With Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price both off to the NFL, one of the biggest questions surrounding Notre Dame all offseason has been, “Will anyone step up and be the kind of star the Irish have had the last few years?” For most of the winter and spring, analysts have anointed Aneyas Williams as the guy who could step into the breach, and Tyler Wojciak of the Locked On Irish podcast pinpointed why Williams could have a breakout 2026.
Speaking on why Williams could have a massive fall, it wasn’t just that he managed to produce whenever he got on the field as the third stringer last year (and Williams did produce whenever he saw the field). Instead, it’s that the young running back has the mindset that leads to success, as long as that mindset isn’t misplaced.
“Aneyas Williams has that delusional confidence that you need to be a really great player,” the Notre Dame analyst said on his latest podcast episode. “I feel like there are two types of delusional confidence. There is, let's say, the Jaden Mickey delusional confidence that he had when he was a player at Notre Dame.”
“We were like, hey man, it's great that you're very confident in yourself, but it's not really earned on the field yet, and sometimes it could backfire. Now still hoping that Jaden Mickey could eventually become a good player, but then there's the other side of that coin where you have a player who is really good, who is really talented, who kind of needs that delusional confidence to achieve the goals that they've set out for themselves…”
Aneyas Williams’ bold confidence could be exactly what Notre Dame football needs
“We all know that Aneyas Williams is not going to be Jeremiah Love and he might not even be Judarian Price, but every single time that he's been out there on the field, whether this is in 2025 or when he was a true freshman in 2024, he always looked the part, and it always felt like he deserved to be out there.”
Williams showed that “delusional confidence” during Notre Dame’s Blue-Gold game when he played without a red jersey after sitting out the majority of the contact practices earlier in the spring.
It was clear the Fighting Irish running back wanted to show people what was in store for the program when things get serious at the end of the summer. In doing so, he also seemed to grab the starting running back spot (despite no official announcement) and made it clear the position battle was over.
While no one is claiming that Williams has the talent of Jeremiyah Love, one thing is clear. Love was as successful as he was because he had the utmost confidence in his abilities. Those hurdles he made while running at full speed weren’t done because he was tentative and didn’t know if they’d work.
Aneyas Williams may not equal the abilities of a running back who was considered the best in the draft, but his confidence could help Notre Dame take the next step and finally win its first national title since 1988.
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