It's do-or-die time for Alabama football entering November. The Crimson Tide faces a likely College Football Playoff elimination game this Saturday in Baton Rouge against LSU, having already burned their two mulligans in back-to-back losses to Georgia and Tennessee in October.
It's going to take the best effort of the season for Alabama to have a chance to pull an upset in Death Valley. LSU has significant momentum, and a once-promising Crimson Tide season could be on the brink of a disappointing third loss and a second missed playoff in three years.
Fresh off the bye week, Ryan Grubb took the podium on Monday and talked about the importance of the Crimson Tide's ground game against LSU. In a challenging environment with a young QB, Alabama needs to run the ball effectively to avoid putting too much on Keelon Russell's shoulders.
Grubb's message to his RB room on Monday was all about patience. An ironic thought, considering how Alabama fans have been begging him to have patience with the run game for two seasons.
“You gotta run disciplined, and you gotta run physical," Grubb said. "What I mean by that is don’t pass on the four-yard run. Against a defense like this, if there’s a crack there we’ve got to take it. We can’t be greedy and think about ‘what if I bounce this one.’ Just gotta follow their rules, be disciplined, and run aggressively and with belief. I believe our guys can run the football on these guys.
..."For us it’s going to be staying disciplined with the read and keeping the ball moving forward and being patient for the big one.”
Ryan Grubb must take his own advice with Alabama's run game against LSU
Grubb has yet to prove he has the patience to establish the run against quality opponents. Too often, he's searching for that big play. The runs feel more like throwaway plays than something he's building on.
So while it's good advice to Alabama's running backs to be patient and take what the defense is giving you, it's even more important that Grubb hears his own words and uses them with his play-calling on Saturday afternoon in Baton Rouge.
Putting the entire game on the shoulders of Russell is a recipe for disaster. As talented as Russell is, he cannot win this game by himself. Alabama has to run the ball effectively. That's going to take the offensive line, the tight ends, and the receivers all working together to open holes for Daniel Hill, Trae'shawn Brown, and, hopefully, EJ Crowell.
It's going to take patience from the backs.
More than anything, it's going to take patience and a stubbornness from the offensive coordinator. LSU DC Blake Baker would love nothing more than to see Grubb totally give up on the run game and become a one-dimensional passing offense.
That would allow LSU's elite pass rush to tee off and get after Russell, likely leading to tons of negative plays and turnovers that could turn this game into a blowout.
Alabama can't afford a lot of negative plays. They can't really afford any turnovers. It's going to take a near-perfect game to beat this LSU team on the road.
The version of Alabama we've seen in the last three games won't get it done. The version of Grubb as a play-caller we've seen across his 23 games as the Crimson Tide's OC won't get it done, either.
Perhaps the bye week allowed Grubb to self-scout and evaluate his own faults. If it did, Alabama has a real chance to pull out the win and take a huge step toward the CFP. If not, the struggling unit we've seen against the best defenses Alabama has faced will rear its head again, and Death Valley will be the place the Tide's dreams go to die.
Add us as a preferred source on Google