re: Anyone who watched on TV or analyzed : deal with running game?

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I doubt Key would have a clue how to truly teach a zone blocking scheme like Joe Pendry ran

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Alabama only gained 109 rushing yards on 28 carries last week against Texas A&M. And in four weeks, the Crimson Tide’s rushing offense ranks sixth in the SEC with 204.75 yards per game.

As a result, PeeWee from Grand Bay, Ala., called into Nick Saban’s weekly radio show, which is located at Baumhower’s Victory Grille, to give his take on the offensive line’s play, and he noted Alabama’s front five did not perform well in the run game against the Aggies. And so, he asked Saban how the linemen approached this week to be able to correct their shortcomings.

Saban provided a lengthy answer to the question, which can be read in its entirety below.

“I think there’s a couple things at work here, and I’m not making excuses for the offensive line because there are times we have to be able to run the ball in the game,” Saban said. “And some of those time, we have not done it successfully, even at this point. Whether it’s taking the air out of the ball at the end of the game when you go four-minute, you don’t give the ball back to the other team. We’ve consistently done that in games where the defense ends up playing a lot of plays in the fourth quarter. And I don’t care who’s playing the game, but if it’s a one-score game, that’s not something that you really ever want to do. You’ve got to be able to run the ball in the red area, aight.

“But let me take you back. I told everyone that we were going to have a different kind of team this year, aight. When you have a quarterback like we have and you throw RPOs and you’re an offensive lineman and they call 25 runs in the game and 20 times, the quarterback pulls the ball, throws it down the field, aight, and you’re blocking your tail off up front, and then all of the sudden, he hands the ball off and you don’t block the play very well. So, it’s not like the old days, aight. It’s not like you and I, when we grew up and played, where coach called 26 Power, and we’re running 26 Power mud, flood, shite or blood, man. We’re going to run 26 Power. It don’t matter who’s there or what’s there, we’re going to run 26 Power, and you knew you had to get a double team, you knew you had to get a kick out. It’s not like that anymore, aight.

“If we run 26 Power and they’ve got an extra in the box, you throw X Slant and make 25 yards and everybody says, ‘Oh, boy. That was great.’ But we didn’t block the Power very well. So then we have to block the Power, we don’t block it very well. So, my point is is I’m not taking up for anything or anybody, but you’ve got to look at the whole thing from 1,000 feet, aight. And when you do that, you see there’s a lot of explosive plays that are created because the style of offense that we have that make it very difficult for the defense.

“On the other hand, I want to agree with you that we need to be able to control the line of scrimmage better because there’s always times when you have to run the ball in the game. And we have really good running backs, aight, so we have to be able to utilize their skill, and they’re all good receivers, so they’ve all contributed in the passing game, as well, by catching passes. So, this is a little bit of a philosophical thing, aight. And I even tell them on offense, ‘You can’t have an RPO this time, aight. We’re in team run, you can’t run an RPO. You’ve got to run the ball, they’ve got to know you’ve got to run it and we’re going to run it and the defense is going to play it, aight, and we’re going to see who wins.’

“And gaining three or four yards is not bad, it’s not bad. We just don’t want to have negative plays. And I think sometimes the expectation that we have as a fanbase, as a coaching staff is that every play that we run is going to be hugely successful. We’re going to gain 20 yards on every time we run the ball, and we’re going to gain 20 yards every time we throw it. And I think you’ve got to give the other team a little bit of credit. Texas A&M had a really good front seven. They played physical, they played hard in the game. We never got to the point where they said, ‘uncle.’ They never gave up in the game. I mean, they were calling timeout at the end, trying to score another touchdown.

“So, that’s not a good thing from our standpoint in terms of how we want to sort of physically control and dominate a game. But again, it’s not really the style of play that has been successful for us so far. So, if we want to take all those big plays away -- 11 explosive passes, aight, over 20 yards last week, aight, and the 600 yards we’re gaining in the game, aight, because we’re doing what we’re doing -- if we want to take that all away, aight, and … play what I call wad ball where everybody gets in the box and see if we can gain three yards. We can go back to that, if that’s what y’all want. We can do that. I mean, I’m fine with that. PeeWee, is that what you want to do? (No answer). Aight. Well then, let’s give the offensive line a little bit of credit.”

Alabama will host UL-Lafayette on Saturday, Sept. 29, at 11 a.m. CT at Bryant-Denny Stadium.

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