So often, the award doesn’t necessarily go to the nation’s best player, rather someone who has several notable performance in big games while leading one of the nation’s best teams.
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Ricky Williams, Texas, 1998: The senior finished with 2,386 yards from scrimmage (2,124 rushing) and 28 touchdowns (one receiving) for the Longhorns, who finished 9-3, including a Cotton Bowl victory over Mississippi State.
Mark Ingram, Alabama, 2009: The sophomore had 1,992 yards from scrimmage (1,658 rushing) and scored 20 touchdowns (17 rushing) for the Crimson Tide, who went 14-0 and beat Texas in the BCS National Championship Game. Watson was scheduled to fly out of NYC Sunday morning back to Clemson, where later that same day the Tigers begin preparations for the December 31 Orange Bowl playoff game with Oklahoma. “I’m sure I’ll see y’all again”. But I saw Ozzie Newsome make acrobatic catches and watched Cornelius Bennett track runners down from sideline to sideline and witnessed Derrick Thomas scare quarterbacks senseless.
And that’s just the Alabama players. “I thought I was going to have a heart attack”, he said. There was no Heisman Trophy buzz about him, little hype, all of it belonging to LSU sophomore Leonard Fournette. I don’t always vote for the victor, and that doesn’t bother me. I know I have the right people in front of me that’ll do that for me.
The Stanford running back – his listed position is woefully lacking as a proper description of his role – took a pitch from the Cardinal’s quarterback during a November game against Colorado at Folsom Field.
Sometimes – quite frequently of late – Alabama has such a player on its roster. In terms of the region, McCaffrey took the Far West vote with 333 points to Henry’s 282, but that was the only area that gave the Stanford star the top spot. Alabama now becomes one of 10 schools to produce two Heisman winners in a seven year span.
But Henry is more than his numbers.
Odds are, their national championship aspirations also rest on the shoulders of the 6-foot-3, 240-pound running back. The young man who just won an award that will be mentioned in the first paragraph of his obituary is a small-town guy from Yulee, Fla., pretty much where Florida, Georgia and the Atlantic Ocean meet. Since then, it’s been Henry’s Heisman to lose, and he did nothing to change the minds of many voters over the last month, even if both McCaffrey and Watson made furious pushes down the stretch to make the race close.
Durability is an athletic gift, as are speed and power and will. Henry possesses all of those in abundance.
Brad Penner-USA TODAY SportsAlabama running back Derrick Henry speaks to the media during a press conference at the New York Marriott Marquis after winning the 2015 Heisman Trophy. McCaffrey was second with 1,539 points and Watson was third with 1,165 points.
“My offensive line, if I could have had them here I would have brought them all”.
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Derrick Henry owned his moment.
