30 best Alabama football players to play for Nick Saban

Best Alabama football players under Nick Saban: 23. O.J. Howard

Tight end is not a position that usually excels at Alabama, but sometimes there is just a talent that shines through. The second O.J. Howard arrived on campus, it was clear he was a special talent. Saban had him in the starting lineup in his freshman year, and he made some plays that put him above the rest of the country.

In his freshman year, he got to play with A.J. McCarron and a championship-level roster. He made a few plays throughout the year, but he didn’t get a ton of looks since he was blocking for T.J. Yeldon, Kenyan Drake, and Derrick Henry. It’s hard to take the ball out of the hands of those three, especially when they are on the same team.

Howard officially broke out as a junior when he broke 600 yards receiving and scored a couple of touchdowns. It all came to a head in the National Championship Game that season. He was unstoppable against Clemson. He caught five passes for 208 yards and those two touchdowns. It’s almost like Saban was hiding this amazing weapon to unleash at the opportune time. Would anyone put that past Saban? He had so many great players on that 2014 team that he could hide this incredible weapon and unleash it on the second-best team in the country.

It would be interesting how we would look at Howard’s career if he never played for Saban. Saban himself said after his senior season that he underutilized the talent he had in front of him. The coach has never been big on the tight end position, but he knew the kind of talent that Howard was.