Alabama Football: Buckeyes biggest threat to Tide not Justin Fields
By Ronald Evans
Performance of Top Rushers vs. Crimson Tide
The Alabama football defense has competed against six running backs, who on the season, averaged five or more yards-per-carry. The Crimson Tide did a good job controlling the production of four of them. One ran up yards close to his seasonal average. The sixth one was one of the Ole Miss running backs Cole Cubelic mentioned. Jerrion Ealy bettered his season average of 5.07 yards-per-carry against the Crimson Tide, Ealy averaged 6.03 yards against the Crimson Tide.
The other running back who bettered his season’s average against the Alabama football defense was Georgia’s Zamir White. White had a 5.41 average for the season and on 10 carries against the Crimson Tide, he averaged 5.7 yards.
The other four failed to reach their season average numbers against the Tide defense. The most recent of the group was Notre Dame’s Kyren Williams. Williams averaged four yards-per-carry in the CFBP semi-final, enhanced by one of his ten runs going for 15 yards. His season average was 5.33 yards.
The remaining three running backs were held in check even more by the Tide defense. Arkansas Razorback, Trelon Smith rushed for a 3.6-yard average against the Tide compared to a season number of 5.3 yards. Auburn’s Tank Bigsby averaged 6.04 yards throughout the season but reached only a 3.5 yard average against the Tide. Jimbo Fisher’s top runner, Isaiah Spiller, averaged 5.51 yards for the season, but just 2.3 yards against the Crimson Tide.
Trey Sermon may be better than the other running backs mentioned. He runs behind a good offensive line. He is tough to stop. The 331 yards rushed by Sermon against Northwestern included 197 yards after contact.
The Alabama Crimson Tide will have to tackle better than did the Wildcats. But the Tide defense should not have to stop Sermon. It should be enough to limit his explosive plays and his, short-yardage, first down success. The bottom line; the Tide must make Justin Fields beat them rather than Trey Sermon.
Next. Other key matchups against the Buckeyes. dark
This opinion on the importance of Trey Sermon to the Ohio State offense is shared by Joey Galloway. Alabama football fans don’t always agree with Galloway, but we do when it comes to Sermon.