TGS Chapter 77 Mutual Respect (Patreon)

A/N: What do you think of Derick's point of view? Would you like to see other episodes featuring other people's points of view?

Derrick Henry POV

The ball hit his hands the exact moment the Alabama offensive line created daylight, and Henry was already in full motion before the handoff exchange fully concluded. That was the essence of the brand of football Henry had executed for three years in Tuscaloosa: never waiting for an opening to present itself, but reaching it before it could disappear.

The offensive coordinator had designed the play to the left side of the field, taking advantage of how Clemson's defense had begun overloading interior gaps following Laquon Treadwell's touchdown. Henry had diagnosed the look prior to the snap—noticing how Clemson's weakside linebacker was aligned half a step closer to the center than usual—and confirmed it on his first stride post-handoff as Alabama's left guard blew open the exact lane the coaching staff had promised would be there.

What no offensive coordinator can ever guarantee, however, is what happens beyond the first two yards.

What Henry could guarantee was himself.

The first Clemson linebacker arrived on a clean angle, taking the most direct path to the spot where Henry should have been at that precise moment.

Henry simply shifted his weight and cut without shedding speed. Changing direction at full sprint without losing momentum was something Henry could do in a way very few college running backs could, regardless of the physical mass they carried. The linebacker who had arrived on the correct angle suddenly realized the path was no longer correct, because Henry was no longer where he had been half a second prior—and there was no alternative trajectory available in the fraction of a second left to calculate one.

The second linebacker closed late with the exact same outcome.

Four yards.

Clemson's safety flew in from the far right with the cleanest angle of the three, possessing enough speed to wrap up under ordinary circumstances. But ordinary circumstances didn't apply to a game where Henry was running with the desperate urgency of a competitor who knew his team was trailing in the National Championship, staring down a gap that wouldn't stay open forever.

Eight yards.

A cornerback abandoned his pass coverage responsibility to join the pursuit, closing in from the only remaining angle.

Ten yards.

Twelve yards.

Henry kept churning his legs as if his life depended on every single yard.

The next defender met him head-on from the front-left angle, bringing enough force to deliver a stopping blow under standard conditions. Henry saw him coming with ample time either to dodge or to initiate contact—and he chose to initiate it. If he had learned anything over the course of his football life, it was that sometimes the most direct path between two points isn't dodging obstacles, but running straight through them. Making that decision in the tenth of a second during a breakaway run is what separates a touchdown from a tackle at the five-yard line.

The two collided at the Clemson twenty-two-yard line, and Henry kept driving.

Only the deep safety remained.

Henry spotted him twelve yards out, holding an angle that on paper was sufficient for a tackle—and in reality proved useless. Henry reached the contact point with far more speed than the safety had factored into his split-second calculation, blowing right past him before the tackle could be wrapped up, crossing the goal line and falling into the end zone with the ball clamped tight against his chest.

The referee's arms shot straight into the air.

The Alabama stands erupted with the deafening roar of a crowd that had been waiting a long time for a spark. Henry pushed himself up from the turf with the ball still in hand, handing it directly to the official without any elaborate celebration. He didn't celebrate like that; he simply turned back toward the sideline with the quiet satisfaction of a man who had delivered precisely what he came to do.

It was in that moment that he caught sight of Saban.

The head coach stood on the edge of the sideline, holding two fingers extended toward his players as they trotted back toward him. Henry recognized the signal instantly—they had reeled off that exact scenario during week-of-game preparation for situations where the team scores a touchdown while down by more than one possession, and a standard extra point doesn't fix the mathematical equation of the game.

Two points.

Not the extra point that would leave the score at seventeen to seven, but the two-point conversion that would trim it to seventeen to eight—putting Alabama within a single possession of taking the lead rather than needing two full drives.

Henry glanced up at the giant scoreboard.

They were down by eleven.

Saban had calculated that the psychological momentum of claiming eight points on a single drive was worth far more than the safety of a kicked extra point with five minutes still remaining in the third quarter—especially with Alabama's defense eager to take the field after holding Clemson on the previous possession.

Henry trusted Saban, just as he had trusted him without exception throughout his college career.

He stepped into the backfield.

Clemson's defense aligned across from him, with Brent Venables barking adjustments from the sideline with the frantic urgency of a defensive coordinator who knew a two-point conversion completely altered the math of the game. Henry looked across the line at the defenders stacked in front of him, locked in a state of concentration that wasn't anger, but something far colder and far more useful than anger.

Jake Coker took the snap and executed a clean handoff exchange to Henry.

Alabama's offensive line surged inward.

Clemson's front seven crashed forward with everything they had, fully aware of what was coming and unable to fake otherwise.

Henry spotted the seam between the right guard and center the exact millisecond it opened—the fleeting window where the two flanking defenders committed their body weight in the opposite direction, leaving a gap that would last less than a full second before collapsing.

He exploited that second.

He launched his frame forward, securing the ball with both hands while driving his shoulders low toward the goal line. Two Clemson defenders converged on him from opposite angles, throwing their full weight into a point of impact that under normal circumstances would have stopped any college back dead in his tracks.

It wasn't enough.

The tip of the ball broke the plane.

"AND ALABAMA CONVERTS THE TWO-POINT ATTEMPT!" Fowler yelled from the booth. "DERRICK HENRY POWERS IT IN ON THE GROUND, AND IT IS NOW A 17-8 GAME WITH FIVE MINUTES REMAINING IN THE THIRD QUARTER!"

"And that alters the mathematical equation of this game entirely," Herbstreit added. "Alabama no longer needs two touchdowns to take the lead—they need one touchdown and a two-point conversion. And with Henry running the football like this, that is well within reach."

Henry stayed down on the turf for a brief moment.

Not because he was injured, but because lying on his back on the grass of the National Championship after barreling through a wall of defenders that theoretically shouldn't have been breached made seconds tick by differently than anywhere else. It warranted at least that split second before the game resumed its relentless pace.

He stared up at the stadium roof, the stadium lights shining down from high above while the deafening roar of seventy-five thousand people echoed off every surface—washing over him as a physical force rather than mere sound, with the crimson section screaming loudest of all.

He thought briefly about his early days in Florida, where he had first picked up a football long before understanding what it truly took to excel at the game. He thought of all the coaches along the way who had told him he was either too large to possess that kind of speed or too slow to carry that kind of frame, and the 5:00 AM workouts in Tuscaloosa over the past three years building the exact runner no one thought possible. This National Championship was making a definitive statement about who had been right in that conversation all along.

The moment lasted perhaps two seconds.

His teammates arrived, extending hands to pull him up. Henry stood, shaking off the impact, and began jogging toward his sideline, his chest still heaving from the cumulative toll of the drive while the euphoria from the Crimson Tide stands echoed from every direction.

"And what you have to highlight about Henry tonight," Herbstreit said, "is that he hasn't just scored the touchdown and the conversion—he's done it against the defense that has contained the run game better than anyone else in college football all season. That says everything about what we're witnessing here."

"Saban's decision to go for two was spot on," Fowler added. "Those two points completely reshape Alabama's options to win this football game, and making that call in the third quarter of a National Championship while trailing is precisely the kind of move that separates good coaches from legendary ones."

Henry continued toward the sideline without taking his eyes off the field. It was in that moment that his gaze locked onto the group of Clemson players jogging out for their next offensive possession—led by Wyatt, who was fastening his chin strap as he crossed the white sideline.

Henry and Wyatt reached that exact point at the same time.

Henry walking off.

Wyatt walking on.

They locked eyes for three seconds at most—the National Championship resting between them—without any need for either man to say a single word for the exchange to be absolute. Both knew precisely what the other had accomplished over the preceding minutes, and both knew precisely what the other was capable of delivering through the remainder of the game. That mutual awareness said everything any conversation could have expressed with far more words and far less precision.

There was genuine respect in that eye contact.

And there was also the shared recognition of two athletes who had dedicated four years of their lives to becoming the exact elite players they were, standing on the grandest stage college football offers once in a lifetime to prove it.

Henry continued onto his sideline in silence.

Wyatt POV

Wyatt adjusted his chin strap before fully stepping onto the field, the image of Henry walking in the opposite direction lingering for one final second before the playing field and Alabama's defense claimed his full focus.

It wasn't the first time he had shared a field with someone the media had framed as a fierce rival in the most dramatic sense of the word. Wyatt had learned early in his Clemson career that deep respect for an opponent and the fierce drive to defeat that same opponent weren't mutually exclusive—they coexisted perfectly without needing justification.

Henry had just put eight points on the board.

The score was 17-8.

And the Alabama defense taking the field across from him wasn't the same unit that had taken the field earlier. An eight-point swing injects a defense with a different kind of violent energy—visible in the speed with which they aligned and the communication crackling prior to the snap.

An energized defense plays more aggressively.

Aggression leads to faster pass rushes and riskier coverages.

Which was simultaneously a lethal threat and a massive opportunity.

Wyatt stepped into the huddle with that assessment fully processed before anyone spoke a word.

"Listen up," he said, looking around at the circle of helmets. "Alabama just put up eight points, and they're coming out to blitz and press harder than they have in the last ten minutes. That's what a defense does when their offense gives them genuine hope on the scoreboard."

No one interrupted.

"And that works to our advantage," Wyatt continued. "Because when a defense over-aggresses, they leave voids they shouldn't leave. We are going to identify those voids and exploit them systematically—without rushing, without forcing a single throw. Five minutes in this quarter is plenty of time if we manage it correctly."

Gallman gave a firm nod from the backfield.

Scott nodded from the outside.

"Shotgun formation. Gallman in the backfield. First play: quick out-route to Scott on the right if the cornerback is playing soft coverage. If he's pressed tight, Gallman takes the checkdown and we keep grinding out yards step by step."

"Understood?"

The huddle responded with the quiet focus of players who understood the assignment completely.

"Break!"

The unit broke formation, and Wyatt settled into position as Alabama's defense lined up across from him—fired up by the eight points their offense had just posted and primed to react to whatever Wyatt decided to throw at them.

Wyatt surveyed them for a long second, absorbing the energy across the line.

Five minutes left in the third quarter, a nine-point lead, and the entire fourth quarter still ahead.

He was ready.