In six NFL seasons, Josh Jacobs has recorded four 1,000-yard campaigns, received three Pro Bowl invitations and led the league in rushing in 2022.
But at Alabama, where Jacobs played with six other running backs who have reached the NFL, he never finished higher than third on the Crimson Tide’s year-end rushing chart. While he has averaged 18 rushing attempts per game during his NFL career, Jacobs carried the ball more than 16 times in a game once at Alabama.
The difference between Jacobs’ ability and his playing time caught up to the running back in his junior year, when he began to think: “My time’s ticking. I’m going to have to figure it out,” Jacobs said during an appearance on this week’s “The Pivot Podcast.”
The breakthrough came when he “stared down” coach Nick Saban during the Crimson Tide’s 62-7 victory over Ole Miss on Sept. 15, 2018. “After that,” Jacobs said, “everything else took off.”
“I scored a touchdown, and I got a taunting penalty,” Jacobs said. “Basically, me and the dude was going back and forth. I got a taunting penalty. So typical Saban fashion, especially with something that’s controllable, he cussed me out. So I’m like, ‘Ah (expletive).’ Like, ‘I’ll eat it.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, he cussed me out. I got to eat that.’ Like, ‘It’s due.’ But then a couple of drives went by, and he came back and tried to cuss me out again. And I’m like, ‘Hold on.’ So I get up, and, you know, Saban’s short, so I’m like, ‘But what?’ We on, so I’m mad. I’m on that for real with him.
“And so it’s right before halftime. So we’re going to halftime, I take my pads off. I’m like, ‘Bro, I’m good. I’m done with this (expletive).’ I’m going to figure it out, be transferred, whatever. I talked to coach (Mike Locksley). And Locks was like, ‘Man, what’s going on?’ We started talking. He said, ‘Man, I know.’ I had coaches used to come up to me and ask me why am I not playing, and that used to piss me off. I’m like, ‘Bro, I don’t know. Y’all control that.’
“So long story short, I come back out. They kicked the ball off. I was kick returning. I took it like 70, 80 yards. Didn’t even celebrate. I just stared him down the whole time. Ran to the sideline, staring him down the whole time. And then after that, man, we had, literally the next day, me and him, we had a meeting. We sat down and we had a real conversation. And then after that, they started making plays for me in the offense and things like that. And my career just started taking off.”
acobs said he has special relationship with Saban.
“The thing about him, though, is so many people walk on eggshells around him,” Jacobs said, “that anybody that’s willing enough to have the balls to be a man enough to speak to him, that he respects you. And the way that he treats you is totally different. People were like, ‘Why y’all relationship was how it was?’ He’d joke around with me and things. I’m like, ‘Because I’ll talk to him for real. I’ll tell him when he treat me like he’s wrong.’ And a lot of people were scared to do that. Even people that just work for him. So that was a big thing.
“But he is a fair guy, man. I mean, he is the greatest, in my opinion, college coach of all time.”
Jacobs left Alabama after the 2018 season as the 24th selection in the 2019 NFL Draft.
“When I went to Bama first, I went to school for business management pre-law,” Jacobs said. “I never thought that the NFL was a reality for me. So I went to school, and I’m like, ‘I’m about to get a degree.’ And then the coaches and the guys on the team was like, ‘Bro, you good.’ And I don’t know why I just didn’t feel that way at that time. I wasn’t getting the accolades and things like that, so when it was time for me to come out, I wasn’t even thinking about coming out. I had to get convinced by my coaches and former players, like, ‘Bro, everybody I’m talking to got you a first-round grade.’ And I’m like, ‘First-round grade? I’m the third back.’ Like, ‘What are we talking about?’ I’m like, ‘How?’ …
“Reuben Foster used to come up to me. He’s like, ‘Man, I know we got a lot of backs, but you’re one of them ones.’ And then my (position) coach, Burton Burns, he used to always sit me down, him and Miss Connie, his wife. And they’d be like, ‘Man, you’re different than a lot of people we’ve had.’ And it was like, ‘You’re special, believe me.’ And he had me bought in on Bama backs typically wait their turn to play.
“And so for me, I was like I didn’t want nothing given to me. Everything that I wanted to do, I wanted to earn. I was always trying to be the fastest on the field, the first one in the locker room, whatever, the weight room, whatever, and leave my stamp to let you know that it’s undeniable you got to play me.”
In 42 games at Alabama, Jacobs ran for 1,491 yards and 16 touchdowns on 251 carries, caught 48 passes for 571 yards and five touchdowns and returned 18 kickoffs for a 28.6-yard average and one touchdown.
In 90 games in the NFL, Jacobs has run for 6,874 yards and 61 touchdowns on 1,606 carries and caught 233 passes for 1,790 yards and one touchdown.
