Nick Saban didn’t think Alabama football ran the ball well enough in 2022. He’s taken the steps to make improvement happen, bringing in Tommy Rees as his offensive coordinator in the offseason and has made the ground game a point of emphasis.

On Sunday, Rees said the Crimson Tide have the running backs to make the desired changes.

“We’re a little bit spoiled in that position if we’re being honest here,” Rees said. “We’re very talented there, and I’m excited to see how the pieces fall together and excited to see how we can enhance some of those guys’ roles moving forward.”

The group, which lost Jahmyr Gibbs to the NFL Draft, includes three veteran players who could see the majority of reps during the 2023 season, including Jase McClellan, Roydell Williams and Jam Miller. The Crimson Tide also have talented freshmen in Richard Young and Justice Haynes.

Nick Saban also praised his running backs, noting how they’ve worked their way up the depth chart through the years.

“Everybody has to show how they can be used in a positive way,” Saban said Sunday. “That’s a position where guys have been really good special teams players. If they can contribute on special teams, as well as, we’ve had as many as three guys have a strong input into how they’ve been able to impact the team at one time. That’s a position where we can do it.”

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Up front, the Crimson Tide has the line it needs. The unit is excited to run block more this season, with Tyler Booker expressing his preference to do that instead of dropping back to protect a passer.

Booker explained the offensive line’s mindset on Monday.

“We want to physically dominate you,” Booker said. “We want to intimidate you. We want the third quarter to roll around and the defense to be like, ‘Oh my gosh, we still can’t stop the run, how are we going to stop this run?’ We want guys to tap out. We want guys to fear us. But that’s a mindset that we have to develop now in camp. Being here at the University of Alabama, that’s the mindset of running the ball. You’re not going to play offensive line if you don’t have that mindset. We’re going out there trying to make you quit every play.”

The change in emphasis has the running backs room excited as well. McClellan said the group is focusing on a more physical style of running for 2023, joining the offensive line it its desire to push around opponents.

He also emphasized the depth at his position.

“If somebody goes down, it’s next guy up,” McClellan said. “There’s really no drop-off.”

There’s no question Rees is perfectly happy running the ball. On Sunday, the former Notre Dame quarterback confirmed that he had verbalized a desire to play as a pulling guard, noting how much he loved the physicality.

Those words were welcome for Booker and his fellow offensive linemen.

“We want to make people quit this year, and there’s no better way to do that than running the ball,” Booker said. “We’re going to run the ball this year. We’re going to pass the ball as well, because we have a lot of talented guys at receiver. We have a lot of talented guys who can throw the ball well. But having that run-first mentality, that gets us going because we want to make people quit.”

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