GROUND GAME
Rushing quarterbacks on display for Tide, Bulldogs
The first Alabama-Mississippi State football game including Crimson Tide coach Nick Saban occurred in 2007, and starting quarterbacks John Parker Wilson and Wesley Carroll combined for 26 rushing yards.
When Bulldogs coach Dan Mullen joined the series in 2009, starting quarterbacks Greg McElroy and Tyson Lee rushed for a combined 24 yards.
As soon as No. 1 Alabama (9-0, 6-0 SEC) kicks off against Mississippi State (4-5, 2-4) this Saturday afternoon inside Bryant-Denny Stadium, the two starting quarterbacks will be eager to get their wheels spinning. Crimson Tide freshman quarterback Jalen Hurts has three 100-yard rushing games this season, while Bulldogs sophomore Nick Fitzgerald has five, including three in a row.
“I think it’s the day and age of football that we play in right now,” Saban said. “Dan was like this when he had Tim Tebow at Florida, and we went through the ‘wildcat’ phase where we ran some of these plays with a running back, but you knew that guy couldn’t pass. Now we’re running some of the same kind of plays as a part of the spread that are actually with the quarterback, and when you have a talented guy who is big, strong, athletic and can throw it pretty well, too, that makes it very challenging for a defense to play both of those things.
“That’s certainly what Mississippi State has been able to do, because this guy has done a great job. They’ve gotten good at it, and they know what they’re doing.”
Fitzgerald, a 6-foot-5, 230-pounder from Richmond Hill, Ga., rushed 20 times for 182 yards (9.1 per carry) and two touchdowns in last Saturday’s 35-28 upset of No. 4 Texas A&M. He also threw for 209 yards in an offense that racked up 29 first downs and 574 total yards.
Mullen’s development of running quarterbacks was taking place more than a decade ago, when he was Utah’s offensive coordinator under Urban Meyer. During the 2003-04 seasons, Alex Smith rushed for a combined 1,083 yards.
When Meyer and Mullen went to Florida and signed Tebow in 2006, the offense became designed to enhance Tebow’s dualthreat talents. Tebow had five 100-yard rushing games in his college career, which included national championships in 2006 (as Chris Leak’s backup) and 2008, and the Heisman Trophy in 2007.
Mullen’s best quarterback at Mississippi State has been current Dallas Cowboys starter Dak Prescott, who had nine 100-yard rushing games in college and led the Bulldogs to a No. 1 ranking in 2014.
“Any time you have a 100-yard rushing game by a quarterback, usually there are bigger, explosive plays in there,” Mullen said. “Most people don’t just pound a quarterback to try and get a 100-yard game, because if a guy has 20 carries, there are usually some sacks in there. For us, we started building this offense a long time ago, because we wanted to make sure defenses had to defend all 11 players from sideline to sideline.
“To make a quarterback a viable option puts more stress on the defense and is another weapon for the offense.”
Alabama has not allowed an opposing quarterback to rush for 100 yards since the Cotton Bowl after the 1972 season, when Alan Lowry of Texas amassed 117.
Fitzgerald currently ranks fifth in the league among all rushers with 839 yards and eight touchdowns on 135 carries (6.2 per rush). Sacks are included in college football rushing totals, so if the 14 sacks for 85 yards are removed, Fitzgerald has rushed for 924 yards and 7.7 per carry.
Hurts, meanwhile, ranks second among SEC quarterbacks with 635 yards on 115 carries for 5.5 yards per carry, and he would be averaging 7.4 a pop if sacks were removed. The 6-2, 209-pounder from Channelview, Texas, rushed for 114 yards in last week’s 10-0 win over LSU and had 146 at Ole Miss and 132 at Tennessee earlier this season.
Saban has been wanting Hurts to trust his arm more and use the likes of receivers Calvin Ridley and ArDarius Stewart and tight end O.J. Howard down the field, but he knows there could be plenty more quarterback runs in Saturday’s showdown.
“Both teams have their own style of how they do it,” Saban said. “There are some similarities but also some differences. We’re focused on trying to get our quarterback to be a little more complete in what he needs to do to become a good, all-around quarterback.”
Said Mullen: “I think there are a lot of similarities. We’ve been doing this for years, and now it looks like they’ve incorporated a lot of what we do.”
Tide tidbits
Hurts was named Thursday as one of 18 semifinalists for the Davey O’Brien Award, given annually to the top quarterback in college football. … Saturday will be the 45th time Saban has coached the nation’s No. 1 team in the Associated Press poll, which will tie former Ohio State coach Woody Hayes and former Florida State coach Bobby Bowden for the most in history.