Nick Saban reveals favorite story about coaching Alabama legend Derrick Henry
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Nick Saban has a million stories about a million players that he coached during his legendary career on the sidelines.
But the coaching legend taught a few players who could be classified as legends, too, and surely one of them at Alabama was running back Derrick Henry. The 32-year-old whose NFL career is still going strong with the Baltimore Ravens forever made his mark in Tuscaloosa as a beast of a power running back who terrorized SEC defenses.
During a career at Bama that spanned from 2013-15, Henry led the Tide to a national championship and won seemingly every award there was to win during his final season in 2015. Included in that haul of hardware was the Heisman Trophy, as Henry finished his iconic 2015 season with 2,219 yards rushing and 28 rushing touchdowns.
He was in a league of his own that year, but that was at the end of his special run in T-Town. There was a beginning, too, in 2013, when the then-freshman Henry was a novice in a few areas. Henry wasn’t always a finished product, because who ever is, and Saban recalled how willing Henry was to learn the basics of the running back position when he first got his hands on Henry during their first season together.
Saban specifically recalled doing drills with the raw, freshman Henry, who Saban said “knew nothing about protection, knew nothing about how to block.”
That was destined to change, but not without some long, hard work.
“I told (Henry), you have to be a complete player, you have to learn how to block, you have to learn how to pass protect,” Nick Saban said.
So, the learning process began, and Saban also recalls how honest Henry was about what he didn’t know coming out of high school.
“Coach, all I know is what they did in high school. They turned around, tossed me the ball and told me to run with it, so I have a lot to learn,” Saban remembered Henry telling him.
“He did. He learned, and he’s done well,” Saban added.
Henry knew all about what it was like competing for SEC championships when he was at Alabama, and Saban loved having him there for that. These days, it’s head coach Kalen DeBoer who’ll be trying to squeeze the most out of his running backs to help get Bama back to SEC supremacy. Here is what the Kalshi market is currently saying about Alabama’s chances to rule the SEC once more in 2026:
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
