Mario Drayton had every reason to be upset.

So why is he laughing, still, three years after Derrick Henry, then a senior at Yulee High, ran for 404 yards and six touchdowns against his Hamilton County high school football team?

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Drayton, one of many coaches Henry ran over en route to a record-breaking 4,261-yard senior season. “I could talk about Derrick Henry for days. He was a sight to see. We’ll never get a chance to see that again.”

Time has a way of healing, but even in the immediate aftermath of “holding” Henry, a senior at Yulee High School, to 404 yards on 21 carries that November night in 2012, Drayton sensed he had witnessed history.

“I was really supposed to be a pissed off coach,” he said, laughing again. “I went to our bench, took one of our footballs over to him and made him sign it. You just don’t see guys like that in high school.”

The first glimpse of greatness

Drayton grew up in Jacksonville, Fla., and played high school football there. He was quite familiar with the traditional powers, the larger teams his rural 1A squad should avoid. He’d never heard of Yulee High — or Derrick Henry — when his athletic director initially asked about possibly scheduling a games against the Hornets in 2011 and 2012.

“Nobody was talking about Derrick Henry then,” Drayton said. “So I said, ‘Oh, yeah, we should win this game. We’ll beat them.’

“Once I got the film, I was like, ‘holy crap.'”

What he saw was a sophomore, already bigger and faster than most kids on the field, running through, over and around opponents for 2,689 yards and 38 touchdowns.

“He didn’t break home runs that year,” Drayton said, “but you knew if he got any bigger, that joker’s going to be a terror.”

Henry ran for 2,587 yards and 34 touchdowns as a junior, and Drayton happily claims his team’s performance was the reason for the slight dip.

“We held him to (177) yards. Oh, yes, I’m bragging on that,” Drayton said, laughing again.

He knew, though, there would be no such luck the next time he saw the eventual Heisman Trophy winner.

‘Derrick Henry left, Derrick Henry right’

Hamilton County had just been eliminated from playoff contention when the coaches gathered for their weekly film session.

The 2012 season was almost over and the mood was jovial — considering what just happened, and what was about to happen.

Still remembering the 2011 encounter with Henry — and holding him in check — several coaches expressed confidence as they began to game plan for Round 2. Somebody asked if they’d seen any recent film of Henry — and not necessarily the 500 yards he put on Jackson High in mid-September.

“We don’t have to watch the film,” Drayton told the coaches. “Here’s what they’re going to do.”

Drayton walked to the white board and wrote three plays:

Derrick Henry Left

Derrick Henry Right

Derrick Henry Up the Middle.

“If those don’t work,” Drayton told the coaches, “then they’ll go Derrick Henry toss right, Derrick Henry toss left.”

The coaches laughed. The only problem with Drayton’s pregame scouting report was that he forgot to erase it. His players saw it. They didn’t like it.

“The coaches, we knew, but the players, they just kept talking about how he was just a regular dude,” Drayton said. “They were confident, saying ‘He ain’t going nowhere.’ We had our best week of practice. We even had linemen as running backs, running the ball … but there’s a difference between hitting a big guy … and a big guy who runs a 4.5.

“There was no way to prepare for that.”

Inspired by trash talk, ‘he put on a show’

Henry entered the game with a chance to set the high school record for career rushing yards. ESPN brought a small film crew, just in case, Drayton said.

“Everybody came to see him,” Drayton said. “I remember thinking, ‘this kid is special.’ He was probably 25 pounds bigger (than his junior year). You could just tell. You don’t see guys like that. We had our 4×100 guys on defense, guys who could run, and they couldn’t come close to catching him.”

Hamilton County frustrated Henry early. Drayton said he could hear Henry yelling at his line to block better.

“Our kids were saying he was soft, that he didn’t like to get hit,” Drayton said.

One play changed everything. Henry took a pitch and was hit hard near the Hamilton County sideline. Somebody on his bench — Drayton didn’t say who — said something.

“That look on his face …” Drayton said, stopping in mid-sentence as if he were back on the sideline, watching Henry get up and turn toward his sideline all over again. “He was so pissed. He said, ‘Don’t worry about it, y’all won’t stop me.'”

Drayton recalled the next few sequences like somebody reciting scenes from a favorite movie.

“Seventy yards, touchdown,” he said. “We go 3-and-out. Seventy yards, touchdown. He literally scored every time he touched it. He had 404 yards and about 300 came in one quarter. It was a sight to see.”

Drayton was asked how many times he’s watched the video from that night, the night the eventual Heisman Trophy winner rolled into town.

“I’ve watched it a million times,” he said. “All he did was get the ball, go 70 yards, touchdown, get the ball go 70 yards, touchdown, get the ball go 70 yards, touchdown.

“They took him out so he could break the record at home.”

Now, three years later, Henry has broken the SEC record for most yards in a season. Neither that nor him winning the Heisman surprised Drayton. He saw it coming. He saw it happen.

“He put on a show, too,” he said.

There’s a football, signed by Henry, sitting on his mantel that serves as daily reminder.