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The running game... or lack thereof

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davefrat said:
High risk, high reward…bend but don’t break…compact the field within your own thirty and play good red zone defense.

It is what it is, it has worked pretty well so far this season save for one game…that said, it gives me the heebies and the jeebies.

But it seems that the days of defenses dominating games are all but gone anymore.
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I agree & dont get me wrong, we haven't been bad, butttt, there's been times sheme wise & play calling on the D side of the ball..

It's made you scratch your head & make you say what are we doing, in this style of D, it's high risk high reward & you're prone too giving up big plays..

We've giving up big plays & TD's I thought were strictly caused by bad play calling..
 
TideMan09 said:
I agree & dont get me wrong, we haven't been bad, butttt, there's been times sheme wise & play calling on the D side of the ball..

It's made you scratch your head & make you say what are we doing, in this style of D, it's high risk high reward & you're prone too giving up big plays..

We've giving up big plays & TD's I thought were strictly caused by bad play calling..
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There are certainly times where the defense looks like a confused clown show.
 
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BamaInBham said:
In this offense the running game is simply complementary to the passing game. That is the primary way you win big games.
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Originally I was going to post some stats, but then I waited until after the game to respond.

I won't bother.

The game made my point entirely in my opinion. If you overly-rely on QB play, it will catch up to you. You can lose to darn near anyone on your schedule by just being a little out of sync in the passing game. A few drops here, a few bad throws there, multiple drives get killed and the game can slip from your grasp. It's a glaring Achilles' heel.

Alabama had all the tools to dominate South Carolina. The problem is they funneled everything through a single choke-point, which is the passing game. Fortunately they still won, but the vulnerability was obvious. Alabama had multiple situations in the game where the simple ability to use running backs effectively would have benefited Alabama greatly. Instead they had to resort to trickery, or often failed attempts at simulating a running game.

If this was just this year, I'd say oh well it's just personnel. It's not just this year though (Haynes has 139 yards and 2 TDs today by the way). I've done my homework, it's followed Grubb and DeBoer throughout their careers. It's the weakness in their system and if it's not addressed these sort of things will continue. I think there's some effort on their part to do so mind you, but I can say this much, if this is the way things are, then championships will require the stars to align because consistency will never be there when you rely on a college kid's arm and big plays to dictate the outcome of all your games.
 
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KrAzY3 said:
Originally I was going to post some stats, but then I waited until after the game to respond.

I won't bother.

The game made my point entirely in my opinion. If you overly-rely on QB play, it will catch up to you. You can lose to darn near anyone on your schedule by just being a little out of sync in the passing game. A few drops here, a few bad throws there, multiple drives get killed and the game can slip from your grasp. It's a glaring Achilles' heel.

Alabama had all the tools to dominate South Carolina. The problem is they funneled everything through a single choke-point, which is the passing game. Fortunately they still won, but the vulnerability was obvious. Alabama had multiple situations in the game where the simple ability to use running backs effectively would have benefited Alabama greatly. Instead they had to resort to trickery, or often failed attempts at simulating a running game.

If this was just this year, I'd say oh well it's just personnel. It's not just this year though. I've done my homework, it's followed Grubb and DeBoer throughout their careers. It's the weakness in their system and if it's not addressed these sort of things will continue. I think there's some effort on their part to do so mind you, but I can say this much, if this is the way things are, then championships will require the stars to align because consistency will never be there when you rely on a college kid's arm and big plays to dictate the outcome of all your games.
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To be fair this has been an Alabama issue for the past few years, even before DeBoer came.

The line is average in a league where most defensive lines are above average. I’m not sold on the coaching. I haven’t been sold on the evaluation for a while.

Good news is a few portal pickups and the line could be improved quickly.

Bad news is I don’t think the program would invest a lot of money in the offensive line.
 
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I get concerned about the running game but then we just went through a five week gauntlet that no team has ever done successfully, but us. If I told you preseason our rushing stats, you’d have told me we’d be 4-4 or worse.
 
AlexanderFan said:
To be fair this has been an Alabama issue for the past few years, even before DeBoer came.
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That's actually what one of my earlier exchanges was about. I think the problem goes all the way back 2016, when Alabama started to over-rely on QB play. Since then I think they've only had three thousand yard rushers. Considering the talent, that's insane. I mean they had Gibbs and Jacobs, those guys alone have 5 thousand yard rushing seasons in the NFL. So while they let the QBs do too much, they were under-utilizing some of the best running backs in the world.

Anyway, I think it's easy to just go oh well, times have changed. Have they? Sure, Ohio State's QB last year threw for 4,000 yards and they had a dynamic passing attack. They also had two thousand yard rushers! I would argue that if there is a new path to success, if you're really not doing it like Alabama in 2009 or Michigan in 2023, that would be more like Alabama in 2020 or Ohio State last year. You have a wide open passing game but you compliment that with a running game that can hold it's own.

To reiterate though, I think like Sark in 2019, DeBoer is aware of the issue. He's talking about it in interviews, he isn't going oh well the running game is an afterthought, he's saying it needs to get better. But I've always been someone that tries to look forward and I think this is a very good team and a good coaching staff, with one major issue to address.
 
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KrAzY3 said:
Anyway, I think it's easy to just go oh well, times have changed. Have they? Sure, Ohio State's QB last year threw for 4,000 yards and they had a dynamic passing attack. They also had two thousand yard rushers! I would argue that if there is a new path to success, if you're really not doing it like Alabama in 2009 or Michigan in 2023, that would be more like Alabama in 2020 or Ohio State last year. You have a wide open passing game but you compliment that with a running game that can hold it's own.
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They also lost to Michigan at home, and played 3 ranked teams in the regular season. They were also gifted one of the easiest path to the championship in the playoffs (home vs Tennessee, a rematch against an Oregon team that was far more lucky than good, a Texas team on borrowed time, and a ND team no one saw coming).

Ohio State won because of their defense. Their offense feasted on archaic B1G defenses with archaic B1G offenses. Tennessee was probably one of the most flawed teams to reach the playoffs and Ohio State really exposed them quite easily.

Our running game is something that is alarming but it’s not because of some over reliance of the passing game. If anything our passing game is more hampered because of the volume of unnecessary runs. UGA, Mizzou, Tennessee, and USCe were games because we tried way to much trying to run.


As far as Haynes… I think it is unfair for 2 reasons. 1) Haynes was never used by BOTH Saban and DeBoer. So it isn’t just a DeBoer issue it’s also a Saban issue. 2) Michigan is piling up on a bunch of scrubs. Oklahoma and USC outside of 1 play held him in check. Yes he is a great talent but he isn’t nearly the dominant back that you are acting like he is.

The B1G isn’t full of great defensive lines like there are here.
 
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KrAzY3 said:
That's actually what one of my earlier exchanges was about. I think the problem goes all the way back 2016, when Alabama started to over-rely on QB play. Since then I think they've only had three thousand yard rushers. Considering the talent, that's insane. I mean they had Gibbs and Jacobs, those guys alone have 5 thousand yard rushing seasons in the NFL. So while they let the QBs do too much, they were under-utilizing some of the best running backs in the world.

Anyway, I think it's easy to just go oh well, times have changed. Have they? Sure, Ohio State's QB last year threw for 4,000 yards and they had a dynamic passing attack. They also had two thousand yard rushers! I would argue that if there is a new path to success, if you're really not doing it like Alabama in 2009 or Michigan in 2023, that would be more like Alabama in 2020 or Ohio State last year. You have a wide open passing game but you compliment that with a running game that can hold it's own.

To reiterate though, I think like Sark in 2019, DeBoer is aware of the issue. He's talking about it in interviews, he isn't going oh well the running game is an afterthought, he's saying it needs to get better. But I've always been someone that tries to look forward and I think this is a very good team and a good coaching staff, with one major issue to address.
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I agree. Heard an old coach say that 3 things can happen on a passing play and 2 of them are bad. There's been several times this season already that we had to rely on trickery or converting 4th down plays to keep a drive alive or score. Those plays don't always convert and several games this season already could look different had they not been successful. We need balance.
 
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I think DeBoer wants the running game to be better and a worthwhile complement and they have certainly called plenty of runs. Which is important for improvement.

I think our OL is clearly not a good run blocking unit. I do think we have younger guys who will be better next year, and a couple of good portal pick ups could speed that process. Brailsford is our best, but just small to go against SEC defensive lines. At some point you aren't going to move a guy that is 30-40 pounds heavier out of the way.

Likewise, I think our backs are hard working guys, but they seem to be the least talented group we've had in years. We had better production in the early Shula years playing 3rd and 4th stringers. They have no vision, aren't very fast, and just aren't what we've had in the past. We started slipping under Saban though, Jace and Roy were not as talented as what we've had before. I am hopeful we can get Dear and the new recruit ready for next year.

We also need to not try to force runs between the tackles... Part of our guys vision issue is that they are usually running into a solid brick wall that at bet is across the LOS.
 
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Outside of our center, our line plan is below average. We really dont have the personnel that CKD needs. Think about it nearly every player on the depth chart on the OL was recruited by Saban during his go big or go home recruiting movement.
 
Our offense, to me, needs to rely on our biggest talents, our starting four wide receivers, Brooks, Horton, Germie, and Ryan, plus our tight end Cuevas and QBTY Simpson. Our running game looks honestly to me to be our short passing game, by design. Simple truth we don't have a Derrick Henry or the like and our O-Line is better at pass protection rather than run blocking, that simple. So you adjust accordingly. Brooks was out Saturday and that made a huge difference. He's a Waddle type. Horton was also injured in the first Half and never returned. Those two injuries truly hurt us. But we overcame and found a way to win. I like this team a lot.They just keep on plugging and at the end of the season I think we'll all be happy. RTR!
 
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Alasippi2 said:
Our offense, to me, needs to rely on our biggest talents, our starting four wide receivers, Brooks, Horton, Germie, and Ryan, plus our tight end Cuevas and QBTY Simpson. Our running game looks honestly to me to be our short passing game, by design. Simple truth we don't have a Derrick Henry or the like and our O-Line is better at pass protection rather than run blocking, that simple. So you adjust accordingly. Brooks was out Saturday and that made a huge difference. He's a Waddle type. Horton was also injured in the first Half and never returned. Those two injuries truly hurt us. But we overcame and found a way to win. I like this team a lot.They just keep on plugging and at the end of the season I think we'll all be happy. RTR!
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You sound to me like the old Alasippi -- been gone a long time!
 
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I have to believe our OL issues are coaching we have not had a really good OL in several years. And we do need to recruit lean strong OL i stead of overweight guys who can't move fast enough on their feet
 
The only way we generate rushing yards is by throwing to the running backs.

But that isn’t rushing.

It is what it is, and we are who we are. Better learn to like it at this point. Could be worse—at least we have a qb who can distribute.

Nobody said this would be easy after all
 
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