Who Was Alabama's Biggest Surprise Hero This Year That Nobody Picked to Be?

Larry Burton (Syndicated Writer) When most of the players Nick Saban picks show up at Tuscaloosa, it's not surprising when many of them become stars, even in their freshman years.

But sometimes when a player comes in, you scratch your head over and wonder just what it was Saban saw in that recruit, when there are so many more seemingly talented people in front of him and that the likelihood of any meaningful play just doesn't seem to be in the cards.

Such was the case when I learned that Vinnie Sunseri was coming to Tuscaloosa.

"Maybe Saban's just indulging Coach Sunseri, a little gift and offering his son a free ride," I remember telling a fellow journalist, who was as as surprised as I was over the offer.

Well Vinnie, I owe you an apology.

Of all the freshmen and other non starters when the season started you may have bet would have become a valued star, not many would have picked Vinnie.

Not with all that depth ahead of him at linebacker, not with his physical size and not with him being a freshman.

But with transfers and injuries and a need, a quick lightweight linebacker with the soul of a coach himself who could soak up any position and its duties in days instead of months, found himself in a position to fill a need.

Now the question is not can he be a player after all, but can those players who were destined to be stars by all the recruiting gurus be as good or better and root him out of a job?

Vinnie began by making a name for himself on special teams with Johnny on the spot tackles. He also had some highlight reel blocks on kick and punt returns. One such block was a play that was replayed across America against Penn State. He launched himself off his feet for one punt return to make an amazing block that sprung Marquis Maze on a 43-yard punt return.

He's been special team player of the week, as voted on by the coaches, five times so far this season.

So far this season, Sunseri has 18 solo tackles with 12 assists for a total of 30 tackles. He's also had a quarterback hurry and a forced fumble. That places him eighth on the team in tackles, more than some of the season long starters.

Now he's seeing significant time at safety and is doing a great job of it just as he has with everything else they've let him do.

He reminds me of Cory Reamer, a special team standout who through the same kind of circumstances that Vinnie found himself in, finally started getting playing time with the starters and his "always being where he needs to be" instincts.

But Reamer didn't get his shot like that until his senior year. Sunseri's shot is coming much sooner.

Now the question is, will Sunseri parlay all this into a starting job next year? And if so, can he entrench himself in that position and not be bounced from it as Reamer did?

If he does, I won't be surprised the next time around.