Chasing Herschel: Comparing Derrick Henry's 2015 to Walker's 1981

Herschel Walker set the standard for all SEC running backs in 1981.

Derrick Henry outgained Walker in 2015, but did he pass him on the SEC’s all-time pecking order?

Herschel Walker’s 1981 season vs. Derrick Henry’s 2015 season:

Comparing individual seasons from eras separated by three decades is tricky at best, but many are trying as debates about the 1981 Heisman runner-up and the likely 2015 Heisman winner are inevitable.

“There are a lot of similarities, of course,” Walker’s college coach, Vince Dooley, told WSNP 105.5 Tuesday morning. “Herschel, I think, had more speed. There are few around that have the world-class speed of Herschel Walker. Both of them are very strong and extremely durable. The longer the game goes on in the fourth quarter, the more they carry it, and the defenses wear down.”

Nobody wore them down like Walker.

Long before YouTube, Walker’s every carry created a buzz. His televised games were must-see events.

With so many outlets publicizing so many highlights, we’ve grown numb to great plays, but much like Willie Mays’ over-the-shoulder catch in the 1954 World Series, the image of Walker demolishing defensive players like Tennessee’s Bill Bates is etched in our memory forever.

Nostalgia obviously feeds into this debate about who was better, whose season was superior.

Herschel Walker in 1981 did things the SEC hadn’t seen since, well, Herschel Walker in 1980. The SEC had had fine running backs, but college football had never seen anything quite like Walker’s combination of track speed, linebacker build and brute strength.

When Walker was rewriting the SEC record book in 1981, there wasn’t a logical comparison point, other than perhaps Syracuse great Jim Brown, the standard by which running backs still are measured.

For the past 35 years, every SEC running back, from Bo Jackson to Leonard Fournette to Henry, has chased Walker’s legacy.

Henry finally caught him. Or did he?

Reliving 1981

Any conversation about that season must begin the previous fall, when Walker burst onto the national scene as a freshman freak of nature and dared college football writers not to make him the youngest Heisman Trophy winner in history.

They obliged. He finished third behind winner George Rogers, the South Carolina senior running back from Duluth, Ga., and Pitt defensive lineman Hugh Green.

Walker and Rogers went head-to-head that season, with Walker rushing for 219 yards to Rogers’ 168. Their seasons were similar — Rogers outgained Walker by 165 yards (1,781-1,616); Walker ran for one more TD (15-14). Walker set an NCAA freshman record for rushing yards, but no freshman had legitimately challenged for the Heisman, and the prevailing thought was Walker’s time would come.

It did. And 1981 was the best of it.

After appearing on the cover of Sports Illustrated’s college football preview issue, Walker opened his sophomore season with 161 yards and a touchdown against Tennessee. He followed with 167 more yards against Cal, then 111 more at Clemson.

He rumbled for 176 yards and two scores against South Carolina, then 265 and a touchdown at Ole Miss, 62 coming on one burst.

His performances drew national attention. The New York Times wrote about Walker, noting that even Ole Miss fans chanted “Herschel! Herschel! Herschel!” as the closing seconds ticked off during the Bulldogs’ road win.

The Times couldn’t find an adequate football comparison, so it looked to Olympic sprinters. It questioned whether Walker, already a man among young men at age 19, would sue the NFL to enter the league early.

Just five games into his sophomore season, Walker was clearly in a league of his own — and there was no slowing him down.

Not even his mother could stand in his way, though she was concerned her son might hurt somebody she tried.

He ripped off five more consecutive 100-yard games, crushing Georgia’s career rushing record in the process. He scored four touchdowns against Temple, four more against Florida.

He closed the regular season with 225 yards and four more scores against rival Georgia Tech, breaking his own SEC single-season rushing record in the process.

That total — 1,891 — became the SEC’s equal to baseball’s 61. And it never included the additional 84 Walker gained against Pitt in the Sugar Bowl.

Henry’s 2015 rush to greatness

Alabama’s Derrick Henry entered 2015 very much a known commodity but not even the SEC’s best hope to capture the Heisman Trophy.

So said Derrick Henry.

“I think he is hands down the best running back in the SEC,” Henry told reporters during the SEC media days.

Once the season started, Henry got shoved to the backseat as Leonard Fournette started at a pace that had SEC historians reaching for their abacus to calculate when the LSU star would break Walker’s single-season record.

Henry, meanwhile, was held below 150 yards in each of his first six games, below 100 in three of them.

No part of Walker’s 1981 season looked like this.

Everything changed Nov. 7, when Fournette and undefeated LSU entered Bryant-Denny Stadium for a colossal showdown.

Alabama stuffed Fournette’s Heisman chances into a closet and slammed the door, which Henry broke down to the tune of a 210 yards on a then-season-high 38 carries.

It was Henry’s second 200-yard game in two weeks, and, much like his team, he carried that momentum into the final four games. He ran for 204 at Mississippi State, took much of the night off against Charleston Southern, then pummeled Auburn for 271 yards on an astonishing 46 carries.

He entered the SEC Championship Game needing just 94 yards to break Walker’s single-season record.

He shattered it with a 7-yard run in the third quarter, part of a 189-yard day.

Henry will have one, possibly two, more chances to add to the record, to crash the 2,000-yard barrier, something no SEC has ever done.

He passed Walker on the rushing list, and did so in fewer carries, but those who remember 1981 well enough to compare it to 2015 will never be convinced he surpassed Walker’s legend.