TUSCALOOSA, Ala.— If you looked up the word “tough” in the dictionary, a picture of Josh Ford might just pop up next to it.
The Alabama tight end broke his arm in the first half of the Crimson Tide’s win against Mississippi State, came back in the second half to finish the game, had surgery the next day and was back at practice the following Wednesday. Ford then played for Alabama on Saturday against Georgia and will be back this Saturday at No. 14 Tennessee.
Ford was in for a down block against the Bulldogs, and his left arm got stuck between the helmets of Alabama offensive lineman William Sanders and a Mississippi State defender, snapping his radius in half.
“I knew right away that it was gone,” he said.
After the X-ray at halftime, they hard-casted his arm, and he went back in. Dr. Christopher Garrett performed the surgery that Sunday, Oct. 4 to repair the fracture.
” I had surgery six days before the game, and I mean, I truly believe the Lord was in that operating room with them,” Ford said. “I had 85 percent of my grip strength back after six days and really good mobility. I was already practicing on Wednesday. Super thankful for everyone in there, Jeff Allen… just everybody getting me back. It’s still recovering, but I couldn’t do it without them. That’s for sure. Saturday, it was my decision to play, they were’t forcing me out there. I felt good to go.”
He was doing pushups in the training room the day after the surgery to prove to his coaches that he was ready to go against the Bulldogs. Ford did not record any catches against Georgia, but he did play over 20 snaps.
“He’s amazing,” Alabama offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb said of Ford. “To be honest, probably even more so because we knew he was gonna play. I don’t know that we knew he was going to play that many snaps. Danny Lewis went down, had to come out of the game for a little bit early in the game. So he came back later, but that put a little bit more onus on Josh, but I don’t, the crazy thing is, I don’t think anybody on the team wearing the Crimson was surprised at all that, you know, Josh was out there just rolling like a normal day at work.
“So he loves football. He’s tough as nails. He loves his team and he really embodies what this team’s about. So we’re going to lean on him. We need him this week. He’s a guy that’s going to be able to bounce us back and get us going again.”
Ford wanted to get back out on the field as soon as possible as a leader of this Crimson Tide team to encourage his teammates. Alabama is now trying to bounce back from the first loss of the season against Georgia by going on the road in a rivalry game with Tennessee while likely missing key offensive players Ryan Coleman-Williams and Racin Delgatty.
“Everybody’s fired up,” Ford said. “But we’re leaving last week behind us. We don’t want to get beat twice by the same team, that’s kinda what we’ve been saying. Try and move on and really focus on there’s a lot of the season left. We’re really excited about it.”
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