Position Week: Bold predictions for Alabama’s running back room
BamaOnLine will spend the next 10 weeks breaking down position groups on Alabama’s 2024 roster leading up to the start of fall camp. We continue with the UA running back room.
To conclude RB week, the BOL team staff members shared their bold predictions for the fall.
Charlie Potter
Haynes and Miller will reach 125 carries apiece
It seems clear sitting here in May that Justice Haynes and Jamarion Miller are Alabama’s top running backs. It’s a deep room with a lot of talent, but the players behind them don’t have much, if any, experience. With that in mind, I think both Haynes and Miller have a chance to eclipse not only 100 carries each but 125 totes by the season’s end. That hasn’t happened for a pair of Crimson Tide tailbacks since 2016 with Damien Harris (146) and Bo Scarbrough (125), and that was a year where they shared the backfield with a mobile quarterback in Jalen Hurts (191 attempts). If it happens, Alabama will have a solid one-two punch to go along with a dynamic quarterback and some promising weapons in the passing game.
Travis Reier
Alabama running backs will account for more than 20 total touchdowns
They combined for 19 a season ago. Even with Jalen Milroe impacting the position from a scoring standpoint for a second straight season, here’s guessing Justice Haynes, Jam Miller and Richard Young will get theirs while working behind Jaeden Roberts and Tyler Booker. And if Milroe gets it to them a little more in the passing game, the backs will exceed the two receiving scores they posted in 2023.
Jimmy Stein
Haynes produces a 1,000-yard season
That’s fairly bold considering how little he played one season ago and that his fellow backfield mate, Jam Miller, is the A-Day MVP and possibly the presumed “starter.”
There is this idea that the new Alabama offense under Kalen DeBoer and Nick Sheridan will be “pass-happy” and I do think Jalen Milroe‘s average pass attempts per game will move from around 23 to a number in the low 30s. But the best offensive gurus build it around the best player, and Justice Haynes will prove over the course of the season that he is Alabama’s best offensive player.
Miller will get plenty of play. But Haynes will get to 1,000 yards.
Clint Lamb
Alabama won’t produce a 1,000-yard rusher for a third straight season
Nick Saban was at Alabama for 17 years. Of those, we only saw the offense fail to produce a 1,000-yard rusher six times, which includes his first season leading the program. And yet, they’re now coming off back-to-back seasons without producing a 1,000-yard rusher. That’s the only time we saw two straight years during the Saban era, and you’d have to go back to 2000-02 to see three consecutive. I predict that run will come to an end in 2024.
This prediction has nothing to do with Alabama’s running back talent, though. I believe the offense will feature one of the nation’s top running tandems at the position. But when you combine Kalen DeBoer‘s pass-happy offense with quarterback Jalen Milroe also factoring heavily into the run game, it’s hard to imagine a two-man timeshare at running back giving Jam Miller or Justice Haynes enough work to post 1,000 yards on the ground. That said, I am still predicting a highly efficient rushing attack that strains defenses and complements the passing game, so don’t fret too hard over rushing totals.
More Position Week articles
Four offseason questions for Alabama running backs
Analyzing Alabama RB depth chart for 2024 season
Four Alabama running backs of interest for 2024
The post Position Week: Bold predictions for Alabama’s running back room appeared first on On3.
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