TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — A 55-0 win with more than 550 yards of total offense rarely comes with negatives in college football.
Most fans, coaches and players can take comfort in the fact that their team had a strong offensive performance and pitched a shutout on defense. This week, Alabama head coach Nick Saban was pleased with how he team played against Utah State in all aspects except one — the running game.
The Crimson Tide tallied 278 rushing yards in the win with Bryce Young leading all rushers with 107 yards. Subtract the quarterback's performance and Alabama's running backs recorded 174 rushing yards on 24 carries. However, it wasn't necessarily the number of rushing yards that raised some cause for concern with Saban.
When asked how he would describe the team's rushing performance, the 16-year head coach summed it up in one word.
"Inconsistent," Saban said. "Like I said, after the game, it was a big little. We made a couple of really explosive plays in the running game, but the down-in and down-out consistency to have positive runs and not having negative plays was not where we want it. It's something that we want to improve on, but I wasn't disappointed at all in the way we played. They did a lot of stunting and moving up front, which we sort of expected. We didn't always pick it up exactly right. Sometimes they were able to create some negative plays with it, so definitely need to work on those things."
While Young became the first quarterback to surpass the 100-yard rushing mark since Jalen Hurts did it against Ole Miss in 2017, a majority of those yards came when he scrambled, not a designed run.
As for the running backs, the group did not begin to find success on the ground until the second half, tallying just 46 yards in the first 30 minutes against an Aggies defense that allowed 245 rushing yards to UConn a week before.
While there is no clear-cut answer as to why it took Alabama so long to get the ground game going, a revolving door at both guard spots did not aid the situation.
According to Pro Football Focus, the Crimson Tide struggled to run the ball to the left side of the offensive line, averaging less than four yards per attempt whether it was through the tackle or out on the edge.
Starting right guard, Emil Ekiyor Jr. did not start the game because he missed "five days of practice" due to an illness, according to Saban. As a result, starting left guard Kendall Randolph shifted over to right guard in the first quarter, while Javion Cohen filled in for the graduate student.
As the game wore on, Alabama began to find more success on the ground highlighted by Jahmyr Gibbs' 58-yard dash to begin the third quarter. Despite the struggles, Gibbs finished the game with 93 rushing yards on nine carries. Jase McClellan was the most productive off of the bench tallying 23 yards on five carries to go with his two receiving touchdowns.
This week, the Crimson Tide running backs will face a tougher matchup as Texas limited Louisiana-Monroe to a 2.2-yard rushing average, totaling 92 yards on 41 attempts. The test did not shake Young's confidence in the five-man unit on Monday, who praised the offensive line on its ability to play fast and physical up front.
"We got some tough looks sometimes, but they did a great job of picking stuff up, of firing off the ball in the run game, creating a lot of open holes for our running backs to take advantage of," Young said. "There are some new faces (but) for this to be that unit's first game, I feel like they did a great job. I have all the confidence in the world with them."
