Alabama must have 'physical nature' to win championships, DeBoer says

Alabama’s run game left a lot to be desired last year. The Crimson Tide ranked near the bottom of the FBS in rushing offense, and third-year coach Kalen DeBoer knows it has to improve.

But DeBoer also knows what a successful rushing attack looks like. 

The now-Alabama head coach led a Sioux Falls offense that averaged 206.5 rushing yards per game in 2002, and it produced the NAIA Player of the Year, tailback Nick Kortan. Known for his high-powered passing attacks, DeBoer caters the scheme to the players on his roster.

And he believes that Alabama is capable of fielding a physical run game under his watch.

“This is a long time ago, but as a coordinator in 2002, we were maybe the top running team in the country back in Sioux Falls. The very next year, we were probably the top passing team in the country,” DeBoer said on the Always College Football Podcast. “Different quarterback, lost our running back. You work around your personnel.

“I really do believe that you don’t win championships without a physical nature to your program. And that happens through what you do in practice. That’s what we want to become. I know what that looks like. We’ve done it at multiple places.”

Before coming to Alabama, DeBoer had one of the nation’s top offenses at Washington. During the 2023 season, the year they reached the national championship game, the Huskies averaged 4.76 yards per carry (41st nationally), while throwing for more than 5,000 yards (5,155).

The Crimson Tide leaned on quarterback Ty Simpson and its passing game last year, which was the recipe for success more often than not. But a consistent run option would have benefited the first-round NFL draft pick and the rest of the offense. Entering his third year at the helm, DeBoer knows that being able to run the ball can lead to more success come the postseason.

“I’m not going to take away from what we were at Washington and the ability to throw the ball, what we were last year with Ty slinging it around to a talented group of receivers,” DeBoer said. “I mean, that’s dynamic. You want to be as dynamic as you possibly can be. 

“But you do need to have a physical way about you if you want to win the championships. There’s going to be weather games. There’s going to be something that just you got to finish out the game and it’s close and you got to grind away or you got to get that big stop on a 3rd or 4th and 1 or on the goal line. It presents itself in different ways. Offensively, defensively.

“I can’t wait to the point where we get back to that being what we truly are. And I know our guys are working extremely hard to make sure that any flaws that we’ve had or areas we’ve come short — that’s the staff and that’s our players — that we are looking to become what we know we need to be and can be.”

Indiana was able to run the ball last year on its way to a national title, and Alabama experienced that first-hand, as the Hoosiers rushed for 215 yards and two touchdowns on 50 attempts in its Rose Bowl win over the Tide. What did that loss teach DeBoer about what his Alabama program needs to be in the future in order to avoid a similar result as its 38-3 loss to Indiana?

“I’m always gonna, first, give hats off to the people that did it, and Coach (Curt) Cignetti did an awesome job of building a team that was just well-rounded across the board — competitive, great schematically and had a mentality about them,” DeBoer said. “We saw that. It’s not like we didn’t know what it’s supposed to look like. I know what it’s supposed to look like. I know what it feels like.

“But we also — you can see, now, through those experiences — where we need to improve. And that’s what we work daily to do, is continue to clean up those areas where we fall short. To me, it’s a lot of execution, especially when it comes to the run game or stopping the run. We gotta have personnel, gotta be on the same page with what you’re teaching, and we continue to work extremely hard to make all those areas come together.”

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