Injured Jackson motivates Alabama Nicole Auerbach
Safety plays role as team pushes for national title
“I think him going down is definitely a bad thing, but, as it turned out, he made it into a good thing, being a coach from the sidelines.” Alabama’s Marlon Humphrey, discussing Eddie Jackon’s injury
@NicoleAuerbach USA TODAY Sports
The cheers started ATLANTA early and only got louder as the captains walked toward midfield before kickoff at the Peach Bowl. Ed-die! Ed-die! Ed-die!
It didn’t matter that he wasn’t dressed and couldn’t play in the game. Eddie Jackson remains an integral part of the Alabama football team — even after breaking his leg in October, an injury that ended the senior safety’s collegiate career.
“You don’t replace guys like Eddie Jackson,” Alabama defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt said. “They’re far and few between. Eddie was a tremendous leader for us.”
He was a vocal leader in all of the best ways during his playing days, the heart of the defense — ask anyone. And since he has been sidelined, he has remained a big talker, but this time with a different perspective.
“When he went down, it seemed like he started talking more and more to us from sidelines during practice,” redshirt sophomore defensive back Marlon Humphrey said. “I think him going down is definitely a bad thing, but, as it turned out, he made it into a good thing, being a coach from the sidelines, especially with DBs. He’d be right there in the DB huddle.”
Jackson wrote a letter to his teammates, published on The
Players’ Tribune, explaining how important it was for him to be the leader his team voted for and also how hard it was to watch and not play in games. He also has urged his teammates just about every day to savor the moment, because you never know when your final snap will come.
“When I found out my season was over, I couldn’t stop crying,” Jackson wrote. “What made me the most upset was knowing that I’d have to miss out on all the fun we were going to have. Playing good football is hard work. It takes hours and hours of sweat and preparation. You have to push yourself to a level you didn’t think was possible. But ultimately it’s all worth it, because as everyone in this program knows, playing good football is — more than anything else — really, really fun.”
The parts that lead up to the fun are not always enjoyable. Every Alabama player learns something from the Alabama players ahead of him. For Jackson, he learned quite a bit from a recent Heisman Trophy finalist.
“I’ll never forget lining up against Amari Cooper one day in practice when I was a freshman,” Jackson wrote. “He was just destroying me — making me look silly on every single play. I was embarrassed. At some point I looked over at Coach (Nick) Saban, begging for some relief. Coach looked back at me and yelled, ‘Eddie, I’m not taking him off you, so you better get used to it!’
“We ran another play. I got roasted again. And then, as we were walking back to the line, Coop said to me, ‘Every play you go up against me, you’re getting better. I’m gonna have you live next year, son!’
“He was right. If I could cover Coop in practice, there was no other player in the nation who was going to intimidate me. That’s the advantage we have over everybody else. We earn all our experience the hard way on the practice field in Tuscaloosa against future early-round draft picks. What I didn’t realize at the time was that it was a privilege to get beat by guys like that. That’s how I learned.”
That part of Jackson’s piece is what resonated most with his coach. After Alabama’s 24-7 throttling of Washington on Saturday, he brought it up in a postgame news conference.
“When you’re in that huddle, there ain’t nobody special,” Saban said. “Everybody’s together. Everybody has respect for each other and everybody appreciates the job that everybody else does. And you can go a long way in doing a lot of things, and you may never find that. ... But you find it when you play football and you play together as a team.
“That article epitomized the defensive chemistry that we have and how important those guys are to each other and how they play well together.”
That sounds about right for the nation’s best and most stifling defense — already strong, already quick, already powerful. But it’s also a group filled with players who have taught each other to be better and to be together.
So they played for Jackson on Saturday. And they’ll play for him one more time, Monday against Clemson.
They hope to give him one more piece of hardware.
“He means a lot to us,” senior linebacker Ryan Anderson said, “and it means a lot to us to go out and win for him.”