VICE Sports Heisman Watch: Derrick Henry Doesn't Need a Moment

There is no concrete definition of a Heisman Moment; as with obscenity and sandwiches, it is one of those things you know when you see. The Heisman Moment originated around the time nationally televised college football became a thing, and the Heisman Moment is often what separates a winner from a runner-up. Still, the Heisman Moment does have some general parameters: it is usually thrilling, often surprising, and occasionally even self-aware, at least until this year, when Nick Saban managed to mortar-and-pestle the Heisman Moment into a fine-ground powder.

It should come as no surprise, I guess, given Saban's creeping hegemony over the sport, that he could also alter the fundamental dynamics of its signature award. Still, it is remarkable that Saban has managed to recast an honor often defined by excitement into one that will be bestowed this year for nearly the opposite reasons. This is not to say that Alabama running back Derrick Henry, who is the odds-on favorite to walk away with the Heisman Trophy on Saturday, is not capable of doing exciting things, but the primary reason Henry is going to win is that he managed to reduce so many of the Crimson Tide's games this season into exhausting battles of attrition.

So what constitutes a Heisman Moment in 2015? It is Henry in the Iron Bowl, carrying the ball on the Crimson Tide's last 14 plays from scrimmage to seal the victory, or Henry against Tennessee, carrying the ball five times once the Crimson Tide got past midfield and putting them ahead for good in a tight game. It is Henry in the SEC Championship, sitting down to rest after Alabama went up 29-7, only to return after Florida cut the lead to 29-15 and carry on the Crimson Tide's last eight plays from scrimmage.

In this day and age, when conventional wisdom dictates a platoon system, we don't often see a lone college running back singlehandedly shatter wills like Henry did. In four games in the latter half of Alabama's season, he carried the ball more than 30 times; in the final two games, against Auburn and then Florida in the SEC Championship, he carried 46 and 44 times, respectively. It wasn't even about the yardage, which, at an SEC record 1,986 yards, was impressive enough; it was about the grind, about the way that Henry closed off opponents with such ferocity that it actually made Nick Saban happy.

Henry is one of three Heisman finalists in a year when there theoretically could have been five, or even seven. Once LSU's Leonard Fournette sputtered in a loss to Alabama, what was once a foregone conclusion became a wide-open forum. Each of the three worthy candidates fits an archetype: Henry, a throwback to the kind of bruising running back we don't see much of anymore; Stanford's Christian McCaffrey, the kind of all-purpose Swiss Army Knife we don't see much of anymore, either; and finally Clemson's DeShaun Watson, the standout quarterback on the No. 1 team in America.

In recent years, in a wide-open race like this one, the vote has generally defaulted toward a player like Watson, a quarterback who is eminently worthy. Yet Watson never had that singular Heisman Moment; he came close, but he never quite made it all the way there. Maybe, in a more typical year, that would have been enough, but by the time Fournette's hopes faded, the focus had already turned toward running backs, in particular SEC running backs, which is one reason why McCaffrey, too, will probably fall short (the other reason being that most of his Heisman Moments occurred far too late at night for East Coast viewers). It was easy to view Henry as the more consistently effective analog of Fournette, and that in turn thrust him into the frontrunner's position.

Running backs have had seasons like Henry's in recent years, and they've generally fallen short in the Heisman race to quarterbacks. If one thing sets Henry apart, though, it is that he plays for the team generally regarded as the most talented in the country; if one thing elevates him above the field, it's that he plays for Nick Saban, and perhaps no single offensive player has ever been more representative of the Saban ethos than Henry. In 2009, when Mark Ingram won the Heisman Trophy for Alabama, he carried the ball 271 times to backup Trent Richardson's 145; in 2015, Henry carried 339 times to backup Kenyan Drake's 72.

That is why Derrick Henry will win the Heisman. Because he was the proxy for an era when Nick Saban ruled the college football universe. Because he was a juggernaut, an unstoppable force; because he wore opponents out, which is the kind of plodding if unexciting football that defines the Alabama dynasty, and manages to evince a few nodes of happiness from a man who is almost universally robotic.

"How do you not play the guy?" Saban said, asked by ESPN's Reece Davis about giving it to Henry 90 times over Alabama's final two games. "I was happy watching him run the ball 14 times in a row at Auburn. He was happy doing it. I don't what to say, I don't know how to answer that. But he gets better as he goes, so it does make him happy."

That's the closest Derrick Henry came to a Heisman Moment in 2015, but given the power that Nick Saban wields over this sport, that's more than enough.