Alabama running back Derrick Henry may have won the Heisman Trophy this past year as the premier player in America, but that doesn’t necessarily make him a premier prospect for the NFL Draft.

The 6-foot-3, 242-pounder rewrote the SEC record book in 2015, as he led the country with 395 carries for 2,219 yards and 28 touchdowns — each figure is an all-time mark in the conference, too. Henry had nothing left to prove after winning a national championship this season with the Crimson Tide, so Friday he made it official and declared his intentions to turn pro after his junior campaign.

A product of Yulee (Fla.) High School, a small town of less than 12,000 residents, Henry leaves Tuscaloosa as the Tide’s career rushing leader.

“It’s been an unbelievable experience here these past three years going to the University of Alabama,” Henry said at his press conference, “something I’ll cherish for the rest of my life. I just thank God for this whole experience.”

Nevertheless, Henry was only given a second-round grade by talent evaluators, and most scouts consider him an inferior runner to Ohio State’s Ezekiel Elliott.

According to his draft profile at CBSSports.com, Henry naturally gets high grades for his ability to resemble a Mack Truck when he gets a full head of steam:

STRENGTHS: Runs as big as he looks with power and toughness. A downhill runner whose exciting blend of size, power and speed are negated when he’s moving east to west. Shows surprisingly light feet to bounce runs outside, as well as the vision and patience to find creases and the burst to plant his foot and explode upfield. Once moving forward, Henry’s great size and power take over.

He has improved as a receiver and blocker, although he wasn’t asked to do much in the passing game. Has displayed excellent ball security.

But like even the most successful of college players, Henry still has plenty of questions from coaches and general managers yet to be answered:

WEAKNESSES: Like most big backs, Henry needs some space to get moving. He’s not nearly as powerful running east to west. He also lacks ideal balance for the position, sporting a top-heavy frame and long legs which make it easier for defenders to tackle him low. This forces Henry to lunge, on occasion, rather than drive forward.

Asking Henry to dance laterally, however, takes away the raw speed and power combination that make him special.

henry vs. walker

The gold standard for running backs in the SEC has been Herschel Walker, who was a man among boys during his days at Georgia.

The conference has produced some of the best ball carriers in history, including the NFL’s all-time leading rusher (Emmitt Smith) and perhaps the greatest pure athlete of the 20th century (Bo Jackson). But until Henry put on the crimson, nobody had run more times for more yards than Walker in 1981, when he had 385 attempts for 1,891 yards — he then set a professional record with 2,411 yards for the New Jersey Generals of the USFL in 1985.

Rob Rang, the senior NFL Draft analyst for CBS, sees some similarities between the two when he turns on the tape.

“Henry does share some key characteristics with Walker,” Rang told Saturday Down South. “The imposing frame, bullish power and breakaway speed, for example, are among each player’s strengths. But so too is the relative lack of shake-and-bake agility to make defenders miss in tight quarters, making each a bit dependent on landing with an NFL team looking for a one-cut-and-go runner.”

is it the system?

‘Bama has an assembly line of NFL-caliber tailbacks at this point under coach Nick Saban, as Henry is following in the footsteps of Glen Coffee, Mark Ingram, Trent Richardson, Eddie Lacy and T.J. Yeldon.

While each was tremendously productive at Alabama, their Sunday careers have had more misses than hits. Coffee played one forgettable season and then abruptly retired. Ingram made a Pro Bowl but is yet to run for 1,000 yards. Richardson is already unemployed — he’s considered a spectacular bust. Lacy registered 1,100-plus yards in 2013 and 2014 but battled conditioning issues in 2015. Yeldon was good as a rookie if not great.

It remains to be seen if Henry is truly a special breed in the backfield or simply a product of the Saban machine.

“Henry possesses the most unique combination of size and speed of the backs who have starred under Saban at Alabama, and if placed in a system which catered to his strengths, he could prove the most successful of them in the NFL,” Rang said. “Henry isn’t going to make a lot of tacklers miss on his own and he’s limited as a receiver, but he accelerates through the hole faster than defenders expect, throwing off pursuit angles and making him a big-play threat.”

Blount a fair comparison

When asked to compare Henry to a current NFL player, Rang went with LeGarrette Blount of the New England Patriots.

A 6-foot, 250-pound battering ram, Blount is a shorter, heavier version of Henry without the breakaway wheels in the open field. Blount has averaged an impressive 4.6 yards per carry since entering the league as an undrafted free agent — he had serious character issues at Oregon that trumped his obvious skills — and is New England’s all-time postseason leader with 7 rushing touchdowns.

Unlike what we saw from Henry this past season, when he was the Alpha and the Omega of the Crimson Tide ground game, Blount has enjoyed the majority of his success as a change-of-pace bruiser.

Maybe that’s the best formula for Henry at the next level, as being part of a committee can increase his effectiveness and also lengthen his career. He may still be a young man — his 22nd birthday comes shortly before he heads to training camp — but the almost 400 rushes he got in 2015 are double what Blount has ever received in the NFL.

Don’t expect Henry to post 1,000 yards year in and year out, but he could be money in short-yardage, goal-line and four-minute-offense situations.