TUSCALOOSA — If Mark Ingram needed proof of just how much his life changed in an instant, his cell phone did the trick.

Alabama’s sophomore running back was already a popular guy before winning the Heisman Trophy on Dec. 12, but it hit another level that evening when he glanced at his phone.

“I looked at it when I walked off the stage and I was going over there to talk to (ESPN’s Chris) Fowler, and I had 237 text messages,” he said Saturday. “That was from the time my name was announced to the time I walked off the stage. And it just kept coming all night. And they’re still coming.”

Former Heisman winner Tim Tebow said Ingram’s life would resemble a petting zoo after being crowned college football’s most outstanding player, and the circus didn’t take long to add all three rings.

Before leaving New York, he appeared on Good Morning America and was scheduled to appear on “The Late Show with David Letterman” before being bumped off the lineup. He did not get the opportunity to visit his father Mark Ingram Sr., who is serving jail time in a Queens, N.Y., correctional facility, before heading back to his hometown of Flint, Mich.

Unlike 1994 winner Rashaan Salam of Colorado, Ingram did not have to wrap the 25-pound trophy in a blanket for the flight home. His trophy was mailed back to Michigan where it is currently the most extravagant kitchen table centerpiece in the neighborhood.

The replica given to the school resides in a trophy cabinet beside the 2009 SEC Championship trophy in the lobby of the Mal Moore Athletic Complex. It will stay there until a permanent display is built.

Getting the 25-plus pound stiff-arm statue through the airport was not the issue. Avoiding the memorabilia dealers hounding Ingram for autographs, however, was.

The first issue arose in Orlando, where Ingram appeared at the college football awards show two nights before the Heisman ceremony. When one dealer was told Ingram was not signing anything, he pulled out a few of the folders full of 8x10 photographs, tore them up, and threw a few choice words around.

By the time Ingram arrived in New York, it got more intense. Another man equipped with gear for him to sign started in just as he got off the plane in LaGuardia Airport. When the requests were turned down, this dealer struck back by using his Sharpie marker to draw a stripe down the new dress shirt of an Alabama media relations staffer who accompanied Ingram on the flight.

“(He) got marked on, and he was pretty hot,” Ingram said with a smile. “I had to go back and get him or he probably wouldn’t be here today. He was hot.”

Now back in the comfort zone of Tuscaloosa where confrontations are less likely, Ingram said he’s happy to be back in the practice routine as the Jan. 7 BCS Championship Game showdown with Texas looms.

Teammates like quarterback Greg McElroy waited to see Ingram on Saturday to offer their official congratulations. That didn’t stop the text message phone tree from branching off all over the team on the night Ingram won the closest vote in the Heisman’s 75-year history.

Offensive lineman Mike Johnson, one of the five who helped pave the way for Ingram’s school-record 1,542 rushing yards, was relaxing on the couch while watching the festivities broadcast live from Times Square.

“Man, I just about went through the roof when they called his name,” Johnson said. “I was calling everybody. All the offensive linemen were texting me. I got three or four right at the same time from William Vlachos and Drew Davis. We were all just so proud of him. He did a great job with his speech and everything like that. I’m just real proud of him.”

Now that the weeks of Heisman build-up are over and the award is his, Ingram isn’t living in the illusion that the hoopla is over now that BCS preparations are under way.

“It’s far from over,” Ingram said. “It’s going to be there the rest of my life. But just the fact that I’m back here with my teammates and able to joke with them and go out on the field and work hard and practice with them and be in the film room studying with the coaches, just getting back in routine, I’m happy to do that.”