Alabama redshirt junior cornerback Anthony Averett was a three- or four-star prospect in the 2013 signing class, depending on the recruiting service, which has kept him in relative obscurity among the five-star likes of safety Minkah Fitzpatrick and cornerback Marlon Humphrey.
Yet Averett is playing as well as anybody in the Crimson Tide’s star-studded secondary heading into Monday night’s national championship game in Tampa against Clemson.
The 6-foot, 180-pounder from Woodbury, N.J., had eight tackles in Saturday’s 24-7 blanketing of Washington in the Peach Bowl national semifinal. Among those tackles was a 13-yard sack of Jake Browning, and he also forced a fumble that helped put the top-ranked Tide ahead to stay.
“That’s why he’s our six-star,” Humphrey said Saturday evening.
The Huskies had just moved across midfield in a 7-7 game late in the first quarter on a 7-yard pass from Browning to John Ross, but Averett punched the ball from Ross and defensive end Jonathan Allen gathered it and raced 10 yards to Washington’s 40. The Crimson Tide picked up a first down before settling on a 41-yard field goal by Adam Griffith on the first play of the second quarter for a 10-7 lead.
“Honestly, I just shed the block and saw him with the ball,” Averett said. “There was a lot of traffic, but I just wanted to see if I could get my hand in there and get lucky. I poked it out. We practice that a lot.”
After redshirting in 2013, Averett got in one game as a redshirt freshman, a 48-14 win over Western Carolina. He played in six games on special teams a season ago, making a tackle against Texas A&M and in the Cotton Bowl blanking of Michigan State.
The departure of 34-game starter Cyrus Jones after last season created an opportunity for Averett, who came off the bench in the 52-6 opening rout of Southern California and racked up eight tackles on a defense that limited the Trojans to 130 aerial yards. He made his first career start the following week against Western Kentucky and will take 12 starts and 43 tackles into Monday night’s showdown.
“I’m not going to say I ever had a chip on my shoulder,” Averett said. “I just focused on myself. I knew I could play here, and everything is working out now. I’m starting to recognize things more and getting more confident. When I had that game against USC, I knew I could do this. I just had to settle in.”
Said coach Nick Saban: “Anthony has played well for us all year, and he probably gets a little overlooked based on some of our other players, but he’s been a very consistent player for us all year long.”
Alabama’s defense allowed 400 passing yards at Ole Miss and at Arkansas during the first half of the season, but the Crimson Tide eventually went 17 quarters without giving up a touchdown. The Tide held Washington to 194 yards in the Georgia Dome, but the legacy of this year’s Alabama defense could be defined Monday night.
The Crimson Tide will face the same quarterback, Clemson’s Deshaun Watson, who shredded them for 405 passing yards last January in Arizona, so it still may be too soon to determine whether this could be viewed as the program’s best defense ever.
“That gets brought up a lot, and if that’s what they’re saying, then I’m just blessed to be on this defense,” Averett said. “The one we had in 2011 was really good. I remember watching them when I was in high school.
“One of the reasons I came here was to be part of a defense like that.”
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.