Former CHS standout shines in preseason college football rankings

From Clinton High School to Auburn University, Amaris Williams is starting to make an impact on the national level. Although it’s still just his freshman year’s preseason, people are starting to take notice of the former four star recruit.

“Amaris is a great human being, first and foremost,” said Chad Brewer, CHS assistant football coach and assistant athletic director.

Coming off a big senior season at CHS, where he helped lead the Dark Horses to a state championship game, Williams was highly recruited out of high school. His senior season, alone, he recorded 679 rushing yards, including 17.4 per carry and 61.7 per game, and amassed 12 touchdowns. On the defensive side of the ball, which is what he was recruited to Auburn for, he recorded 34 solo tackles and 20 tackles for loss (which wasn’t even his best season in that category — in his junior year, he had a whopping 44 TFL). These combined efforts earned him the conference Player of the Year in the SAC-6.

“He can basically do anything,” Brewer said. “When you see a kid that can do anything like he can, it’s incredible. He even stepped in to help us on the offensive side of the ball.”

All of these statistics have led MaxPreps to give him a 98 player rating, which is good enough for the #30 spot in the national rankings, the #5 edge rusher, and the second-best recruit in the state for the class of ‘24. It also led to him being highlighted by Chris Hummer of 247sports.com as one of the top-100 true freshmen for the upcoming season (an honor Williams has had before, as he was listed as a top-85 recruit in his class by Rivals250).

According to Hummer’s article, “Despite being just 6-foot-2, Williams, is a long, twitchy edge rusher who arrived at Auburn ready to make an impression. He did just that in the spring. One person inside the program told us Williams looks incredible — ‘already like an NFL player.’” The future looks bright for Williams, who is surely anticipating being an NFL player in the near future — not just looking like one.

However, his smaller relative size did not play a big factor for him during his time at Clinton. Brewer said it didn’t affect him much at the high school level. “I’m pretty sure he put on some weight while be’s been there [Auburn],” he had to say about it. “But he’s such a great athlete that his size didn’t matter.”

The Clinton alum fielded offers and recruiting visits from some top schools in the country, having even committed to the University of Florida at one point. Past recruiting attempts from Tennessee, Georgia, Penn State, Ohio State, and even North Carolina State fell short as he eventually decommitted from Florida and flipped his commitment to Auburn. “Throughout the year, we had some scouts, but of course, we got to see more come in towards the end of the year. It was cool seeing them at our games,” said Brewer on Wednesday.

Andrew Ivins, the director of scouting at 247sports, dubbed him a “quick-twitched edge player that has a chance to emerge as a real pest for opposing offenses” as well as saying he “has a chance to develop into an early-round NFL draft pick if he can avoid setbacks” while making the comparison to Melvin Ingram of the Kansas City Chiefs.

Only time will tell what the future holds for the former local standout, but all eyes are on him for what he will do in a couple months for the Tigers in Auburn.