Alabama’s Derrick Thomas set the standard for individual defensive dominance in 1988.
The Crimson Tide’s senior linebacker totaled an astounding 27 sacks, 39 tackles for loss and 44 quarterback pressures that season, when he was named SEC Player of the Year and overall Male Athlete of the Year, a consensus All-American and won the Butkus Award as the country’s top linebacker. Seemingly every week, he did something that amazed his teammates and coaches.
“Derrick Thomas was not a regular mortal,” Alabama coach Bill Curry told AL.com many years later. “… He was the best football player I ever coached, by far.”
Thomas’ 1988 season didn’t exactly come out of nowhere. He’d been a first-team All-SEC pick and totaled a school-record 18 sacks as a junior in 1987.
But the Miami native took it to another level as a senior. After getting off to a relatively slow start — just three total sacks in the first two games of the season, blowout wins over Temple and Vanderbilt — he exploded in an Oct. 1 game at Kentucky.
Despite battling a case of sinusitis most of the week, Thomas totaled 14 tackles, four sacks and blocked both a punt and a field goal as Alabama rallied for a 31-27 victory. He was named National Player of the Week by The Sporting News.
“I didn’t practice hardly all week,” Thomas told the Mobile Register. “I came into the game today not feeling good. … Once I got into the game, things started flowing.”
Thomas totaled 11 tackles and two sacks the following week vs. Ole Miss, an infamous 22-12 Alabama loss in which the Crimson Tide failed to complete a pass. Alabama bounced back with a 28-20 victory over Tennessee in Knoxville on Oct. 15, though Thomas was shut out in the sack department after suffering bruised ribs early in the game.
The Crimson Tide then welcomed Penn State to Legion Field in Birmingham, and Thomas again had an otherworldly game. In an 8-3 Alabama victory, Thomas posted what CBS commentator Brent Musburger called “the most dominating performance I’ve ever seen by a college player.”
Thomas totaled eight tackles, eight quarterback hurries, three sacks and a pass breakup. On a day neither team scored an offensive touchdown, he sacked Nittany Lions quarterback Tony Sacca for a safety in the fourth quarter and pressured him into a game-clinching interception in the final minutes.
“He was everywhere,” Penn State fullback John Green said of Thomas, who was named national Defensive Player of the Week by The Sporting News, Sports Illustrated and College & Pro Weekly a few days later. “He had a dominating-type game. We just couldn’t handle him at key times.”
Thomas totaled two more sacks in a 53-34 shootout with Mississippi State on Oct. 29, then three in a 19-18 loss to LSU on Nov. 5. He totaled three again — raising his season total to 20, breaking his own program record — in a 17-0 victory over Southwestern Louisiana (now Louisiana) on Nov. 12.
Alabama lost to Auburn 15-13 in the Iron Bowl on Nov. 25, but Thomas rang up 13 tackles and two more sacks. A week later at Texas A&M, he had the last of his three monster games.
The Alabama-Texas A&M game was postponed from September due to (unfounded) concerns over Hurricane Gilbert striking the Texas coast, and many in College Station dubbed the rescheduled game the “Hurricane Bowl.” In a 30-10 Crimson Tide victory, Thomas totaled nine tackles, seven tackles for loss, a season-high five sacks and both forced and recovered a fumble on the Aggies’ opening possession.
“He had a great game, there’s no question,” Texas A&M coach Jackie Sherrill told AL.com in 2023. “He, by himself, really dictated the game.”
Thomas had one game left, against Army in the Sun Bowl on Christmas Eve in El Paso, Texas. Bowl statistics didn’t count toward season totals in those days, though the option-based Black Knights weren’t likely to give Thomas many opportunities for sacks anyway.
Army threw the ball only five times in a 29-28 Alabama victory, though Thomas made an impact in other ways. He blocked two field goals, in addition to six tackles and two tackles for loss as the Crimson Tide completed a 9-3 season.
Counting the bowl game, Thomas finished his senior year with 94 tackles, 41 tackles for loss, 44 quarterback pressures, four blocked kicks (three field goals and a punt), four pass breakups, two forced fumbles and a fumble recovery in addition to the 27 sacks. Along with his single-season numbers, Thomas’ 52 sacks and 68.5 tackles for loss remain program records more than 35 years after his final game at Alabama (Will Anderson is second in career sacks with 34; Wallace Gilberry in tackles for loss with 60.5).
If you weren’t around the see it, here’s a highlight reel of Thomas during his career at Alabama:
Thomas was the No. 4 overall pick by the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs, and became an instant star at the pro level. He was NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year in 1989, and in 11 seasons totaled 126.5 sacks and 41 forced fumbles and made the Pro Bowl nine times.
Thomas’ football career ended abruptly when he was paralyzed from the chest down in an automobile accident in January 2000. He died a little more than two weeks later at age 33 due to a pulmonary embolism (blood clot).
Thomas was posthumously inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2009 and the College Football Hall of Fame in 2014. With John Hannah, Don Hutson, Joe Namath, Ozzie Newsome, Bart Starr and Dwight Stephenson, he is one of seven Alabama players so honored.
