The two most gifted men on the sphere at Jordan-Hare structure won the Iron Bowl for No. a pair of Alabama on weekday. One is that the junior back United Nations agency quotes the late USC coach John McKay and appears a lot of and a lot of just like the 2015 Heisman Trophy winner. the opposite is that the head coach good enough to ride that back into the SEC championship game.
On AN early season day that somehow overstayed its visa, in an exceedingly game that seemed like a pair to anyone with no sense of history, Alabama defeated chromatic 29-13 as a result of Derrick Henry ran for 271 yards and one touchdown. Of Alabama's seventy six offensive snaps, Henry ran the ball on forty six of them, a college record.
"He wasn't asking to return out. He was asking to remain in," aforementioned head coach Nick Saban, whose Crimson Tide clenched their fifth SEC West championship within the past eight years. "And I asked him on every occasion he came to the sidelines, 'Are you OK? as a result of we'll place someone else in there.'
"He says, 'Coach, I'm good. i am gon' win this game.' "
Alabama won as a result of Adam film maker created 5 field goals and since the defense restricted chromatic to 260 yards, seventy seven of that came on a faucet, faucet and grab third-quarter touchdown catch by Jason Smith, another attraction within the circus that's Gus Malzahn's offense.
But most of all, Alabama won as a result of Saban recognized what his team will do and makes certain it will it. Coaches quote that idea all the time. however few of them truly pull it off.
"I prefer to play however our players will play," Saban aforementioned. "I likable the approach we have a tendency to contend last year once we had Amari Cooper catching one hundred fifteen balls and running everywhere the place. I likable that. i favor but we will play. This simply happens to be the most effective approach this team will play. our greatest workhorse may be a back. ... i am not a run-and-play-defense guy. i am a score-however-you-can-score-and-play-defense guy."
Quarterback Jake Coker assessed his formation mate and aforementioned, "He's weird. he is sort of a machine." In fact, when the national guys got through interviewing Henry when the sport, he spent the sphere, knees pumping, toward the room.
Henry, asked when he dressed if may play a lot of, said, "I'm good. I'm good. The ball is not that serious."
That is a line Henry raised, wittingly or not, from McKay, the USC coach United Nations agency made 2 workhorse Heisman backs, microphone Garrett (1965) and O.J. Simpson (1968). Saban is trying a lot of and a lot of sort of a coach United Nations agency has made his second Heisman back. Henry is one sensible performance against SEC East champion Everglade State from connection Mark Ingram (2009) as a Heisman winner at Alabama.
As a young assistant at Syracuse, Hall of Fame coach Jim Tressel once referred to as a sprint draw for tailback Joe Morris 9 consecutive times to get a touchdown. On future drive, he opened with Morris running a sprint draw.
"I get on the phone," former Syracuse head coach Dick MacPherson aforementioned a couple of years agone, "and excuse my language, I said, 'Jesus Christ, Jimmy, do not we've got another damn play?'
"He said, 'Yes we do, Coach. As before long as they stop this one, i am going to decision it.' "
There was one thing of that in offensive organizer Lane Kiffin's play job on weekday. however Saban's supply to Henry to the contrary, Alabama has nobody else. Kenyan Drake stony-broke a bone in his right arm against Mississippi State and could not play weekday. Behind Drake is freshman Damien Harris, whom Saban deemed unprepared for game-deciding carries within the Iron Bowl.
So Kiffin referred to as Henry's variety once more and once more. The junior carried the ball thirty times -- when the [*fr1]. He smashed through Trent River Richardson's single-season dashing record of one,679 yards with 117 yards to spare. Henry has rush for one,796 yards and has 2 games to play.
The approach that ground-and-pound is meant to figure is that the offense is content to realize one or 2 yards early, knowing that by the fourth quarter those holes are going to be larger. Stanford has turned this game arrange into AN kind. however Henry did not follow that script. He came out of the room, ran the ball twelve times within the 1st eighteen minutes of the sport and gained eighty eight yards.
Hey, you are trying endeavour a 6-foot-3, 242-pound man twelve times in eighteen minutes. By the fourth quarter, chromatic had no answer. The Tigers were spent. They weren't the sole ones.
"Both sides were pretty tired at the terribly finish," aforementioned Alabama center Ryan Kelly, United Nations agency went on to imply his team's fourth-quarter coaching is "unmatchable."
And the truth is, once Alabama took possession of the ball at its nineteen, ahead 22-13, with 7:49 to play, the Tide required to bleed the clock. Henry ran the ball ten straight times for fifty six yards. He did not convert a fourth-and-1 at the chromatic thirty one. however by the time the Tigers got the ball back, that they had solely 2:49 and one timeout with that to figure.
"That was most likely the foremost necessary a part of the sport," Saban aforementioned.
After Alabama got the ball back, and once more faced a fourth-and-1, now on the chromatic twenty five with thirty three seconds to play, Henry went around right tackle just about untouched for his 1st touchdown of the sport, extending his streak of consecutive games with a dashing touchdown to seventeen.
"What Derrick has in dire straits this team," Saban aforementioned, "because this team wants him to try and do what he will, i might say, he is created as important an effect on his team as any players we've ever had."
Henry may be the most effective back within the FBS, and his head coach just about outlined him because the Most worthy player of the No. a pair of team within the nation. He won't have lots of skillfulness on the sphere -- he has solely ten receptions this season -- however once it involves Heisman criteria, Henry's AN general-purpose candidate.