Alabama running back Derrick Henry (1,832 points with 378 first-place votes) won the 81st Heisman Trophy, winning five of six voting regions. Henry joins 2009 recipient Mark Ingram as the only Alabama members of the sport’s most storied fraternity, honoring the most outstanding college football player in the nation from the season.
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Stanford’s Christian McCaffrey was the runner-up, making it four second-place finishes for Cardinal players in seven seasons.
Deshaun Watson, the quarterback of No. 1 Clemson, finished third. “To my dad, my number one fan, who kept me in sports, every game I play, he was always loud”.
“I love you so much”, he said. When injuries hit Alabama’s other running backs, Henry picked up that slack, too.
Getting to NY for the Heisman Trophy ceremony first crept into Deshaun Watson’s mind when he was in high school competing at the “Elite 11” camp for college recruits.
“It says you can do anything at Clemson”, Swinney said. On Thursday, he won the Maxwell Award as college football’s best player and the Doak Walker award for being the nation’s top running back.
I’ve seen many of Alabama’s greats with my own eyes.
In this case, it’s Henry, and in my estimation he has a better case than most: his 1,986 yards through 12 games, in fact, top Ingram’s 2009 season total by more than 300 yards. McCaffrey finished runner-up and Watson finished third.
Henry comfortably won the Heisman Trophy Saturday night, and in his acceptance speech revealed a side of the stone-faced athlete that he keeps closed guarded, normally as easy to get from him as it is to tackle him.
The Tide faces Michigan State in the Cotton Bowl on December 31, trying to earn a fourth national championship in nine seasons under Saban.
What might be the most surprising when you look at this is how few votes Oklahoma quarterback Baker Mayfield received. Henry, a reluctant speaker after Alabama games, couldn’t have been more eloquent Saturday night, thanking everyone from his parents and his grandmother to his coaches to his academic advisors and the university chancellor. He broke Herschel Walker’s single-season SEC rushing record during the SEC Championship Game against Florida, when he rushed for 189 yards and a touchdown on 44 carries to help lead Alabama to the SEC title and a College Football Playoff bid. While both finished the season strong with fantastic performances in their conference championship games, they could not quite catch Henry, whose campaign took off in November. “I was kind of anxious with Christian McCaffrey breaking Barry Sanders record, and all the stuff that he does is unbelievable”.
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Henry was very close with Tenpenny and posted an emotional message on Instagram after Tenpenny’s death.
