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Sure, Alabama looks like a scary monolith from the outside world, one that simply keeps reproducing 12-win seasons, casually steamrolling everything in its path. But every season is its own story, and 2015 would not have happened without a number of individuals at various positions.
Here are the top 10 individual players at Alabama in 2015:
10. Adam Griffith, placekicker
I’ll be honest: when the poor kid missed the first four field goals he tried this season, I was worried he might not make it to Halloween (and not as an Alabama player … I mean, on this earth). But Nick Saban angrily defended him on a radio broadcast, and he finally got his feet up under him in late September. Now he’s about as reliable as anyone else on the field. Alabama wouldn’t have beaten Auburn in 2015 without Adam Griffith. That’s a fact.
9. ArDarius Stewart, wide receiver
The Tide’s problems early in 2015 were almost all related to its passing game. Bama appeared to be lacking both big-play ability on the perimeter, as well as the arm to deliver the football to those weapons (we’ll get to the arm in a second). Stewart, whose stats are enough by themselves, made two of the biggest catches of the season as well, a one-handed jump ball to spark the game-winning drive against Tennessee and the go-ahead touchdown vs. Auburn.
8. Eddie Jackson, safety
So, as a fan, it’s often easy to forget that the bodies inside those uniforms belong to college kids. They may look like Greek gods, sure, but they’re children, and we should expect them, occasionally, to behave like children. Case in point: Eddie Jackson, who looked like a lost cause at the end of 2014 as he watched Sammie Coates repeatedly run past him. In 2015, moved to safety, Jackson (along with Geno Matias-Smith, who didn’t make this list) suddenly became a key component in a flexible cover scheme opposing offenses can’t solve. His soul-crushing pick-six plays at Georgia and Texas A&M were part of the reason this season turned around.
7. Tim Williams, linebacker
Really, this spot could go to any member of the Bama pass rush but we’re giving it to Williams in honorarium because he’s the most noticeable difference from last year to this. Remember, Alabama’s weakness in previous seasons has been its inability to pressure without blitzing. That hasn’t been a problem this season, and Williams is a key reason why.
6. Cyrus Jones, cornerback
I am almost positive Cyrus has been playing corner at Alabama since 2003. But this season he has emerged as Bama’s best cover corner, and late in the season suddenly morphed into a dynamite punt returner. He helped bury Mississippi State and Michigan State on special teams in that role.
5. Jake Coker, quarterback
To an outsider, Jake Coker doesn’t look all that much different from every quarterback Alabama has employed since it started playing football in the 1890s: He has a mop of hair he always pushes out of his eyes, and his stats are (generally) unremarkable. The prototypical Alabama QB is the one who stays out of the way, doesn’t embarrass himself off the field and eventually becomes my mother-in-law’s insurance agent.
What sets Coker apart — for Alabama fans, anyway — is his toughness. Weirdly, he has become an effective scrambler — his one TD pass vs. Auburn came on a scramble play was a huge difference-maker — and he’s big enough that defenses actually have a hard time tackling him. And, on the biggest stage of this season, he played his best game against a pretty stingy Michigan State defense, competing 25 of 30 passes for 286 yards and two touchdowns in the College Football Playoff semifinal.
I didn’t believe before the season — nor at any point during it — that Jake Coker was a name I’d see as “national championship quarterback.” But here we are.
4. Calvin Ridley, wide receiver
Of course, the emergence of this guy has helped Coker along in that process. Replacing Amari Cooper was never going to be a one-man job, but Ridley has done a reasonable impression of the departed Cooper in 2015. The play that will always stand out for me from 2015 is Ridley’s TD catch-and-run vs. Mississippi State. He made one guy miss, got one block from Stewart and simply outran everyone else.
3. Reggie Ragland, linebacker
2. A’Shawn Robinson, defensive lineman
Putting these two together only makes sense, if only because they stand in for what is the best front seven in college football (and what truly makes the Alabama defense tick). Ragland is Alabama’s leading tackler, and one of the first players to come to mind when people say “Bama defense” but Robinson (along with Jarran Reed, and others) are the guys who allow Ragland and Reuben Foster to do their thing by occupying blockers and generally wrecking everyone’s assignments.
During the Michigan State game, Greg McElroy — working on SEC Network’s outstanding “Film Room” show — showed how Robinson simply destroyed the Spartans’ favorite power play by taking up three blockers on his own. It was devastating. And Robinson is fleet of foot enough to stay in the game on passing downs as well (and apparently a good enough blocker that Alabama uses him on offense in goal-line situations).
Ragland, of course, is the virtuoso of the defense — smart enough to diagnose the opposition, fast enough to play from one sideline to the next and mean-spirited enough to light up whoever is in his path. These guys are vicious, but they’re also smart. That’s scary.
1. Derrick Henry, running back
And, speaking of scary. You can argue — as the sycophants who work for major media outlets did this weekend — that Henry’s relative lack of production in the Cotton Bowl — against Christian McCaffrey’s record-setting performance in the Rose Bowl — was evidence that the Heisman Trophy went to the wrong guy. And you’d be wrong: Coker, Ridley, Stewart, Kenyan Drake and even O.J. Howard were able to do what they did in Dallas specifically because the Spartans were intent on limiting Henry between the guards.
Oh, and there’s also this:
Yep. That’ll do.
Will Heath is a contributing writer for Saturday Down South. He covers SEC football.
