Ailym Ford does most of his talking on the football field.
When you meet him in person, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga running back comes off as a modest, humble freshman. It’s easy to make him smile, and he’s very respectful as he answers questions. He thinks before he speaks, and he’s genuinely reserved when talking about himself.
“Yeah, I’m very quiet,” he said with a laugh.
Put a helmet and pads on Ford, though, and everything changes. On the football field, he’s loud, and he makes you take notice. But the talking is with his actions and not his mouth. The 5-foot-9, 205-pound running back bowled over would-be tacklers en route to leading all Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) freshmen in rushing yards (1,081). He was 10thoverall among all FCS running backs in rushing yards per game (108.1). He won Southern Conference Freshman of the Year honors. And he garnered national attention.
Ford recently finished fifth in the 2019 Jerry Rice Award voting, which goes to the national FCS freshman of the year. He was just the second Mocs player to finish in the Top 10 in Jerry Rice Award balloting, joining Jacob Huesman (fourth-place finish in 2012). There are 125 FCS teams comprising 14 conferences, and Ford was the lone Southern Conference player to place in the Top 20.
The Jerry Rice Award was named for the Hall of Fame wide receiver who played collegiately at Mississippi Valley State University and is part of the STATS FCS legacy award series. Other honors in the FCS series include the Walter Payton Award (offensive player of the year), Buck Buchanan Award (defensive player of the year), Eddie Robinson Award (coach of the year), and Doris Robinson Award (scholar-athlete of the year).
“It’s an honor to be mentioned in the same conversation as a National Football League Hall of Famer, and that goes to show that we’re doing something right here. I take a lot of pride in that,” said Ford, who was still an infant when Rice completed his 20-year NFL career in 2004. “I don’t know much about him, but I do know he had a lot of accolades and was a hard worker. A lot of people look up to him.”
The feat has added significance. A Mocs player getting this type of accolade translates into huge exposure for the football program and the University. It shows recruits that a player can come to UTC and get recognized for what he does.
“To be a finalist for the award is a testament to that young man, how he was raised, and how he works. It’s awesome that he’s getting that recognition,” said UTC head football coach Rusty Wright. “Of course, it’s great for us, because we don’t have him just as a freshman; we have him for the next three years, too. As a first-time head coach, I can say, ‘All right, there’s the standard. That’s the type of player we have to recruit. That’s how we have to work because that’s how it’s going to be going forward.’
“Recruiting-wise, it’s huge because it shows that we’ll play freshmen if they’re the best players. If you work hard at it and you’re mentally ready and physically ready to play, you’ll have an opportunity. And it’s important for us to be able to show parents, ‘Hey, you can be successful on the field and make good grades.’ Mommas and daddies like to hear that.”
A true freshman, Ford adjusted to the classroom just as quickly as he adapted to college football. The communications major was expecting to earn four A’s and a B in his first semester on campus.
He entered the fall No. 3 on the Mocs’ depth chart, but injuries to seniors Tyrell Price and Elijah Ibitokun-Hanks quickly propelled him into a prominent role as the featured running back in the UTC offense. Ford had six games with at least 100 yards on the ground, including five in a row late in the season, and was just the second Mocs running back ever to record 30 or more rushes in three straight games. He was the national freshman of the week after rushing for 200 yards on October 17 against East Tennessee State and was an honorable mention for that weekly award five other times.
While you can’t play the “what if” game, you do have to wonder what might have happened if he hadn’t injured his left knee just five offensive plays into the Samford game on November 9. Ford essentially missed the season’s final three full games, leaving him nine yards shy of tying a 42-year-old school record for most yards by a freshman (1,090 by Mike Smith in 1977). He was on pace to surpass Derrick Craine’s 2015 total of 1,251 yards for the highest single-year rushing total in University annals.
“After he got hurt, (Ailym) and I had that conversation,” Wright recalled. “I said, ‘Well, you’re probably the only person I know that could break the rushing record with that injury. You would figure out a way to get eight or nine yards or whatever it is.’ But now, the goal for him is to break all the rest of them along the way. I don’t think there’s any doubt he’d have crushed a couple of records, and they wouldn’t have been close.”
And to think, a year ago at this time, Ford was still deciding where he was going for college. He was a two-time all-state running back at West Florence High School in Florence, South Carolina, and a two-star prospect, according to 247Sports.com and Rivals.com. Just days after committing to UTC last December, former head coach Tom Arth left to go to Akron. Ford elected to honor his commitment.
“It had a lot to do with Tyrell Price. We had a connection,” Ford said. “I felt like I could learn from him, and I have learned a lot from him. I was at a point in my life where I needed to sit back and learn and watch, and Tyrell was the right person to be my leader. That’s what led me to come here.”
Price had been an all-conference selection in 2018, but when he suffered a season-ending injury early this fall, it drove Ford into his expanded role.
“We were very fortunate that he stuck to his commitment, and I don’t take that lightly at all,” Wright said. “He’s a really good student, he’s a really good kid, and he’s everything you want in a young man to represent your program.
“And I’ll be honest with you, we’re very fortunate to get a young man of his character, and how he is. If we don’t get a guy hurt, maybe Ailym doesn’t play as much. Maybe we don’t know what we have with him, you know? That’s the crazy thing. There’s a reason everybody’s paths crossed.”
It’s one thing to get the opportunity to play. It’s quite another to have the type of success Ford had as a freshman.
“I had to do it for (Price),” said Ford, who recorded the seventh-highest single-season freshman rushing total in Southern Conference history. “It was really interesting because just a week or two before that, I was trying to make the special-teams roster. Now I’m on the field. It was like, ‘Man, you got what you wanted, so what are you going to do with it?’”
Quite literally, he took the ball and ran with it. That’s how he does his talking.
