Texas Football: Can Horns flip 5-Star 2025 WR Ryan Williams from Bama?

Texas football and head coach Steve Sarkisian got the 2025 recruiting class off the ground this weekend by landing a bit of a surprise commitment on June 3 from the highly touted four-star Saraland (AL) quarterback KJ Lacey. The blue-chip quarterback recruit out of Alabama announced his commitment to Texas on social media on the afternoon of June 3.

And soon after the announcement from Lacey of his commitment to the Longhorns in the 2025 class this weekend, there was a response from his Saraland teammate and the No. 1 wide receiver recruit in the nation in this class. The elite five-star Saraland wide receiver and Alabama Crimson Tide commit Ryan Williams posted on his Instagram story on June 3 in response to Lacey’s pledge to Texas.

How realistic is it for the Longhorns to flip Williams’ commitment from Alabama now that Lacey is in this class?

This will obviously still be a very difficult feat for Lacey along with Sark and new wide receivers coach Chris Jackson to pull off to get Williams to flip from the Crimson Tide at any point in the next couple of years.

Texas football pushing to flip 5-Star WR Ryan Williams from Alabama?

But the fact that Texas has already offered Williams prior to landing a commitment from his teammate at Saraland High School, Lacey, is at least something for Texas to use as a selling point to hammer home to the elite wideout recruit.

Lacey mentioned in a recent interview with Hank South of Horns247 on June 4 (paid content) that he is “going to work on that soon”, in reference to his future efforts to recruit Williams to Texas.

"“I’m definitely going to try to get my boy to Texas. I’ll be with him almost everyday, really. Hopefully it’s kind of easy. We’ll see how it goes.”"

Williams is clearly the type of wide receiver recruit that Sark, Jackson, and the Longhorns are going to go after until the very end of his recruiting process. For him to even hypothetically visit Texas in the near future would be considered a win for the Texas coaches on the recruiting trail in the 2025 class.

It’s worth noting that while Williams seemingly remains solid on his commitment to Alabama, he’s still taking visits to other schools prioritizing his recruitment so far this offseason. He’s visited the likes of the LSU Tigers, Florida Gators, Georgia Bulldogs, and Auburn Tigers in the last few months.

I would only assume that Sark and the Longhorns staff will be pushing hard to get Williams to campus for a visit in the near future to try and chip away at his commitment to Alabama.

Moreover, Williams is not the only elite 2025 wide receiver prospect that Lacey will help recruit to Texas. Getting a quarterback as talented as Lacey will only help Texas in elite wideout recruitments such as Duncanville’s Dakorien Moore and Katy Jordan’s Andrew Marsh.

Lacey is another uber-talented quarterback commit that Sark and the Longhorns have reeled in to stack this position room well into the future. He joins a list of QB commits that also includes Quinn Ewers, Arch Manning, Maalik Murphy, and Trey Owens in the last couple of years for Sark and the Longhorns.