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* BONE: 10 recruiting thoughts
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Henry Ruggs III is an anomaly. If anything, the 6-foot, 175-pound receiver is a little undersized at the position and isn’t your typical touchdown threat in the red zone.
Except all Ruggs does is score touchdowns.
The true freshman leads Alabama with four touchdown receptions this season despite tallying only four receptions. That's right, every pass Ruggs has pulled in has put points on the board for the Crimson Tide. Last week’s 20-yard touchdown from quarterback Jalen Hurts, the longest reception in Ruggs’ career, marked his third straight game with a touchdown.
So what makes the Montgomery, Ala., native such a threat to score? Alabama head coach Nick Saban believes the answer is a basic as Ruggs doing his job.
“He gets open and then he catches the ball,” Saban said. “We call plays that give him a chance to get open, so that gives him a chance to catch the ball and he gives the quarterback a chance to throw it to him... I think that’s what he’s supposed to do, that’s what the quarterback is supposed to do, that’s what we’re supposed to design and the more athletic and faster they are the harder they are to cover. Thems the kind of guys we want around here.”
Ruggs might have five touchdowns on five catches if it wasn’t for a drop in the end zone during the season-opener against Florida State. He was able to score the next game on a 16-yard pass from fellow freshman Tua Tagovailoa against Fresno State. Tagovailoa hit Ruggs again on an 8-yard touchdown against Ole Miss.
For a while, Hurts joked that he was taking things personally. That was until he connected with Ruggs for touchdowns the past two weeks against Texas A&M and Arkansas.
"When his number's called, he answers the phone and he makes plays," Hurts said after the game last week. "I always messed with him early on that he wouldn’t catch mine, but he’d catch Tua’s. He’s doing a great job.”
Of course, Ruggs isn’t the only one of Alabama’s freshmen receivers to show promise lately. Heading into last week’s game against Arkansas, Saban said he was looking for the Crimson Tide’s freshman receiving trio of Ruggs, Jerry Jeudy and DeVonta Smith to get more action. All three receivers recorded one catch apiece last week, as Jeudy pulled in a 29-yard reception and Smith caught a 16-yard pass.
"We're pleased with how they've developed and they've done a good job and been productive,” Saban said earlier in the week. “We have confidence in them and they have confidence in what we're doing. They're not going out there and making a lot of mental errors. They're actually improving their ability to be better players without the ball, which means they're blocking better and making less mental errors on the perimeter in terms of what they should do and how they should do it. We're very confident in those guys and we know we'd like for all of them to have a chance to be productive, all six of the receivers that we've been playing."
Saban On Henry Ruggs
