NFL scouts, coaches and front-office personnel. For a Mobile native, playing in it meant being evaluated by the entire league in his own hometown.
A second-round selection at 46th overall placed Williams among the more highly regarded backs in his draft class.
A Super Bowl Rookie Season
Williams was a rookie on the Cowboys’ Super Bowl XXX-winning team, sharing a backfield with Emmitt Smith and Herschel Walker. He had 10 carries for 30 yards in the Super Bowl.
That backfield is worth pausing on. Emmitt Smith is the NFL’s all-time leading rusher. Herschel Walker was a Heisman Trophy winner and one of the most physically remarkable athletes the league has seen. A rookie taking 10 carries in a Super Bowl behind those two was getting meaningful work in the biggest game of the season, on a team with no shortage of options.
The Cowboys defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XXX, completing a run of three championships in four seasons for one of the more dominant franchises of the 1990s.
Back on the Sideline in Mobile
Williams is now in his second year leading the Murphy Panthers, one of Mobile’s largest and most established high school programs.
The path he took — Mobile high school standout, Alabama, the Senior Bowl, the NFL, and back to a Mobile sideline as a head coach — is a version of the loop the Senior Bowl’s local significance depends on. Players from the area leave for college and the league, and a number of them come back to coach the next group.
For players in the Murphy program, the coach on the sideline rushed for 3,000 yards in a season at a crosstown school, won a national championship, played in the Senior Bowl in his own city and carried the ball in a Super Bowl. That is an unusually direct illustration of where the path can lead.