ARLINGTON, Texas -- One by one, you say his name and Alabama players smile.
You ask: Tell me about Michael Nysewander.
A big grin appears across Alphonse Taylor’s face. ArDarius Stewart leans back and chuckles. Cole Mazza’s eyes light up.
After nearly a month of talking about the College Football Playoff and Michigan State, most Alabama players are tired and weary of dealing with the media. But when they’re asked this week about the man whose nickname sounds like "nice," they perk up.
“Nyse?” Taylor said. “I love Nyse.”
“That’s one of my best friends,” Mazza said.
“He’s a funny guy, man,” Stewart said.
Funny how? Like a clown?
“He’s the worst dancer on the team,” Stewart, a junior wide receiver, explained. “It’s like, what moves are those? Where did you get that from? What book did you get that out of? I compare it to Napoleon Dynamite when he got on stage and started dancing.”
Nysewander does more than amuse his teammates, though.
If Derrick Henry is the engine that has powered Alabama to the College Football Playoff Semifinal at the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic, then Nysewander is the coal thrown into the furnace. He’s the ultimate walk-on success story, a fifth-year senior who has gone from scout-team tackling dummy to special-teams standout to the top H-back for the No. 2 team in the country and lead blocker for a Heisman Trophy-winning running back.
Henry is notoriously tight-lipped, but he told reporters after beating LSU that he calls Nysewander “Highway 46” and, “I’m rocking with him the whole way.”
Just talking about Nysewander has made the seemingly impenetrable heart of Alabama coach Nick Saban soften, bringing him nearly to tears during a radio show. Saban calls him a grinder, a throwback. Saban said earlier this season that Nysewander is “everything that anybody thinks that a football player or a competitor should be.”
All that, and he has no carries and only one reception that went for a touchdown and ended in a raucous celebration.
He’s the “heart of the offense,” according to Stewart. But talking to players on Tuesday at Cotton Bowl media day, it felt more like Nysewander was the heart of the entire team.
“He has so much heart, man. You can’t deny it,” said Taylor, an offensive lineman. “He plays with so much passion. I love being around him.”
Says fellow offensive lineman Ross Pierschbacher: “He brings a lot of juice. He gets guys excited for practice even when days seem long. Guys cling to him.”
Speaking with Nysewander, it’s easy to see why starting right tackle Dominick Jackson calls him a “special person.”
Short, stocky and with a flop of messy, dirty blond hair, Nysewander exudes energy. His blue eyes glow when he talks about his first practice when he was suddenly on the same playing field as guys he had looked up to. He says he’ll always remember scoring in the same stadium he grew up visiting.
On a team full of blue-chip prospects awaiting their chance to turn pro, he’s the everyman. He grew up less than an hour from Tuscaloosa. He was born into a family of Alabama fans and adored the Tide. When he was done playing at Hoover High, he set his mind to walking on for Saban. He called a few former assistant coaches who were on staff and gave it a try.
The first goal was to get Saban to know of his existence, although it didn’t work out exactly as planned.
“I was getting my butt chewed out for giving the wrong look on scout team,” Nysewander recalled. “But he mentioned my name. So it was like, ‘Hey, at least he knows my name.’”
The second goal was along the same lines.
“One of my bigger goals was for the guys on the team, no matter if I played any snaps, by the time my career was done I wanted these guys to respect me and make some friendships,” Nysewander said. “And I definitely think I have.”
He’s done more than make friends. He’s made admirers out of his teammates, who voted him the Most Inspiring Player and gave him a standing ovation when he received the award earlier this month.
Pierschbacher said there’s no one players cheer for more, and when Nysewander scores, “everyone freaks out.”
“It makes us work harder,” Pierschbacher said.
Two days before what could be Nysewander's final game at Alabama, he's trying keep up the hard work. In a sentiment that would make Saban even prouder of him, Nysewander said he wants to keep the focus on the game.
But talking about his journey has him thinking about the future.
“I want to stay involved in the game,” he said. “It’s given me so much and taught me so much that I want to stay with it and get in the coaching environment and have an impact on other people that all these coaches have had on me.”
Maybe he’ll get there. Maybe his success story isn't over yet. He'd like to become a graduate assistant at Alabama.
After spending time around the program, though, you understand that whatever happens, one thing is certain: On this team and with these players and coaches, he’s already had an impact that will last long after he’s gone.