Alabama Football: SEC’s best rushing team is not Arkansas
By Ronald Evans
While trying to hone up on the Arkansas offense, I keep seeing it being said Rocket Sanders is the SEC’s top running back. After diving into Alabama football stats and also the stats for Sanders, I disagree with that conclusion.
Before discussing stats for individual running backs, let’s take a close look at team rushing results across the SEC. The only rushing stat where the Razorbacks lead the SEC is rushing attempts. The Hogs have run the ball 200 times in four games. Next closest is Ole Miss with 194 rushing attempts. The Alabama Crimson Tide is 12th in the SEC with 128 attempts.
Based on quality rather than quantity, Alabama has the best team rushing average in the SEC. Quality is defined as average yards-per-carry. Alabama Football is 1st in the SEC with a 7.34 average yards-per-carry. Admittedly, Bryce Young’s rushing average of 9.38 yards drives the Tide’s team stat.
The SEC team closest to the Crimson Tide is Ole Miss with a 5.79-yard average. Arkansas is No. 7 at 4.88 yards.
An interesting aside is the Kentucky Wildcats are No. 7 in the AP Poll with the SEC’s lowest rushing average of 2.41 yards. With Cats’ running back, Chris Rodriquez Jr. returning this week, Kentucky’s offense may be too much for any SEC East team other than Georgia.
Alabama Football Running Backs
The highest rushing, average yards-per-carry for an SEC running back belongs to Jase McClellan at 8.75 yards. Check out the next nine SEC running back, rushing numbers below.
- Montrell Johnson (Florida) – 7.82 yards
- Jamarion Miller (Alabama) – 7.3 yards
- Jahmyr Gibbs (Alabama) – 6.88 yards
- Dillon Johnson (Mississippi State) – 6.5 yards
- Trevor Etienne (Florida) – 6.48 yards
- Zach Evans (Ole Miss) – 6.19 yards
- Quinshon Judkins (Ole Miss) – 6.13 yards
- Rocket Sanders (Arkansas) – 6.12 yards
- Roydell Williams (Alabama) – 6.12 yards
An interesting comparison is the SEC’s No. 20 running back for average yards is Auburn’s Tank Bigsby. Bigsby is arguably as good as, or better than the SEC’s top 10 running backs listed above. The problem for Bigsby is having to run behind Auburn’s offensive line. He averages 4.93 yards-per-carry.
By a large margin, the Alabama defense leads the SEC in rushing yards allowed at 1.84 yards. The No. 2 team is Tennessee at 2.96 yards. Arkansas is No. 3 at 3.15 yards.
How well Arkansas can rush against the Crimson Tide will be a key to Saturday’s outcome. Vanderbilt’s Ray Davis has a rushing average of 4.96 yards. Against Alabama, Davis rushed 11 times for 17 yards.
Note: Most of the stats in this post were provided by cfbstats.com
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For the record, Arkansas is capable of running successfully against the Crimson Tide. Hogs’ QB, KJ Jefferson is such a running threat, Alabama might put a spy on him most of the game.