His name may not have been written in the stars to begin with, but Joshua Jacobs is becoming a star. (Photo-Cedric Mason)

Alabama’s Joshua Jacobs Proves It’s Not All In The Stars

By: Larry Burton

Yes Nick Saban wins the recruiting wars almost every year by bringing in the most 4 and 5 star athletes in the nation and by bringing in the most top 100 recruits over all. That also helps the Crimson Tide win championships, but sometimes, some things just aren’t written in “Stars”, as in stars given to high school prospect. Sometimes winning is written the work you put in.

Burton Burns is not just the running back coach at Alabama, he’s a good recruiter too. Like a truffle pig, he sniffs out the hidden prizes that others may overlook and so was the case when he recruited Joshua Jacobs, a young man who has turned out to be quite a prize find.

For most of his high school career, Jacobs rose no higher than a two star running back. Some say he only finished as a three star because Saban took him. He was not a top 100 prospect. In fact his number was around 464 and he wasn’t even a top name in his own home state of Oklahoma.

At 5’10” and just over 200 pounds, he didn’t fit the mold of what Alabama has been putting on the field lately. Bo Scarbrough is that mold at 6’2″ 235 pounds. I would have loved to been a fly on the wall when Burn pushed for that scholarship to Saban. Burns obviously liked what he saw and it was obvious now that he did a good job selling that to Saban who at the time must have thought of Jacobs as an insurance policy at best.

But when he arrived and practice started, it was obvious that someone forgot to tell Jacobs where his pecking order was to have been. Harris was the starter and future star, Bo Scarbrough was going to push him for carries at number two and the real freshman star was B.J. Emmons, a 6’0” – 232 pound stud who was all the rage. He not only played bigger than is 200 pound body, he showed great vision and had a quick burst through the hole. Soon everyone on the team took notice of the “Little engine that could” and by the start of the season, so did the rest of college football.

That left many coaches across the country scratching their heads. How did they miss on this freshman ready running back?

You see, with months to go before signing day, Jacobs really had no offers to mull over. Finally in the last month, only Wyoming and New Mexico State gave him an offer. Then came Alabama.

When Alabama makes an offer, others take notice. Suddenly other schools began to offer him, but his mind was made up despite the other teams telling him that he’d never see the field at Alabama, never bust that star studded lineup and he’d end up transferring to get any playing time. In fact he tweeted just that when he posted:

Josh Jacobs @iAM_JoshJacobs So many doubters. All I heard was he not going to play and that he will never make it there……. Well #ThinkAgain#notsatisfied

Not only did Jacobs get to see the field, he pushed his way to being the solid number two running back and proved that if number one went down, he could and would carry the load. With nine games in the books, Jacobs is the number two running back in total yards with a very solid 6.52 yards per carry average. That’s almost one yard per carry more than Scarbrough. In the one game where Alabama needed him the most to rest Harris, Jacobs responded with a 97 yard day against Kent State averaging 8.8 yards a carry and two touchdowns. Not bad for someone who nobody wanted for much of high school career.

Some say with Scarbrough coming on that Jacobs day at number two is limited, but personally, I wouldn’t be too sure. If you’ve learned anything about this young man, you should have learned not to write him off so quickly.

So yes, while those four and five star guys help you win the national recruiting contests, sometimes it’s these lesser known, lesser recognized athletes that help you win championships. Sometimes everything you need to know isn’t always written in the stars.

Larry has been published in almost every media outlet for college sports and now primarily writes here for Touchdown Alabama. Follow Larry on Twitter for inside thoughts and game time comments at https://twitter.com/LBSportswriter

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