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Young at heart: How does Alabama’s offensive core stack up in experience?
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Last year’s record-setting Alabama offense was loaded with veterans. The offensive line featured three seniors, the quarterback was a fifth-year senior, and there were upperclassmen at the receiver spots and in the backfield as well.
As it goes in college football, most of those names are gone heading into 2015. While the Crimson Tide have one of the most experienced teams in the SEC, most of that comes on defense. On offense, Alabama will be replacing many former key contributors with a host of mostly inexperienced players.
Just how inexperienced is the group on offense that Nick Saban and Lane Kiffin will be working with compared to prior years? Let’s take a look at the credentials this year’s projected starters are bringing at each position group compared to the least-experienced groups of the Saban era.
Quarterback
Projected starter: Jacob Coker (senior)
Stats: 0 career starts, 15 games played (5 at Alabama), 100 career pass attempts, 698 yards, 5 TD, 1 INT
If we’re going by years in the program, the last time Alabama had a quarterback this inexperienced was when AJ McCarron took over the starting job as a redshirt sophomore. He had attempted 48 career passes for 389 yards and three touchdowns to that point before leading Alabama to a national title in his first year as starter. Blake Sims was a fifth-year senior last season, but he’d actually attempted fewer passes than McCarron had, with just 39 attempts coming into his only year as a starter. Alabama won the SEC championship in both 2011 and 2014, so having an inexperienced passer clearly isn’t a detriment to the team.
Running back
Projected starters: Derrick Henry (junior) and Kenyan Drake (senior)
Combined stats: 1 start, 55 games played, 2,459 yards, 37 touchdowns
Alabama is just fine on experience with its top running back duo. While neither Drake nor Henry has been a starter before, both have extensive experience in the offense and are more than ready to take on big feature roles; Henry actually ended up as Alabama’s leading rusher over T.J. Yeldon last year. Depth is a concern, as the two backs behind Henry and Drake are both true freshmen, but the starters are veterans.
Saban’s least-experienced backfield at Alabama came in his first year with the program, 2007. His two leading rushers that year, Terry Grant and Glen Coffee, came into the season with a combined 50 carries for 201 yards and just one touchdown.
Wide receiver
Presumed starters: Robert Foster (RS sophomore) and ArDarius Stewart (RS sophomore)
Combined stats: 2 combined starts, 22 games played, 18 catches, 193 yards, 0 touchdowns
Over Saban’s tenure, the Tide have had some consistency from one season to the next with receivers, returning at least one of their top receivers every year dating back to 2008. In that season, Julio Jones arrived on campus as a freshman and immediately assumed a starting role. He was joined by Mike McCoy, who came into his junior season with nine starts, 28 catches, 207 yards and a score to his name, still far more than Foster and Stewart come into this year with.
Offensive line
Projected starters (left to right): Cam Robinson (sophomore), Ross Pierschbacher (RS freshman), Ryan Kelly (senior), Bradley Bozeman (RS sophomore), Dominick Jackson (senior)
Combined stats: 37 career starts, 62 games played
Having experience up front is critical. No position group in the game relies more on experience and cohesion than the offensive line, and that’s something Alabama will be lacking going into the season.
It’s not the first time Alabama has had to totally reconstruct its line during its current run of excellence. Heck, it’s not even the first time Mario Cristobal has had to break in a new group. After 2012, a team that featured perhaps the best offensive line in college football history, Alabama was replacing three starters as well. The returnees, Anthony Steen and Cyrus Kouandjio, had combined for 39 career starts prior to the 2013 season, the only group to rival this year’s line in terms of inexperience.
A former freelance journalist from Philadelphia, Brett has made the trek down to SEC country to cover the greatest conference in college football.
