Without Jonathan Williams, Is Arkansas' 2015 Season over Before It Begins?

You just don’t replace a running back like senior Jonathan Williams.

There’s no way for Arkansas to suddenly find his experience, talent or leadership on the roster midway through training camp, and it can’t just trade a future prospect for a comparable veteran like teams do in the pros.

Last year Williams accumulated 1,190 rushing yards and 12 touchdowns, even though every opponent was geared to try to stop him. His career numbers of 2,321 yards and 5.72 yards per attempt put him among the program’s all-time leaders in both categories.

Williams was optimistic about the 2015 team, voted second-team All-SEC and represented the Razorbacks at media days, which made him a good bet to be voted a team captain.

Only his season is already over after suffering a foot injury during a scrimmage over the weekend. Many wonder if the team’s hopes of getting out of the SEC West cellar are gone as well.

“I have no doubt that Jonathan will come back stronger than ever,” Bret Bielema said in a statement. “Anyone that knows Jonathan Williams knows this is just another opportunity for him to prove the man of character and substance that he really is.

"It's an unfortunate injury to a great young man, but we are in the process of gathering as much information as possible. There are short- and long-term impacts of how he proceeds, and we want to make sure he does what's best for him and his family and his career beyond Arkansas."

The latter part of that alludes to the strong possibly that even though Williams never had a redshirt season, he might have played his last game with the Razorbacks.

It was a tough decision for him not to enter the 2015 NFL draft, and as part of the league's "I am the SEC" promotion, Williams openly talked about his family’s financial struggles while he was in high school. After his mother and father both lost their jobs, the family came close to being evicted from their home in Allen, Texas.

"I prayed a lot about it," Williams said. "Coach Bielema helped me out. A lot of it was he preaches becoming a man on and off the field, and I just wanted to graduate. It would have been easier to go to the NFL.

"Just seeing the potential of this football team and seeing where we could be going this season, I definitely wanted to be a part of it. I didn’t want to be watching on Saturday mornings, Saturday evenings, and wishing I was part of the Razorbacks still."

Brynn Anderson/Associated Press/Associated Press

Nevertheless, Williams is just one class short of finishing up his communications degree. He can take it while recovering from foot surgery and participate in the fall commencement ceremony.

If this discussion was about one of the other top running backs in the league—such as Nick Chubb at Georgia, Leonard Fournette at LSU or Derrick Henry at Alabama—the doom-and-gloom talk would be nothing short of deafening, with scores of fans writing off the season before it even started.

Arkansas won’t, though, at least not yet. Yes, Williams is a huge loss because quality 1,000-yard running backs aren’t easy to find, and yes, to use a medical analogy, the paddles have been brought into the room, just in case. 

The Razorbacks may be dangerously close to being on life support but the offense wasn’t expected to live or die with Williams alone this season, and there’s enough depth at his position that the Razorbacks can compensate for his loss.

Even with a new offensive coordinator, Dan Enos, this was supposed to be the year that Bielema really seemed to have all the pieces in place to field his kind of team: physical and nasty but also diverse.

The offense has an established veteran quarterback in Brandon Allen who looks poised and ready to do more. Although the personnel have been juggled, the Razorbacks have another massive offensive line. Tight end Hunter Henry is prepared to make bigger contributions, and the young receiving corps figures to only get better.

Still, all of that was expected to revolve around the running game. Williams and junior Alex Collins were the only returning 1,000-yard rushing tandem in the Football Bowl Subdivision, and junior tailback/fullback Kody Walker stole the show during the spring game with 174 rushing yards and three touchdowns.

That’s more than Walker accumulated all of last season: 31 carries for 149 yards and one touchdown.

Collins, who had 204 carries for 1,110 yards in 2014, will have to shoulder a bigger load, which he can do, but Williams was a better receiver and short-yardage option and had played in 36 games. He knew how to get through the grind.

So some elements of the offense will have to be tweaked or shelved, but there's no reason to think that Walker and some of the other, younger running backs can't step up and help fill his void.

One favorable thing about Arkansas not facing an SEC opponent until the neutral-site game in Dallas against Texas A&M on Sept. 26 is it will give coaches time to get some players like freshman tailback Rawleigh Williams III and redshirt freshman fullback Tyler Colquitt extra work.

But then the Razorbacks go through a meat grinder, with seven of the final nine games against ranked opponents and the only relief being a bye sandwiched between at Alabama and Auburn and a Halloween matchup against the University of Tennessee-Martin. That sets up the unbelievable final month of at Ole Miss, at LSU, Mississippi State and Missouri.

That’s brutal by any standard and means that Bielema and Arkansas now have a new primary concern/enemy for the rest of the season: attrition.

Quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.

Christopher Walsh is a lead SEC college football writer. Follow Christopher on Twitter @WritingWalsh.