Ryan Grubb spent Monday talking to Alabama’s running backs about patience. With LSU waiting in Baton Rouge, that lesson may matter just as much for him.
The Crimson Tide heads into Saturday with its season hanging in the balance. Alabama has already used up its two mulligans with back-to-back October losses to Georgia and Tennessee, and now it enters what looks like a College Football Playoff elimination game in Death Valley. LSU brings momentum into the matchup, while Alabama is staring at the possibility of a third loss and a second missed playoff in three years.
Coming out of the bye week, Grubb focused on the ground game and why it has to hold up against LSU. With a young quarterback in Keelon Russell, Alabama cannot afford to put the whole night on his shoulders. The offense needs the run game to function, and it needs it to function early.
That was the message Grubb delivered to his backs.
“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.”
That advice lands with a bit of irony, because Alabama fans have been asking for the same thing from Grubb for two seasons now. He has not always shown the patience needed to build a run game against quality defenses. Too often, the play-calling has seemed geared toward chasing the explosive shot instead of letting the ground game breathe.
And that’s the real issue heading into Saturday: the backs can only be patient if the coordinator is willing to be patient with them.
Alabama cannot walk into Baton Rouge and ask Russell to carry everything. The Tide needs the offensive line, the tight ends, and the receivers to help create space for Daniel Hill, Trae'shawn Brown, and, hopefully, EJ Crowell. If the run game is going to matter, it has to be a full-team effort.
It also has to be stubborn.
That’s the part LSU defensive coordinator Blake Baker would love to see Alabama abandon. If Grubb gives up on the run and turns the Tide into a one-dimensional passing offense, LSU’s pass rush can start hunting Russell. That’s the kind of game script that invites negative plays, turnovers, and a long afternoon for Alabama.
The Tide can’t survive much of that. It probably can’t survive any of it.
A near-perfect performance is going to be required to beat LSU on the road, and the Alabama version we’ve seen over the last three games won’t be enough. Neither will the version of Grubb that has shown up as the Crimson Tide’s offensive coordinator over 23 games.
Maybe the bye week gave him a chance to look hard at his own tendencies and clean some things up. If it did, Alabama still has a shot to pull off the upset and keep its playoff hopes alive. If it didn’t, the same offensive issues that have surfaced against the best defenses on the schedule could show up again, and Death Valley could end up being where the season slips away.
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