Ask Larry
By Larry Burton
Will the Alabama reign end with AJ leaving and if you think not, explain how long you think it will last?
Well, no team can win forever. But as for it ending because AJ is leaving, that won’t be the reason.
There were people who think that you can’t win with a first year quarterback and you seem to one of them. But oh ye of short memory, Greg McElroy won a championship as a rookie and so did AJ McCarron. Is it far fetched then to believe that another heralded ball slinger can’t do the same?
Certainly it’s been easier to win with someone like McCarron, but Alabama is not Alabama because of AJ McCarron. We are Alabama because the bench is full of number one recruiting classes just waiting their turn to be the next “stars”.
As for how long it will last, let’s look at it another way. No one knows if Alabama will continue to be the national champions every year, if you want to ask to how long they’ll be in contention to win it all, that’s easy.
Alabama will continue to be in contention for a championship for as long as Nick Saban continues to pull in top recruiting classes. That is the fuel that makes this Alabama machine run. As long as Saban is the head coach, he’ll continue to hire good assistants and the coaching will be there, so as long as Saban and Alabama are the “flavor of the week” to recruits as they have been, they’ll be in the hunt year in and year out.
Once you start hearing that Alabama signed the nation’s 14th best recruiting class, you can start to worry. Till then, it will continue.
Who is the person you expected to show more this year than they have so far and why do you believe that to be the case?
That’s simple, at least to me, it’s Derrick Henry. Henry was supposed to be a Richardson/Lacy clone with more size and muscle. Given his high school stats and his 6’3″, 240 pound frame, he was supposed to simply mow over defenders, but that simply hasn’t happened.
I expected him to be a much used third man in the rotation based on what I heard from the staff during his recruiting.
So what happened?
Last week in three attempts he rushed for 20 yards. It sounds good until you realize that one of those runs was a 23 yard run. That meant the other two attempts lost yardage and that was against a tired Vol team during mop up duty. So that 7.6 yard per carry suddenly doesn’t sound too great after all.
Half his season’s yardage came against the pitiful Pigs from Arkansas where he rushed for 111 yards, 80 on just one carry. When you have so few carries as he does, that really skews your average to look better than it does. Right now is season average is 21 attempts for 211 yards and that computes to an average of 10.29 yards a carry.
But again, that is late game carries in mop up duty against a worn our team with a losing record against all SEC teams. What’s distressing is, take the Arkansas game for example, they don’t stop many running backs at all. If you took out that one 80 yard run, then Henry was 5 carries for a 6.2 yard per carry average after the defense was dead on it’s feet. Kenyan Drake averaged 13.00 yards a carry against fresh troops and TJ Yeldon averaged 7.3 yards per carry against those same fresh men.
So what’s wrong? Henry will be the first to admit that that things were much easier in high school. In high school he was a man among boys, unconcerned with having to pick up defenders in passing situations or even learning a thick play book. He told reporters once that they either handed him the ball or tossed him the ball and he just “did his own thing” and made things happen.
Learning to work in a structured environment like Alabama has been a challenge. The rule of getting playing time at Alabama as a running back is, if you can’t block for others, you don’t play and picking up those blocking schemes has been a chore for Henry.
The bright side of the all this is however, that he’s young and he’s learning it now, so he’ll be ready when and if Yeldon and Drake aren’t there.
You like looking ahead, how does next year’s schedule look and who will be our toughest games and what do you think the final tally for wins will be?
In case you haven’t seen the schedule, here it is….
| Date | Opponent | Site |
|---|---|---|
| Aug. 30 | West Virginia | Atlanta, Ga. |
| Sept. 6 | Florida Atlantic | Bryant-Denny Stadium |
| Sept. 20 | *Florida | Bryant-Denny Stadium |
| Oct. 4 | *at Ole Miss | Oxford, Miss. |
| Oct. 11 | *at Arkansas | Fayetteville, Ark. |
| Oct. 18 | *Texas A&M | Bryant-Denny Stadium |
| Oct. 25 | *at Tennessee | Knoxville, Tenn. |
| Nov. 8 | *at LSU | Baton Rouge, La. |
| Nov. 15 | *Mississippi State | Bryant-Denny Stadium |
| Nov. 22 | Western Carolina | Bryant-Denny Stadium |
| Nov. 29 | *Auburn | Bryant-Denny Stadium |
*Southeastern Conference (SEC) opponent Orange games – Could be a test
Bold indicates home game Red games – Danger Game
Looking at this schedule, the things to remember will be Texas A&M will be without Manziel next year, Florida will still be unsettled on offense, Tennessee, West Virginia and Arkansas will still be getting rebuilt and Mississippi State will still be a dog.
Ole Miss could give them a test, but doesn’t have the horses to win and Auburn could be rebuilt enough to test the Tide also. But the only team that could threaten the Tide with a real game will be LSU.
Personally, I think it’s a VERY easy schedule and that Alabama could very well continue their streak of having a rookie quarterback lead the Tide to a national championship. That could be the most impressive “three-peat” in college football.
Larry is an award winning writer whose work has appeared in almost every college football venue. Now he primarily writes for Touchdown Alabama Magazine. https://twitter.com/LBSportswriter
