We know where to find Alabama’s ground attack every season, and that’ll be somewhere among the top five in the SEC like it’s been on an annual basis.

It’s like clockwork as the Crimson Tide have finished there in all but two of nine seasons under coach Nick Saban: one of them being his debut year in Tuscaloosa in 2007, while the other came in 2014 … when they placed sixth.

Actually, the conference rankings can be misleading because Alabama averaged more yards in 2014 (206.6) than it did last season (199.9), falling a hair short of the 200-yard mark for the first time since 2010.

That’s why it’s a good thing that we’re comparing Alabama’s running game to itself here rather than the rest of the conference.

A trend will continue this season as the Tide are guaranteed to have a fourth different starting quarterback in as many years, meaning the team will rely heavily on its ball-carriers, but can it do so with as much confidence as it did in 2015 with a Heisman Trophy winner?

While the backfield has been a backbone of the Alabama dynasty, there will be more question marks there than usual as the team also tries to answer who will be under center.

ROTATION

It will take a stable of running backs to replace Derrick Henry, who set single-season SEC records for carries (395), rushing yards (2,219) and rushing TDs (28) last season on the way to winning college football’s most prestigious award.

A pair of sophomores in Bo Scarbrough and Damien Harris will be the ones sharing the load in Lane Kiffin’s offense as Ronnie Clark is expected to miss the 2016 season with an Achilles tear.

Both backs have good size as Scarbrough weighs in at 230 pounds and Harris checks in at 215. Harris showed his potential as one of the lone bright spots on offense in the team’s spring game, rushing 20 times for 114 yards while catching 2 passes for 20 yards and winning the most valuable player award for his performance.

Fans got to see Harris’ quickness and explosiveness that day, and what’s promising is that he had been the second-stringer to Scarbrough, who lit it up during spring scrimmages.

Scarbrough and Harris were five-star prospects coming out of high school, and incoming signee B.J. Emmons was the second-best running back in the Class of 2016. Another incoming signee, all-purpose back Joshua Jacobs, is another option that could work his way into the mix.

There’s no shortage of talent, just a lack of experience.

CHASING 1,000

Alabama has had seven 1,000-yard rushers over the last decade as Arkansas (10) and Auburn (nine) are the only ones with more (Missouri has had seven but played in the Big 12 prior to joining the SEC in 2012).

Here are the Tide rushers who have reached that milestone since 2006:

2008: Glen Coffee, 1,383 yards
2009: Mark Ingram: 1,658 yards
2011: Trent Richardson, 1,679 yards
2012: Eddie Lacy, 1,322 yards
2012: T.J. Yeldon, 1,108 yards
2013: T.J. Yeldon, 1,235 yards
2015: Derrick Henry, 2,219 yards

This season, we expect this to be a true committee approach, possibly similar to the production the team got from Mark Ingram (875 yards), Trent Richardson (700) and Eddie Lacy (406) back in the 2010 season.

While no single player hit the plateau that year, the rotation resulted in ever-fresh legs that averaged 5.1 yards per carry, second-best in the SEC. If Emmons, Jacobs or someone else can emerge as a third option, Alabama could replicate that in 2016.

PLAY-CALLING

As expected, the Tide was a run-first team last season, handing the ball off 115 more times than it took to the air on first down (302 compared to 187, according to cfbstats.com). That’s 61.8 percent of the time.

That’s understandable when you have a 6-foot-3, 242-pound Heisman winner in the backfield as well as a great second option in Kenyan Drake (77 carries, 408 yards).

The team’s bruising running attack routinely wore down opponents, and that’s evidenced by 50 explosive runs of 10-plus yards in the second half compared to 34 in the first half.

That can also be seen in how well the team did with a significant lead. Alabama averaged 5.3 yards per carry when holding a lead of 15 points or more and averaged a combined 4.5 in all other situations.

While Jacob Coker improved as the season went on, it was due to better efficiency and not volume. In fact, Kiffin called in the narrow window of 24 to 27 passes in eight of the team’s last nine games to close the season.

While the team was able to use the running game in the early portion of 2015 to sort out its quarterback situation, it’s possible that Alabama’s aerial attack — and all its awesome weapons like Calvin Ridley, ArDarius Stewart, Robert Foster and O.J. Howard — will need to pull its own weight in the young season.

Expect a balanced offense, at least through September, as two tough games vs. USC and at Ole Miss loom over the first three weeks of the season.

GREATEST CONCERN

Right now, the elephant in the room is star LT Cam Robinson and the uncertainty surrounding his availability. He was arrested and charged with two misdemeanors and one felony for possession of a stolen firearm in mid-May. His arraignment is scheduled for June 16.

While some in Tuscaloosa assume Alabama’s offensive line will be fine despite his potential absence, replacing a First-Team All-SEC left tackle is not easy.

The same can be said about filling the void left by Rimington Award winner Ryan Kelly, but it looks as though Ross Pierschbacher has erased some of those concerns by moving to center from left guard.

Clark’s injury just two days prior to to the team’s spring game was also a blow to the team’s depth in the backfield. That makes Scarbrough and Harris’ health vital to the team’s production there, so the team needs those incoming signees in Emmons and Jacobs to get up to speed quickly.

ONE STAT THAT MUST IMPROVE

A couple areas that Alabama did struggle in last season came in spots you wouldn’t figure a team would with a monstrous running back like Henry, and that was in the red zone and on third downs.

Alabama’s running game wasn’t really to blame. Nonetheless, the Tide converted just 35 TDs in 62 trips to the red zone for a 56.5 percent rate that ranked eighth in the SEC, just behind Florida and ahead of Kentucky.

The team averaged 3.1 yards per carry there, and while that may not seem good, it was still one of only a handful in the conference to average 3 yards per carry from that range, so it would be nit-picky to say that played a factor.

Meanwhile, Alabama did rank ninth in the SEC by converting just 37.4 percent of third downs, sandwiched by another pair of lowly offensive teams from 2015 in Kentucky and Vanderbilt.

The men in crimson will have to improve in the red area and on the money down. Scarbrough, Harris and the rest of the backfield will play a big part in that.

BETTER OR WORSE IN 2016

Alabama’s running game featured a Heisman-winning workhorse the likes of which the running back-rich SEC hadn’t seen in a very long time. Meanwhile, Drake had nearly 700 yards from scrimmage, including 276 receiving yards that ranked third among SEC running backs.

That’s two players gone that were taken in the second and third round, respectively, in last year’s NFL Draft.

Plus, Robinson’s situation and Pierschbacher’s transition to a spot once anchored by a standout, three-year starter is something to watch. That makes it impossible to say that the Tide’s running game will be better than last season’s.