If Nick Saban is the most-important person in the 21st-century history of Alabama football, Julio Jones would be a close second.
Jones officially retired from football on Friday, after 13 often-spectacular seasons as one of the best NFL wide receivers of his generation. But before that, he helped save the Crimson Tide program and launch a dynasty — first as a recruit, and soon after as an indefatigable example to his teammates and those who came after him.
Saban arrived at Alabama during Jones’ junior year at Foley High School, and during a time when the Crimson Tide was routinely missing out on blue-chip recruits in the Mobile area. Top prospects had been leaving Coastal Alabama for places other than Tuscaloosa for years at the time, including future No. 1 NFL draft pick JaMarcus Russell to LSU (where Saban was then coaching) in 2003.
The 2008 class was expected to be especially fertile in and around Mobile, and Saban made it a priority by assigning top recruiter Lance Thompson to the area. Alabama signed seven players from Mobile or Baldwin County in 2008 — safety Mark Barron, wide receiver Destin Hood and running back Ivan Matchett from St. Paul’s, running back Jermaine Preyear from Davidson, cornerback B.J. Scott from Vigor and the Foley duo of Jones and safety Robert Lester.
The headliner, of course, was Jones, a 6-foot-4, 220-pound dynamo rated by acclimation the No. 1 player in the state and among the top 5 recruits on every national list. He waited until National Signing Day (then a single day in early February) to announce where he was headed, pulling on a Crimson Tide cap and declaring “I’m going to the University of Alabama” in front of a packed gym at Foley High School and a national television audience on ESPNU.
Alabama was coming off a 7-6 debut season by Saban and had lost six straight games to Auburn at the time. However, the 2008 recruiting class — which also included future first-round NFL draft picks Mark Ingram, Dont’a Hightower and Marcell Dareus in addition to Jones and Barron, plus eventual All-Americans Lester, Barrett Jones, Courtney Upshaw and Terrence Cody — was a sign that things were about to change.
Most top recruits did not enroll in January at the time, so it wasn’t until August that anyone got a look at Jones in an Alabama uniform. And it was evident from the very beginning that he was different.
Not only was Jones bigger, stronger, faster — and better — than any player on Alabama’s roster, but his work ethic quickly became legendary. Coaches often speak of what a gift it can be when your best players are your hardest workers, and Jones was a prime example of that.
“There’s nobody that we’ve had that was a better leader or did more to enhance the culture of toughness, giving effort, finishing plays, being a great competitor than Julio Jones did,” Saban said in 2021. “I mean, he used to run down on kickoffs and wouldn’t come off the kickoff team during the games, and he’s one of the best receivers in the nation.
“So from a culture standpoint, from an impact standpoint in the early years, there were a lot of guys that made a great impact, but Julio was one that probably led the way as much as anyone.”
Jones became an immediate starter as a freshman at Alabama in 2008, and scored a touchdown in the Crimson Tide’s watershed season-opening victory over Clemson in Atlanta. The Crimson Tide won 12 games that season and claimed the SEC West title for the first time in nine years.
The next year, of course, brought with it a 14-0 record and the first of Saban’s six national championships at Alabama. Jones played more of a supporting role in the Crimson Tide’s run-heavy offense, but had a few huge moments — notably a long catch-and-run for a touchdown in an early November victory over LSU.
Jones’ ability to play through pain was well-documented during his Alabama playing days, perhaps never more so than when he broke his hand during a 35-21 loss to South Carolina in 2010. He had surgery but did not miss a game; in fact, he caught 12 passes for 221 yards in a 41-10 win over Tennessee two weeks later.
That 2010 season was a disappointment by the standards of the Saban era, though the 10-3 finish was certainly no fault of Jones’. He set (since-broken) Crimson Tide single-season records with 78 receptions and 1,133 yards, along with seven touchdowns receiving and two more rushing.
Jones left after that season for the NFL, with the Atlanta Falcons trading up to select him at No. 6 overall. He totaled 848 receptions for 12,896 yards and 60 touchdowns in 10 seasons with the Falcons, then played a year each — each of them limited by injury — with the Tennessee Titans, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Philadelphia Eagles.
Jones returned often to Tuscaloosa during his NFL career to visit with his old coaches and to take advantage of Alabama’s world-class facilities as part of his offseason training. During one such visit, he reminded Saban — and showed a later generation of Crimson Tide players — what made him so special.
“We were having 7-on-7 in the summer and coaches are not allowed to be out there,” Saban said last fall. “So Julio Jones happened to be there rehabbing (an injury); he hadn’t played there for 10 years. This was probably 2019. … And Julio is watching 7-on-7, the receiver drops the ball, kicks the ball, cusses the quarterback, gets into it with the (defensive back) that was guarding him.
“Julio called the guy over and said ‘that’s not how we do it here.’ He hadn’t played there for 10 years, but still he understood the culture and how things got done. … That becomes a part of the program.”
Even after nearly two decades in the spotlight, Jones remains something of a mystery man. He rarely gives extended interviews, displayed none of the outspoken prima donna tendencies common to the very best players (and even some not-so-great ones) at his position and almost never made headlines for anything other than what he did on the football field.
But from the moment he signed with Alabama more than 17 years ago, Julio Jones became the very epitome of actions speaking louder than words. And no Crimson Tide player in this century has made more of an impact on the program’s success.
