Former Alabama players sound off on Tide starting to abandon run game

A pair of former Alabama players are not happy with the current state of Alabama football’s rushing attack.

Kalen DeBoer said he was disappointed in the Tide’s run game against Texas A&M on Saturday. Alabama rushed for 68 yards on 28 carries against the Aggies. 19 of those carries went to running backs a week after Alabama’s running backs only ran the football 14 times against Tennessee.

“We gotta get back to work and make sure we’re continuing to execute, first of all, and be able to stack some plays on top of each other,” DeBoer said. “It’s okay for a couple yards; we get some negative yards and have guys that are unblocked at the point of attack or falling off blocks. Those are things that we gotta get back to the basics, and we gotta get better at.”

AJ McCarron and Trent Richardson shared their frustrations on “The Dynasty Podcast.”

“Why are we not running the ball?” McCarron asked. “When our offense has success, we are running the football and then we are play action off of that.”

Richardson feels Alabama is not sticking to running the football because the Tide’s staff is discouraged by short gains.

“I think it’s one of those things where like they get bored with the 3 to 4,” Richardson said. They so quick to abandon the run to get the big play. They got to realize running the ball is a grind.”

McCarron feels the Alabama offense will struggle when it returns to action on Nov. 7 against LSU if they don’t re-commit to running the football.

“We’re going to struggle if everything’s going to be on Keelon (Russell),” McCarron said. “And that’s not saying Keelon can’t handle it or he’s not a good player by any means. That’s saying you don’t do that to a young quarterback and you got to find ways to find success. So whether it’s running the ball or it’s other, you know, extensions of a run game, which are quick pass game and screen game, those are extensions of your run game that you have to implement within the offense. I want to see more rushing attempts or more screens to the halfbacks or more quick game, like help him out.”

Alabama will look to get its rushing attack back on track during its BYE week.