Alabama running back Derrick Henry wins Heisman Trophy

The Alabama running back was presented with the coveted trophy at a televised awards ceremony in New York’s Playstation Theater.

University of Alabama’s Henry received 378 first place votes for a total of 1,832 points, finishing 293 points ahead of runner-up Christian McCaffrey of Stanford University.

Henry won Alabama’s second Heisman Trophy in school history over finalists Christian McCaffrey of Stanford and Deshaun Watson of Clemson. With all this talk about quarterbacks, and spread offenses, and throwing the ball, it’s great to see that at the end of the day you have to run the ball to win.

Including the vacated 2005 award won by USC’s Reggie Bush, it also was the third time since 1999 a non-quarterback won the trophy. Henry’s rushing total was also good enough to break Georgia legend Herschel Walker’s 34-year-old SEC record, along with several Alabama records including most 200-yard games (four).

“The 6-3, 242-pounder from Yulee, Fla., set an SEC single-season-record in 2015 with 1,986 rushing yards”.

Additionally, Henry shined late in the season after Kenyan Drake broke his arm.

Henry snapped a streak of five-straight years that saw a quarterback take home college football’s most-storied award.

By midseason it was LSU sophomore Leonard Fournette (150-plus rushing yards in each of his first seven games) who was the odds-on-favorite. “Derrick probably did as much for our team this year in terms of how he finished the season, the workload that he carried when we got some other guys injured”. The absence of Mayfield and Reynolds created howls of protest to the Heisman Trophy Trust. 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. He shattered the Alabama single-season rushing record and the SEC single-season rushing record that was previously held by Walker in 1981.

Henry’s dominance on the ground seemed more convincing than McCaffrey’s breaking Barry Sanders’ 27-year record in all-purpose yards or Watson’s impressive showing of 41 touchdowns.

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. He joins the 2009 victor, former Alabama running back Mark Ingram.

“If you have dreams, go chase them”, Henry said.

Watson and the Clemson Tigers will play in the College Football Playoff Semifinals against the Oklahoma Sooners. This year Watson had a 69.5 passing percentage.