College Football Playoff National Championship: Five reasons Alabama will beat Clemson
By John Buhler
4. Derrick Henry
Derrick Henry outworked just about every player in the country to win the 2015 Heisman Trophy. He is the type of back head coach Nick Saban and offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin can rely on to carry the rock over 30 times a game.
Henry is incredibly difficult to bring down when he is going north to south, allowing the Alabama Crimson Tide to pick up first downs routinely, while simultaneously chewing up the clock and giving the vaunted Alabama defense time to rest and recover.
While Clemson’s own Heisman finalist Deshaun Watson is more than capable of leading a high-octane Tigers offense, Henry is the perfect offensive player for how Alabama likes to play; ground-and-pound until the opponent’s defense gives out by the fourth quarter, sometimes sooner.
With a bell cow of a back like Henry, Alabama can dictate the pace of the game better than almost anybody in college football. Controlling the pace is an underrated quality of a champion, but Alabama has the recipe to win a game going at an average to slower pace: a strong running game, a fantastic defense, and a great punter like J.K. Scott that can pin the opposition deep in their territory with great regularity.
The trick is having the running back capable of not tiring while wearing out the opponent’s front seven with a physical running style. While Henry may have been the No. 3 running back in the SEC behind LSU’s Leonard Fournette and Georgia’s Nick Chubb entering 2015, he is the best back in the conference, the Heisman Trophy winner, and his team is playing for another National Championship as the favorite over top-seeded Clemson.
Next: Calvin Ridley