By Anthony Caruso III | Publisher
The Alabama Crimson Tide football team has had many quarterbacks play for the team. But Bryce Young was the first to accomplish this feat.
He has been named the Heisman Trophy winner for the 2021 season. Young received the honor on Saturday night at the Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City.
The award has been given out since 1935. Young is the 40th quarterback to win the award.
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“That’s kind of up for me and my future to decide,” Young said of his potential. “For me, it’s about really working day-in and day-out to push yourself. I’m not somebody who looks into the future and sets these specific landmarks. I believe in God and trust his process and believe if I work as hard as I can and do all things and follow his path, he’ll take me on the route that he wants to take me.
“I don’t think that’s a question for me to answer. I just trust God and his plan, and I want to do all I can to fulfill that.”
He is the fourth Alabama player to receive the prestigious honor. All of the Crimson Tide winners have been awarded since the 2009 season. All have come under head coach Nick Saban.
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Mark Ingram II was the first to win the award in 2009. Six years later, Derrick Henry was the program’s second Heisman Trophy winner in 2016.
The Crimson Tide has won back-to-back Heisman Trophies. Besides Young, DeVonta Smith won the award for the 2020 season.
However, instead of winning the award in New York City, he had to win the award in January 2021 on the Alabama campus due to the coronavirus pandemic.
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Young received 684 first-place votes. In total, he received 2,311 points.
“Whenever you can win an award like this, it doesn’t go as an individual award but it’s a team award because I couldn’t do it without any of those guys,” Young said in his speech, referring to his Crimson Tide teammates. “I’d like to thank Coach Saban. Thank you for believing in me. Thank you for your guidance and putting me in situations to be successful and for us as a team to be successful.”
The sophomore quarterback received 1,357 points more than the second-place finisher. Michigan Wolverines defensive end Aidan Hutchinson finished in second place with 954 points.
RELATED: 2021 Heisman Trophy finalist: Alabama’s Bryce Young
Hutchinson’s tally was made up of mostly second-place and third-place votes. He had 273 second-place votes and 174 third-place votes. The Plymouth, Michigan native had 78 first-place votes.
Pittsburgh Panthers quarterback Kenny Pickett was third. Pickett — who grew up an hour and five minutes from New York City in Oakhurst, New Jersey — received 631 votes.
He received 28 first-place votes and 175 second-place votes. Pickett — who was also one of the oldest finalists in Heisman history — had 197 third-place votes.
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Ohio State Buckeyes quarterback C.J. Stroud finished fourth in the running. The redshirt freshman had 399 total points.
Stroud had 12 first-place votes. He then had 118 second-place votes and 127 third-place votes.
“I think Bryce played extremely well for us all year long,” Saban said. “We’ve sort of had our ups and downs as a team. I don’t think that his performance was ever contributed to that. He played extremely well consistently, and I think consistency in performance is what helps you sort of have the kind of season that he had relative to statistics or wins or however you want to look at it.
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“But phenomenal drive at Auburn and phenomenal performance against Georgia in the SEC Championship game. I think he sort of accentuated the kind of season that Bryce was capable of and the kind of season that he had.”
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