Alabama star wide receiver Ryan Coleman-Williams long believed his drops were a "mental block," but the problem has a physical explanation, according to the school's head athletic trainer, Jeff Allen. Coleman-Williams has elite speed and short-area quickness and usually gets open with ease. Yet last season he led all Power 4 receivers with 10 drops, including a key miss against Georgia in the SEC Championship Game last December.
After that game, Coleman-Williams sat down with Allen to review it. Coleman-Williams had perfect 20/20 vision, but he struggled to see the ball at the catch point. Allen, who has worked with the program since Nick Saban arrived in 2007, is known for unconventional thinking and has long focused on "vision performance." Allen said the team found a physiological issue, not a mental one, after testing vision this summer with virtual reality. The problem was not unique to Coleman-Williams and was not debilitating, but at the elite college level, small changes can make a big difference.
Since the fix, Coleman-Williams has not dropped a pass in four straight games, his longest such streak since the first month of his freshman season. He has also caught at least one touchdown in three straight games. He described the change as "night and day," saying the ball is now far easier to catch.
Allen's philosophy, displayed in his office, is that waiting for perfect evidence can mean someone else acts first and wins. "If it's legal and ethical," he said, "then we should be exploring it."
Source: ESPN General · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing