Saraland 5-star wide receiver and Alabama commit Ryan Williams has been named the Gatorade Alabama Player of the Year for the second straight season.

Williams caught 19 TD passes in 2023 as the Spartans reached the Class 6A championship game for the second straight season.

He announced followed the season that he was reclassifying into the Class of 2024. He has yet to sign with the Crimson Tide and will take official visits to Alabama (Jan. 20), Texas (Jan. 27) and Auburn (Feb. 3).

He is scheduled to sign on Feb. 9, his 17th birthday. Williams is in Orlando to compete in today’s Under Armour All-American Game.

The game will be televised at 3 p.m. on ESPN.

The Gatorade Player of the Year program annually recognizes one winner in the District of Columbia and each of the 50 states that sanction high school football, girls volleyball, boys and girls cross country, boys and girls basketball, boys and girls soccer, baseball, softball, and boys and girls track & field, and awards one National Player of the Year in each sport. The selection process is administered by the Gatorade Player of the Year Selection Committee, which leverages experts including coaches, scouts, media and others as sources to help evaluate and determine the state winners in each sport.

Williams is the first two-time winner of the Gatorade Alabama Award, which was first awarded following the 1985 season. The 6-foot-1, 175-pound wide receiver caught 71 passes for 1,320 yards, rushed for 269 yards and seven scores, threw a touchdown pass and returned both a punt and kickoff for TDs.

Williams also has been named a finalist for the Alabama Sports Writers Association’s Class 6A Back of the Year Award along with teammate KJ Lacey and Clay-Chalkville’s Jaylen Mbakwe. Williams won that award and the state’s Mr. Football award last January. This year’s awards banquet is scheduled for Jan. 16 in Montgomery.

If he is named Mr. Football again, he would be the first repeat winner in the 42-year history of that award. After he announced his reclassification in December, Williams played in the Alabama-Mississippi All-Star Game and was named the MVP of Alabama’s victory in Hattiesburg, Miss.

He is now the top-rated player on AL.com’s A-List of top seniors in the state of Alabama.