Alabama won a dozen national championships before it ever had a Heisman Trophy winner. Plenty of great players came close. None of them won it. Then, under Nick Saban, the Tide won four in 13 seasons, and each one was a different kind of player.
Mark Ingram, 2009
The first one came down to the wire. Ingram, a sophomore running back, beat Stanford's Toby Gerhart by 28 points, 1,304 to 1,276. That was the closest vote in the history of the award. Alabama went on to finish 14–0 and win the national title.
Derrick Henry, 2015
Henry was the workhorse of a title team. By the time the votes came in, he had 1,986 rushing yards, which broke Herschel Walker's SEC single-season record, and 23 rushing touchdowns, which tied the league record. He beat Christian McCaffrey by 293 points. A month later, Alabama beat Clemson 45–40 for the national championship.
DeVonta Smith, 2020
The freshman who caught the 2nd-and-26 touchdown in 2018 became the first wide receiver to win the Heisman since Michigan's Desmond Howard in 1991. Smith finished the season with 117 catches for 1,856 yards and 23 touchdowns. Alabama went 13–0 and won the title.
Bryce Young, 2021
The next year, Alabama won it again. Young, a sophomore, became the first Alabama quarterback to win the Heisman. When he won, he had thrown for 4,322 yards and 43 touchdowns with just four interceptions.
One trophy case
Before 2009 the Heisman was the one big trophy Alabama didn't have. Now it has four, and they include one of the closest votes ever, a broken SEC rushing record, the first receiver to win in nearly 30 years and the program's first quarterback winner.