Why Did Alabama Step Away From the Run Game vs FSU?

On Alabama's opening drive against Florida State, the Crimson Tide ran the ball 12 times for 55 yards, averaging 4.58 yards per carry. The drive was capped by a play-action pass from Ty Simpson to Josh Cuevas for a two-yard touchdown, where the FSU defense had to respect the running back's threat to get the football.

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For the rest of the game, Alabama rushed the ball 17 times for 32 yards, averaging 1.88 yards per carry. On the Crimson Tide's second drive, when Florida State still had to respect the run game, Alabama ran the ball just twice for three yards. That drive ended in a missed 53-yard field goal by Conor Talty.

Alabama went away from the run game after it worked on the first drive of the game. Why? Alabama offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb was asked that question on Monday during his press conference.

"I think some of it, probably the later part is, you know the run game can be a softening process at times, and you hope that you can play with the lead or get into that third and fourth quarter and really put the hammer down on the run game," Grubb said. "And obviously, we didn’t get that opportunity late in the football game. We were playing from behind there for a little bit.

"So that certainly is part of it. I think that some of the run hits and adjustments that they made at some point, we had to try to overcome that. And they did. We had some nice third-quarter run hits, but we gotta keep the lead and stay ahead of the chains. The biggest part for us was honestly just staying on the field, the third downs. Being able to stay out there and sustain the run gunning game and have that nice first drive like we had with some good first-down runs. So, we’ve got to have some more efficiency on first and second down to keep the run game alive."

Alabama has not had a running back rush for 100 yards since Jam Miller did so against the USF Bulls in Alabama's 42-16 win last season at home. When will the Tide have another running back clear 100 yards?

Wyatt Fulton is the Tide 100.9 DME and Brand Manager, primarily covering Alabama Crimson Tide football and men's basketball. For more Crimson Tide coverage, follow Wyatt on X (Formerly known as Twitter) at @FultonW_.