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TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — You look at the Southeastern Conference’s rushing leaders and the names aren’t the ones who were being touted during the preseason.
Cameron Artis-Payne of Auburn was the first player to top 1,000 yards this season, while Mississippi State’s Josh Robinson is the only other tailback averaging more than 100 per game. Georgia’s Nick Chubb is matching Robinson’s 6.7 per-carry average, while Arkansas’ Jonathan Williams and Alex Collins are right behind them.
Not among the league leaders, though, are Alabama’s T.J. Yeldon and Derrick Henry, who for the most part have split the load for the Crimson Tide. Yet even quarterbacks Dak Prescott and Nick Marshall have more rushing yards heading into the final few games of the regular season.
“I think the running backs have played really, really well,” Coach Nick Saban said. “They’ve worked hard. I think they’ve done a good job. I think they’ve been responsible to respond the right way to whatever we’ve asked them to do.
“Sometimes their production has not been what it needs to be, not solely on what they’ve done. We’ve got to block and finish blocks and do a better job up front and get in the right play so they have a chance to be more productive.”
Senior right tackle Austin Shepherd eluded to the same thing when he mentioned, “We hadn’t really put the offensive line together like we wanted to all game,” when talking about Alabama’s game-tying drive against LSU last Saturday.
Granted, a lot of it had to do with the Tigers’ defense, as the Crimson Tide barely topped 100 rushing yards and averaged 3.76 per carry. What no one seemed to notice was that average was better than LSU’s 3.3, which tallied 183 yards on the ground thanks to 56 carries.
Alabama’s rushing yards by game
West Virginia 49-288 (5.88)
FAU 32-190 (5.94)
Southern Miss 49-333 (6.79)
Florida 52-223 (4.29)
Ole Miss 44-168 (3.82)
Arkansas 32-66 (2.06)
Texas A&M 45-298 (6.62)
Tennessee 41-183 (4.46)
LSU 29-106 (3.76)
Overall, Alabama is averaging 206.1 rushing yards per game, which ranks seventh in the SEC and is tied for 34th nationally – down from finishing 16th last season when it averaged 227.5 rushing yards per game and 5.59 per carry.
Yeldon, who has fallen off the pace to become Alabama’s all-time leading rusher this season (with 3,029, he needs 537 to break Shaun Alexander’s career record of 3,565), is 11th in the SEC with 135 carries for 686 rushing yards.
“T.J.’s had a great year for us and played really, really well,” Saban said last week. “Hopefully we’re going to be able to continue to make him a guy that we can feature in our games and continue to be productive.”
Henry is 15th with 111 attempts for 554 yards.
“I thought he probably had his best game up at Tennessee,” Saban said. “I think it’s going to be important for him to continue to do that because his role’s probably going to get expanded even more as we get late in the season here.”
Here are four important facets when it comes to Alabama’s running game this fall:
1) Injuries
Yeldon is obviously dealing with an ankle issue as both he had Derrick Henry (shoulder) have had with bump and bruises all season. Junior Kenyan Drake was also lost for the season due a leg fracture sustained against Ole Miss.
“I think it’s huge to have him,” Shepherd said about Yeldon.
Most of the blockers have had setbacks as well. Senior tight end Brian Vogler (ankle, knee) has been gutting out so many setbacks that he’s probably on a first-name basis with even the interns in the trainer’s room. Junior center Ryan Kelly missed two games with a sprained knee, senior tackle Austin Shepherd sustained an ankle and knee injury in the same game, and senior guard Arie Kouandjio played through an ankle problem.
Most recently Cam Robinson sustained an ankle injury against Tennessee that required surgery, but the freshman left tackle took every snap just two weeks later at LSU.
“I think it’s really amazing to me that Cam has played as well as he’s played this entire year as a freshman and the improvement he was making prior to his injury was really pretty astonishing,” Saban said. “He was playing as well as any offensive lineman that we have.
“I think that he’s recovered from his injury and he was probably close to 100 percent in the game. What people don’t really factor in is he wasn’t able to practice as much so it affected his preparation for the game a little bit, which had to affect his performance to some degree or why would we ever have practice if it doesn’t help you play better.”
2) The balanced approach
When you hear about a “balanced” offense, nowadays that ideally means even yards, not play-calls. That’s not close, as Alabama has had 387 rushing attempts compared to 287 in the air.
But Alabama was already sliding that way last year, when it had 2,673 rushing yards compared to 3,063 passing. This season, the Crimson Tide, while playing at a faster pace, has 1,855 rushing yards compared to 2,531 passing.
Specifically, last year it had 35.46 carries per game compared to 28.07 pass attempts. That worked out to 63.53 plays per game, with 55.8 percent of them on the ground.
This season Alabama is averaging 41.4 carries and 32.6 pass attempts per game. Even with the Florida Atlantic game called early due to inclement weather the Crimson Tide is executing 10-plus more plays per game at 74.0, with 55.9 percent of the plays on the ground.
So believe it or not, Alabama has almost the exact same run-to-pass ratio with Lane Kiffin as offensive coordinator.
3) Turnovers
Yeldon’s lost fumble at LSU was obviously related to his ankle injury, but it was No. 11 for the Crimson Tide this season.
“We’ve been emphasizing it all year, so I don’t know how you emphasize something that’s so important any more,” Saban said. “So maybe we ought to de-emphasize it because we emphasized it like crazy. Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe when you tell somebody something too much they start thinking it.”
Alabama has already matched last year’s total of 14 fumbles overall, with 10 lost– which coaches considered way too high as it ranked 72nd out of 123 teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision.
Over the previous seven years Alabama had 125 fumbles, and 60 lost, for an average of 17.8 and 8.6 per season. The best season was 2011 with 12 fumbles and just four lost, followed by 2009 with 16 and seven respectively.
Alabama turnover ratio during Saban era
2007 +4
2008 +6
2009 +19
2010 +11
2011 +8
2012 +14
2013 +2
2014 -2 (so far)
However, this isn’t something that can be pinned on Yeldon and Henry. Yeldon has had just two fumbles this season, and the one at LSU was his first lost. Henry has never fumbled with the Crimson Tide.
4) No big gains
Simply put, the running backs have put in a lot of work without the big payoff. Alabama is averaging 5.0 yards per attempt, which is down as the running backs have barely broken any carries into open field.
Alabama’s biggest gain on the ground has been the 43-yard touchdown by quarterback Blake Sims at Tennessee. The longest by a running back was the 31-yard carry against Texas A&M by, who is averaging a full yard less than his career average before this season.
While Alabama leads the league in rushing defense at 89.8 yards per game, almost 30 yards better than second-place Florida, its two remaining opponents, Mississippi State (3:30 p.m. ET, CBS) and Auburn, are third and fifth respectively.
In other words, it won’t be easy getting the rushing numbers closer to what was expected.
“The season’s not over yet,” Kouandjio said.
Christopher Walsh has covered Alabama football since 2004 and is the author of 19 books. In his free time, he writes about college football.
