The beauty of sports is that leadership can come from anywhere. While it certainly helps when your best players are your best leaders, you never know where you might find a motivational boost.
For Alabama, fresh off an embarrassing loss to Florida and facing Texas A&M on Wednesday night in a pivotal game, it was walk-on Jacob Martin who lit the fuse in the pregame that helped lead the Crimson Tide to a 100-97 win over the first-place Aggies in Coleman.
In a huddle during warm-ups, a camera caught Martin delivering a passionate speech to his teammates:
Alabama walk-on Jacob Martin was HYPING up the Crimson Tide before breaking down the huddle ahead of the Texas A&M game pic.twitter.com/xytVXXCTa5
— Hunter De Siver (@HunterDeSiver) February 4, 2026
"He was just getting everybody's energy up. Letting us know what's at stake. Shoutout J-Mart for sure," Aden Holloway said about Martin's speech.
Jacob Martin is about the right stuff, according to Nate Oats
One of Nate Oats' biggest compliments for players is saying they are "about the right stuff." That's exactly the words he used to describe Martin after the game when he was asked about his moment in warmups.
"I didn't know he had all that in him," Oats said. ..."He's smart. He's passionate. He comes to work every day, and he does a really good job on our scout team and making our bigs better. ...The things Jacob's about are the stuff we’ve got to be about: playing hard, toughness, rebounding, blue-collar."
Alabama didn't play a perfect game against Texas A&M. But it fought. It matched the energy of the visitors. Led by Bucky McMillan, there isn't a team in the SEC that plays harder than the Aggies. This was always going to be a win Alabama had to earn.
The Crimson Tide had to dig deep. They faced plenty of adversity. Alabama spent a large chunk of the second half playing from behind, but when its backs were against the wall, they made the plays they had to make to pull out a much-needed home win.
Alabama had to look itself in the mirror after Sunday's deflating loss to Florida. It needed to find some leadership. It sounds like it got that in a spirited Tuesday practice, and then Martin, a little-used walk-on, set the tone before tip-off to hammer it home.