Alabama lineman Justin Eboigbe returns from neck injury and is ready for Rose Bowl

Justin Eboigbe says he just wanted to come back as “a better version of myself.”

It’s the goal that helped push the Alabama defensive end through all the rehab from an injury that ended his 2022 season, the weeks in a neck brace and numerous hours wearing a bone stem device.

Eboigbe has come back better than ever. He returned from a neck injury that sidelined him for most of last season with easily his best year, earning individual accolades and helping to give himself and the Crimson Tide chances for a happier ending.

“During the whole rehab, I just kept knowing that I was going to show a better version of myself than what I last did,” said Eboigbe, who also recently received a master’s degree in sports management. “That was my whole focus, my whole goal, my whole mind-set each day attacking rehab. And I just hoped that I could prove what I’ve been saying and telling myself.”

He has been a key part of a defense that has helped propel the Tide to a Southeastern Conference championship and into the College Football Playoff after missing both chances last season. Alabama faces Michigan on Jan. 1 in the Rose Bowl semifinal game in Pasadena.

Eboigbe has racked up 60 tackles (one more than his total through four years) with 11 1/2 tackles for loss and seven sacks, easily topping his earlier career totals.

He earned second-team AP All-SEC honors and an invitation to the Senior Bowl with a shot at the NFL. Eboigbe was named a semifinalist for the College Sports Communicators Comeback Player of the Year Award in late November, prompting coach Nick Saban to proclaim it would be hard for him “to think that there’s many guys out there that did more for their team.”

“I probably have more sentiment for him, because of what he’s gone through, than anybody else we’ve ever had on our team,” Saban said on his radio show.

Eboigbe was injured in a Tuesday practice ahead of the fifth game last season during a team running period pitting the starters against each other.

“I went to strike the blocker and felt a stinging sensation in both of my arms,” he said. “I knew something wasn’t right. I told the training staff and they actually wanted to pull me from practice that day, but I wanted to finish out practicing.”

An MRI the next day showed he had a herniated disc pushing against his spinal cord — and that he got lucky after continuing to practice.

“They were basically telling me, you could have been paralyzed,” he said. Head trainer Jeff Allen assured him the injury was season-ending but not career-ending.

When he got home that day, Eboigbe called Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Justyn Ross, who had endured a similar injury at Clemson. Ross outlined his experiences in recovering from the surgery and advised him that “you have to trust in your mind that everything’s going to be OK,” Eboigbe said.

Pittsburgh neurosurgeon David Okonkwo operated on both players.

Eboigbe had to wear a neck brace for two weeks, taking it off only for showers. Then he had to wear a bone stem device to help stimulate bone growth four hours a day for three months.

It was two months before he was able to work out with resistance bands, and late January before Eboigbe could lift weights again. He was cleared to practice in early April, several months earlier than expected. That allowed him to get the nerves from that first contact out of the way.

“Everything that they told me I did and I did it exactly correct,” Eboigbe said. “They weren’t expecting me to come back as soon as I did.”

Ultimately, he came back better too.