Derrick Henry Won His Heisman 10 Years Ago And Remains As Dominant As Ever

This weekend, the Heisman Fraternity will add its newest member. And like all Heisman weekends, we will commemorate our past winners with a special nod to those celebrating anniversaries.

We’ll honor Archie Griffin, who is celebrating the 50th anniversary of winning his second Heisman in 1975 and also fete Chris Weinke, who is celebrating the 25th anniversary of becoming the Heisman’s oldest winner in 2000.

Friday (Dec. 12) will mark the 10-year anniversary of Derrick Henry winning Alabama’s second Heisman Trophy in 2015. We would love to have him in person this weekend in New York, but he’s booked with his day job, busy being one of the most dominant running backs in the NFL.

While we’re naming a new Heisman recipient Saturday, he’ll be prepping for the Baltimore Ravens’ must-win game at Cincinnati on Sunday against 2019 Heisman winner Joe Burrow.

Henry is one of a dozen Heisman winners still active in the NFL and is climbing up the NFL record books. He entered the league with high expectations and has met or exceeded them at every turn.

On Sunday, Henry eclipsed 1,000 rushing yards in a season for the fourth time in a row and for the seventh time in his career. He will enter the final four games of the the 2025 campaign with 1,025 yards and 10 rushing touchdowns to go with 15 receptions for 150 yards.

Henry has been a workhorse in the NFL, missing more than one game in a season only once, when a broken foot cut his 2021 season to just eight games.

Henry’s game against the Bengals will be his 150th in the NFL. He is 11th on the NFL’s career rushing chart with 12,448 yards, having moved past Jim Brown two weeks ago. Three weeks ago, he overtook fellow Heisman winner Marcus Allen, who is now 15th (12,243).

There are only two more Heisman winners ahead of Henry on the NFL’s career rushing chart. One is right in front of him, Tony Dorsett in 10th (12,739), and Henry could overtake him before season’s end. It will take a bit more time to reach the Heisman’s career-leading NFL rusher, Barry Sanders, who is fourth overall with 15,269 yards.

Henry has also played in nine postseason games, rushing for another 1,002 yards and seven scores.

As a junior at Alabama in 2015, Henry set the SEC single-season rushing record with a nation-leading 1,986 rushing yards on a national-best 339 carries and he tied the conference mark for rushing touchdowns (23). He was just the third running back in SEC history to have four 200-yard games in a single season, joining fellow Heisman winners Herschel Walker and Bo Jackson.

Henry, who led the Crimson Tide to a 12-1 regular season, won the 2015 Heisman with 1,832 points, garnering 378 of the possibly 929 first-place votes and was named on 86.01% of the ballots. He had stiff competition that year for votes. Stanford running back and fellow NFL star Christian McCaffrey was second and received 290 first-place votes en route to 1,539 points. Clemson’s DeShaun Watson was third while future Heisman winner and then Oklahoma sophomore Baker Mayfield was fourth.