Alabama’s offensive philosophy has been rather simple in Lane Kiffin’s two seasons as offensive coordinator.
Get the ball to the Heisman Trophy candidate.
A year after Amari Cooper set a Southeastern Conference single-season record with 124 receptions, the Crimson Tide are back to the ground-and-pound of previous recent seasons behind the power running of tailback Derrick Henry. The 6-foot-3, 242-pound junior has rushed 295 times entering Saturday’s Southeastern Conference title game against Florida, more than any other tailback in the Nick Saban era.
“We don’t go into a season thinking we’re going to throw to this guy every time or let this guy run the ball every time,” Alabama senior center Ryan Kelly said. “We always like to be a balanced offense, but Coach Kiffin does a great job of leveraging our offense to our assets. Last year we had Cooper, who was an unbelievable receiver, and we have a lot of threats this year, too, but they are younger guys who are still developing in their roles.
“Derrick has done a great job of taking on a leadership role, and Coach Kiffin feels comfortable giving him the ball, especially when he can run it more than 40 times a game and is still running with the same amount of speed.”
Henry had a staggering 46 carries for 271 yards in last Saturday’s 29-13 win at Auburn. He had 19 rushes in the fourth quarter, including carries on Alabama’s final 14 plays from scrimmage.
The last Tide tailback to be used so much through the first 12 games was Shaun Alexander, who had 302 carries in 1999.
“This is not necessarily how I like to play,” Saban said after the win at Auburn. “I like to play however our players can play. I liked the way we played last year when we had Amari Cooper running all over the place. I liked that. I like however we can play, and it just so happens that this is the best way this team can play.
“I’m not a run-and-play-defense guy. I’m a score-however-you-can-score-and-play-defense guy.”
Alabama’s run-pass ratio compared to a year ago is not very different. The Crimson Tide are running the ball slightly more than 58 percent of the time this season after being just under 56 percent last year.
The biggest difference is in passing yardage, with this year’s aerial clip of 215.2 yards per game with quarterback Jake Coker well behind last year’s 277.9-yard average under Blake Sims.
“We’ve made some good plays in the passing game in every game,” Saban said. “I just think we’ve needed to develop more consistency in eliminating negative plays and pressure on the quarterback and cleaning up the routes a little bit – just developing an overall confidence would help the consistency of it.”
Said Coker: “Derrick is our workhorse, and he’s been really consistent every week. He works as hard as he can for us, and we work as hard as we can to support him.”
Henry seemed to set the tone for this season’s offensive identity with his 37-yard touchdown run within the first 10 minutes of the opener against Wisconsin. It would be the first of many breakaway carries for the Heisman favorite, who leads the nation with a school-record 1,797 yards.
Yet Coker’s 34-yard pass to ArDarius Stewart at Auburn was the latest in Coker’s own growing list of long touchdown tosses, which includes an 81-yard scoring strike to freshman Calvin Ridley against Arkansas.
So when did this year’s identity form in Saban’s mind?
“I think we grew into it, and I think it was the result of some of the things and circumstances that happened,” he said. “Robert Foster was a very talented receiver, and we lost him for the season in the Ole Miss game. We lost Chris Black to an injury, and we had a new quarterback who has developed nicely and done a good job for us all year long.
“It just seemed the offensive line was making progress and Derrick was playing better and better. We certainly need to create balance in our offense and do more things in the passing game, so we definitely don’t want to give up on it.”
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.