In it to the end: Najee Harris Zeroes in on Finishing on Top Regardless of Records
Najee Harris doesn’t like uncertainty.
He doesn’t like it in life. He doesn’t like it in football. He gets zeroed in on something and that's usually it.
So for him, the decision about whether to come back and play his senior season at The University of Alabama wasn’t something that he was going to dwell on or second-guess, regardless of the circumstances.
“When I make a decision, I stand firm on it,” he said. “I don’t have any regrets about it. I wanted to come back with my team and just grind it out through another year. We didn’t know what was going to happen but now I feel like we have a really good team. No matter what, I’m so happy that I came back. I don’t regret my decision.”
That attitude/philosophy certainly makes sense when watching Harris on the field. Often the worst thing that a running back can do with the ball is hesitate or second-guess. What coaches preach, and the best ones often do, is simply make the decision and hit the hole.
Of course, being able to make a split-second adjustment on the fly, like with a cutback or trying to hurdle a would-be tackler, doesn’t hurt either. Harris has obviously been proficient at both during his first three-plus seasons with the Crimson Tide, which have only seen him rise to the top of college football.
When it comes to Alabama’s 2020 offense, there’s a lot to like about it, from having all of the coaches back along with four returning starters on the offensive line, to utilizing a pair of blazing playmakers at wide receiver who are as proven as any tandem in the game.
Yet in true Crimson Tide fashion, it starts at running back with Harris.
“When you look at Najee from a physical stature standpoint, he’s a big physical runner,” offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian said. “(He is) very traditional compared to the types of runners who have been here at Alabama.
“There may be games in which he is that total bell-cow and we have to go the way we need to go to do what we need to do to win the game. There may be other games in which it’s not as many. Maybe we do find ways to get him the ball in the passing game and different things.”
Last season, Harris led the Crimson Tide in rushing with 1,224 yards on 209 carries for an average of 5.9 per attempt. He also ran in 13 touchdowns, plus caught 27 passes for 304 yards and had seven more scores.
Even though Alabama had first-round NFL draft picks Jerry Jeudy and Henry Ruggs III plus talented holdovers DeVonta Smith and Jaylen Waddle at wide receiver, with quarterback Tua Tagovailoa throwing them the ball, Harris led the team in touchdowns by a wide margin. Smith was second with 14 and Jeudy had 10.
Harris also had 236 touches and averaged 6.5 yards on them without the benefit of lining up on special teams. No one else had more than 110.
“I think last year was probably one of the first times around here where we leaned so much on one back the way we leaned on Najee, especially the last two-thirds of the season,” Sarkisian noted. “I think, ideally, we would like to have a little bit more rotation so that Najee is maybe a little bit more fresh into the second half.
“I think there is a fine line in finding that rhythm for your lead runner but also your complementary backs. Whether it’s the third series of the game and giving them a series, or special situations, maybe third down where a certain guy can go in and utilize his talents.”
Even so, Alabama was thrilled to have Harris return this season, especially since he added to the already-talented backfield that provides the Crimson Tide with numerous options. There’s also experience with senior Brian Robinson Jr., explosiveness with redshirt freshman Trey Sanders, who missed all of last season with a knee injury, plus the three-headed freshmen trio of Roydell Williams, Jase McClellan and Kyle Edwards.
From top to bottom, it might be the deepest and strongest position group on the team.
“[When] you have Najee Harris, Trey Sanders, B-Rob, you have no choice but to get better every day,” sophomore interior linebacker Christian Harris said about facing the Crimson Tide offense every day in practice.
“We've got a pretty good stable of backs,” Sarkisian said. “All do it all a little bit different, and so our job is to find the things that those guys do well and when it is their turn to go in the game to make sure we're putting them in a position to have some success.”
Harris, though, has more continued where he left left. After carrying for a career-high 206 yards and five touchdowns at Ole Miss last Saturday, Harris moved into the top 10 of Alabama's all-time leading rushers.
He's at 2,741 rushing yards and 30 touchdowns for his career.
Derrick Henry is the Crimson Tide's all-time rushing king at 3,591 yards, which is within reach.
So is his career touchdown mark of 42.
Of course the great unknown is how many games Alabama will play this season. The SEC went with a 10-game, league-only regular season and there's no guarantee that they'll all be played due to the coronavirus pandemic.
On the flip side, if the Crimson Tide can manage to win the SEC West, and secure a spot in the College Football Playoff, there’s the possibility of playing in three more games.
Regardless, since 2014 only three Alabama running backs have topped the 1,000-yard season milestone: Henry when he won the Heisman Trophy in 2015, Harris, and the other Harris, Damien. He did so twice, with 1,037 yards in 2016 and 1,000 the following year.
Najee Harris could easily do so again, especially while being part of such a prolific offense. Whatever defenses try and take away, run or pass, the Crimson Tide can counter with the other.
It can be especially demoralizing, though, especially when facing a determined running back with Harris’ aptitude and fortitude, and knowing there may not be any way to completely stop him.
That's a certainly, along with Harris' ability to score. In football terms, they call that "finishing."
“Each game is different," he said. "Each game is a different opponent. My role, I guess you can say, has stepped up more. I gotta be a more vocal person and I have to set the example more. My teammates motivate me each game and coming into Georgia, they have an amazing defense, one of the best in the nation, and that motivates me more. Anybody would motivate me more, but Georgia, if you look at what they did to Tennessee last game, that just motivates me even more because you know, when you line up against them, it’s straight dudes out there. It’s dogs really. This is a motivating game for all of us.
"It motivates me more because I feel like I have to be on top of my game even more, to know that we can come out of this game victorious.”
