EDITOR’S NOTE: Every day until Aug. 29, Creg Stephenson is counting down significant numbers in Alabama football history, both in the lead-up to the 2025 football season and in commemoration of the Crimson Tide’s first national championship 100 years ago. The number could be attached to a year, a uniform number or even a football-specific statistic. We hope you enjoy.
Coaches, fans and other “football-knowers” sometimes tend to overstate the importance of the kicking game, but it’s fair to say that Alabama would not have won the 2016 College Football Playoff National Championship Game without excelling on special teams.
The Crimson Tide executed two massive special teams plays in the fourth quarter against Clemson on Jan. 12, 2016, sparking a 45-40 victory at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz. The national championship was Alabama’s fourth in seven years under coach Nick Saban, an unprecedented run of dominance in the modern age of college football.
For No. 95 on our countdown, we’re focusing on the second of those two plays — the 95-yard kickoff return touchdown by Kenyan Drake with 7:47 remaining in the game (though we’ll give the other play its due in a bit). Drake’s runback allowed Alabama to regain the momentum after Clemson had cut the lead to four at 31-27 in a game that appeared destined — and was — to come down to the final possession.
After Alabama took a 31-24 lead on Jake Coker’s 51-yard touchdown pass to O.J. Howard, Clemson answered with Greg Huegel’s 31-yard field goal. Huegel then kicked off to Drake, who gathered in the ball with his left foot on the 5-yard line.
Drake ran forward about 15 yards, then cut to his left just short of the 20. He eluded one diving tackler before getting to the corner, then sailed past Huegel at the 46 and was gone, untouched until a lunging T.J. Green shoved the already diving Drake into the end zone.
Here’s video:
It was a career-crowning moment for Drake, a highly touted recruit who had mostly been a backup or third-down change-of-pace to TJ Yeldon and Derrick Henry during his career. He’d suffered a gruesome broken leg during a loss to Ole Miss the previous season, but came back to total 1,189 yards combined rushing, receiving and on kick returns as a senior.
“Kenyan’s been through a lot,” Saban told reporters after the game. “We thought he would have a tremendous breakout season. Kenyan has sort of fought all kinds of injuries. ... I enjoy seeing seniors in our program do something special that they’ll always remember, and that kickoff return was something special.”
It was just Drake’s third touchdown of that season, and the first of his college career on a kick return. And it could not have come at a better time.
Alabama was now up 38-27, and it needed every bit of that cushion to hold off Clemson. The Tigers scored two more touchdowns in the game, with the two teams combining for 40 points in the fourth quarter.
The Drake play came about three minutes after Alabama finally broke Clemson’s serve with back-to-back scores early in the fourth quarter. And it did so with another perfectly executed — not to mention gutsy — special teams play.
After Adam Griffith’s 33-yard field goal put the Crimson Tide up 27-24 with 10:34 to play, Saban called for a surprise onside kick. Griffith dribbled the ball over the edge of the Alabama line, where a leaping Marlon Humphrey came down with it at midfield before running out of bounds.
After Henry was dropped for a 1-yard loss on first down, Coker connected with Howard on his second long touchdown of the game to make it 31-24. Alabama never led by fewer than four points after that.
Though Humphrey later told reporters he’d often dropped the onside kick when Alabama practiced it, Saban said he was confident his team would pull it off. He said he and his staff had noticed Clemson often “squeezed” its alignment on kickoff returns.
“We carried that play in, and we could call it any time they lined up like they did,” Saban said. “We called it then because we were tied, and our defense was tired. We needed something to change the momentum.”
Here’s video of the onside kick:
Alabama’s heroes in the 2016 national championship game were many. Coker passed for 335 yards and two touchdowns, Henry ran for 158 yards and three scores and Howard had a breakout game with 208 yards and two TDs.
But it was the kicking game that was the real difference-maker for the Crimson Tide. And it was Kenyan Drake — an often-overlooked player competing in his final game — who wound up the subject of a Daniel Moore painting commemorating the win, one appropriately titled “Finish.”
