Iowa running back Leshon Williams eyes ambitious goals ahead of 2024 season

IOWA CITY — On a Tuesday afternoon at Iowa football’s practice facility, Leshon Williams had a fashion accessory, at least as he would describe it, on his left foot. A protective walking boot.

“It looks good for fashion,” said Williams, who indicated he still is able to do “everything.”

Why not two, since it seems so fashionable? “I feel like one looks better,” the veteran running back said.

Fashion choices aside, Williams has some high goals for himself and the Hawkeyes ahead of his senior season.

From a team perspective, a spot in the expanded 12-team College Football Playoff is “of course” the plan, Williams said. Individually, he wants to lead the Big Ten in rushing and have 10-plus rushing touchdowns.

“I got a lot of goals,” Williams said. “That’s two of the big ones right there.”

All of those goals would require substantial improvement from the Hawkeyes on the offensive side of the ball. But Williams has faith in that happening under new offensive coordinator Tim Lester, who has implemented a scheme with similarities to what the Green Bay Packers have operated under head coach Matt LaFleur.

“I feel like we got a lot of explosive plays in our playbook,” Williams said. “We’re going to open up a lot of things, and I’m excited to see what he got for us for the season.”

Even with last year’s historically woeful offense, Williams was fairly high on the Big Ten leaderboard. He ranked sixth in rushing yards, and two of the players ahead of him have since been drafted.

Four running backs in the Big Ten finished last season with 10-plus rushing touchdowns. Williams had only one rushing touchdown, but it didn’t help the stat sheet that Iowa’s 11 rushing touchdowns in 2023 were split up among six different players.

If some of Iowa’s drives that ended in a field-goal attempt — a Big Ten-high 27 last year — instead reached the end zone, Williams’ touchdown goal could be within reach.

The College Football Playoff goal, meanwhile, does not seem entirely out of reach for a Hawkeye team that finished four of the last five seasons No. 17 or higher in the CFP rankings. Now as Iowa goes for a top-12 spot, it benefits from returning 79 percent of last year’s production, as tracked by ESPN’s Bill Connelly.

The running back room has contributed its fair share to that 79 percent figure, with all five scholarship running backs from 2023 — Williams, Kaleb Johnson, Jaziun Patterson, Kamari Moulton and Terrell Washington Jr. — staying with the Hawkeyes in 2024.

It was an impressive display of loyalty for a group where no one running back received more than 35 percent of the team’s rushing attempts.

“It’s always hard being patient, especially at running back,” Williams said. “Only one of us can play at a time. But you really just got to believe in yourself and make sure you’re ready when the time does come. … That’s all you can do.”

It perhaps helps that the running back room, with leadership from the veteran Williams, has developed plenty of off-the-field chemistry. Lately, that chemistry is in the form of bowling. Not just Wii Bowling — “kids’ stuff” — but actual bowling.

One can often find Iowa’s running backs, and sometimes other position groups, at Colonial Lanes on the southern end of Iowa City.

“We just went bowling as running backs probably like Sunday,” Williams said on Tuesday afternoon. “I won. I’m getting real good. I be in there a lot.”

Williams’ best score is 212. He just has to avoid dropping any bowling balls on the foot that dons his current fashion statement — one that he seems to be embracing as much as possible.

“We get a lot of questions about it,” Williams said of his walking boot. “I don’t know, I might see how long I can last with it. I think I pull it off pretty well.”

Comments: john.steppe@thegazette.com

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