Alabama Football G13 vs Missouri SEC Championship 2014 v

Alabama running back Kenyan Drake (17) celebrates after the SEC Championship Game.

(Vasha Hunt/vhunt@al.com)

ATLANTA -- Confetti was falling, players were hugging and Kenyan Drake was celebrating.

Exactly nine weeks after breaking his leg at Ole Miss, the Alabama running back soaked it in Saturday evening. The Crimson Tide had just finished the clinical 42-13 beating of Missouri in the SEC Championship Game and Drake was a little sore.

His walking boot came off Tuesday and the speedy back jogged onto the field with the team before kickoff.

"I'm kinda paying for it now," Drake said with a smile as his teammates received the championship hardware.

The junior went on to speak candidly about the horrific injury that ended a promising season early in Alabama's only loss of the season. First, however, he said there's no shot at returning for the playoff run. But he'll be back by spring "for sure," Drake said.

Going back to Oct. 4 in Oxford, Drake remembers the play that changed everything. He'd been one of the more explosive players on the team through four games as a threat to run and catch. Drake's five receptions netted 159 yards and two touchdowns while rushing 22 times for 112 yards and four more scores.

But the big season ended in an instant. Catching a short pass from Blake Sims, the running back looked for room across the middle.

"I kinda, when I cut, somebody hit me low and somebody else hit me high and my foot couldn't take that kind of pressure," Drake said. "So that's just the way it goes sometimes."

Teammates quickly called for the medical staff. When Drake looked down, he saw the gruesome sight of his foot turned the wrong direction.

"I didn't know what to think," he said. "Obviously, your foot isn't supposed to be sideways like that. So I kind of went into shock and the trainers came out there and took real good care of me, put it back in place and after that I didn't really feel it anymore."

As he was loaded on the cart to be taken off the field, CBS zoomed in to show tears streaming down Drake's face.

"I cried (not) because it hurt, I cried because I didn't know how my future was going to end up," he said. "I have the best doctors in the country and they took real good care of me."

The response from fans has been overwhelming. Letters are still rolling in from all over and he's posted pictures of the crates of mail that arrived.

"It's been really crazy," Drake said. "I've enjoyed just being a student for once after the hustle and bustle of going to the game all the time, but I miss being out there with my team. Nothing feels better than being out on the field with my team."