Howard believes time has come to excel for Tide

TUSCALOOSA – Through his first two years at Alabama, two plays have defined O.J. Howard’s career. One highlights his enormous potential while the other showed why critics and even some fans have questions about his game.

As a true freshman in the 2013 LSU game, Howard motioned out to the right and was isolated out wide against an LSU defensive back. The 6-foot-6, 242-pound tight end took three steps and turned inside to catch a short slant route from AJ McCarron then outran LSU’s secondary for a 52-yard touchdown. Howard remembers the cornerback backing off to take away the outside, which left the Tigers vulnerable in the middle.

“I worked on that slant route all week hoping it would be a big play in the game,” Howard recalls. “And then the play came up, so I just wanted to show everybody what I had been working on. It happened and I just took it to the house.

“I knew I was going to catch the ball. I never knew when I caught it I was going to keep going for 52 yards. But it just happened that way.”

But all that play did was prematurely raise expectations for the former five-star recruit. Howard had just three catches for a combined 43 yards and no touchdowns the rest of the season.

“I felt like when I didn’t make another play like that again, people said ‘Well, he’s a bust or he’s not living up to the hype,’ ” Howard said. “That was a big play for me and a big moment. … After that, I didn’t really have any more big plays like that so everybody felt as if I was kind of a letdown to them. It really set the standard high, but afterwards no more plays really happened that way.”

The play against Ole Miss in last season’s game gave naysayers even more ammunition against Howard when 5-foot-9 Senquez Golson leaped and took the ball away from Howard to end the game. After beating Ole Miss safety Cody Prewitt on a seam route, Howard thought he was wide open so he “went up to catch it like a normal catch.”

“The cornerback came off and I never got to see him,” he said. “He got on top of me and made a better play. I didn’t jump as high as I should have because I never saw him coming.”

Even his mother, Lamesa Howard, felt that play was unacceptable. Howard made Sports Illustrated, but not in a positive way.

“When he came home from Thanksgiving and sat down at the table, I sat that picture of Sports Illustrated right in front of him,” Lamesa said. “When I see him before the season, I’m going to show him that picture again.”

That play, Howard said, is what pushed him through the offseason in preparation for a bigger role in Alabama’s offense heading into this year.

“That play, it was tough for me. It stuck with me for a long time,” he said. “When you finally can just sit down and rewind it and study it and let it go, you think ‘Wow, I can’t let that happen again. All balls in the air are my balls.’ … That play was bad, but in a good way, it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me.”

From the start

O’terrius Jabari Howard, the middle child of Lamesa’s three children, first wanted to play football at the age of five. But he was too small for the city league in his hometown of Prattville so his parents made the commitment to drive him 40 minutes away to play for the Marbury Bulldogs.

“He was just outstanding on the field,” Lamesa said. “Then the next year, the team we originally took him to (in Prattville) came knocking on the door and wanted him to play with them. We knew around 7 or 8 that he was different.”

That began a childhood of playing sports including football and baseball. He continued with football through the Pop Warner League and gained more and more attention from those around the neighborhood. But Howard’s parents remember him never wanting to be in the spotlight. As a kid, he shied away from the individual success and focused on team goals.

As Howard continued to progress in sports, his parents took on very distinct roles. Lamesa, who played multiple sports in high school, became his coach away from the field. Lamesa said she would record all of the games and would break down film with O.J. at home.

“I always pushed him the extra mile because I knew what he could do,” Lamesa said. “I told him ‘You got your coaches, but I’m going to coach you and tell you what you did when you get home because when I tell you something it’s because I love you and I know you can do better.’ ”

The naturally shy Howard didn’t initially standout in individual settings so Lamesa had to get creative when pushing her son. For example, when training for the 40-yard dash, Lamesa made Howard run 50 yards, but never told him.

“I knew I could get it out of him,” she said. “O.J. was the type who never wanted the shine or glory to be on him. He always wanted it to be about the team. He would sometimes play down to the competition. He never wanted the next person to look bad. He’d always do what he needed to do, but he never wanted the other person to be embarrassed.”

Added Howard, “My mom was the type in high school, she was always yelling at me and she knew when I did something wrong. She knew if I was playing hard, or if I was slacking off. She was always on me, hard and tough on me. She knew a lot about football, but baseball was the worst. When I went up to the plate, she would tell me ‘You better hit this ball. You better not strike out.’ She would let me know if I watched a strike go down the plate. She was that type of mom who knew a lot about sports because she played sports in high school too, so she just stayed on me about it.”

That extra motivation, along with his natural talent, helped Howard earn offers from the likes of Alabama, Auburn, USC and Florida among others.

But there was another key figure promoting Howard behind the scenes.

Because of zoning issues, Howard attended high school at Autauga Academy instead of Prattville High. Autauga Academy is a small, private school.

“When O.J. was coming up, there was a meeting with a lot of the parents and they told everyone, ‘Don’t blame the coach or the school if your child doesn’t get recruited. It’s your job to get your child recruited,’ ” said Kareem Howard, O.J.’s father. “And that’s what I did. I made sure he was at every camp against the best competition.”

The top-rated tight end in the 2013 recruiting cycle, Howard committed to Alabama fairly early in high school and never wavered. An injury limited his production during his senior year of high school, but he still amassed 854 yards of total offense and 12 touchdowns and accounted for 57 tackles on the defense.

Despite being an Auburn fan growing up, Howard felt most at home during his visits to Tuscaloosa.

“Everybody would treat me like I was already a part of the program when I came here,” he said. “That played a big part of me coming here and definitely coming early. At first I had my options open, but I felt like I was already a part of the family so I didn’t want to decommit and go somewhere because I already felt a part of this program.”

Upping the ante

Statistically, Howard’s first two years of production haven’t matched his five-star billing. He’s played in 27 games with nine career starts and totaled 31 catches for 529 yards and two touchdowns.

But everyone can’t be Amari Cooper or T.J. Yeldon, who set school records for receiving and rushing during their freshman campaigns.

And the majority of last year’s offense was built around Cooper, who set virtually every receiving record in school history.

“Now (Cooper’s) gone, so where are those catches going to go? I think O.J. could be a lot of that,” Tide offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin said. “He’s a very special player. He works extremely hard like Amari did. Amari was one of the hardest workers on the field that I’ve ever been around. Probably Reggie (Bush) and Amari and O.J. and Derrick (Henry) are kind of those next two guys where you see them out there working every day. Hopefully O.J. has a chance to have a big year.”

Two areas Howard focused on this offense were his blocking and his route running. Blocking, Howard said, is all about effort and having proper technique while route running starts with getting a proper release off the line.

Tide outside linebacker Dillon Lee, who covers Howard in practice, has seen “a lot” of improvement.

“He’s been running faster routes, and I just feel like he has a better feel for Coach Kiffin’s offense,” Lee said. “I just feel like he feels more comfortable. He’s making a lot of plays.”

Howard’s numbers may not be impressive, but his size and potential still have many intrigued. According to CBSSports.com, Howard is considered the second-best tight end prospect in the 2016 NFL Draft class. He is rated as the 56th best prospect overall and is projected to go in the second round if he decides to leave school early.

A lot can change between now and then and Howard must first prove it on the field.

He likely won’t get a better opportunity than this. Brian Vogler has moved on and the tight end group is now Howard’s to lead.

“It’s a process here and I’ve seen a lot of guys go through it so I knew I needed to be patient and wait my turn,” Howard said. “But the thing about it is, when your time comes, you have to make it count. I feel like this season, I’m in that mode. I’m stepping into the starting tight end role being an all-time, every-down tight end for the first time this season. This is an opportunity for me and I’m going to make the best of it.”