The Running Back Factory

With the Alabama Crimson Tide's dominating 38-0 win against Big Ten opponent Michigan State, the South Eastern Conference sends yet another team to play for the National Championship. This coming as no surprise, the SEC has been represented in 8 of the last 9 previous National Championships. Out of those 9 championships, Alabama has been crowned on 3 occasions. This is a testament to how dominant Nick Saban's Crimson Tide have been while competing in the nation's top football conference. It is common knowledge to know that the quarterback position is arguably the most important position in all of sports. Understanding this, a fan would assume great quarterback play must be the driving factor of Alabama's command in the SEC. Wrong.

In fact, Alabama's sleuth of thoroughbred running backs is the core reason they have garnered so much success, along with the consistency on the defensive side of the field. This is what Alabama has become. A true running back factory. The SEC has sent a number of astounding backs to the National Football League in the last half decade, such as Jeremy Hill of the Cincinnati Bengals and Todd Gurley of the St. Louis Rams. However, it is Alabama who has shipped the most running backs to the league in a seven year span. In 2011, Mark Ingram emerged from the stable into the NFL, followed by Trent Richardson in '12, Eddie Lacy in '13, T.J. Yeldon in '14, and presumably Derrick Henry in 2015. Although NFL success among these running backs have varied, not enough can be said about how imperative these running backs have been to the university.

Derrick Henry is the latest jewel in the chest that is Alabama. He won the 2015 Heisman Trophy award, ahead of Stanford's Christian McCaffrey and Clemson's Deshaun Watson. Henry was the first running back since 2009 to win this hardware. That 2009 running back just so happened to be an Alabama alum himself, Mark Ingram. Ironically, Ingram and Henry are the only two Alabama players to win the award in its history. In total, Henry rushed for 2,061 yards in 359 attempts and has also touched paydirt a total of 25 times. Henry has the highest rush yards per carry throughout his career in Alabama history, averaging 6.4 yards per carry.

The bruising style of running these backs display with every carry might as well be trademarked. However the stiff arms, constant contact and number of carries have caused a great deal of concern. May the reason some of these backs fail to see the same success at the next level be the fact that Alabama is running them into the ground? Take the last two games before the Semi-Finals. Derrick Henry carried a tremendous workload. Any time a back carries the ball more than 40+ times a game, the thought of overuse needs to be brought up. Week 11 of the regular season, Henry carried the ball 46 times against Auburn then succeeded that with a 44 carry game against the Florida Gators in Week 12. Any team that looks to draft Henry needs to be weary of the tole he has taken during his tremendous collegiate career, just like teams have done in the past when drafting other 'Bama backs.

Enter Bo Scarbrough. The former five star recruit is next in line and has a tough task at hand. The pressure is on in 2016 to see if "Bo Scar" can carry on the legacy Alabama running backs have left behind. Though he started on the wrong path, being suspended for his first four games of freshman year due to what head coach described as "amateurism", he ended up showing why he was so coveted coming out of high school. He ran with power and athleticism in relief of Henry at the end of the College Football semi-finals.

Henry is projected to be a second-round pick of the upcoming NFL draft. With their stallion-like legs and long dreads protruding out of their helmets, these Alabama running backs may appear to be the same. However, a deeper look shows that each running back carries contrasting skill sets leading to mixed results at the next level. While Ingram and Richardson may have been first-round picks, Lacy, a second-round pick, has perhaps been the most successful Crimson Tide running back this far. He has rushed just over 3,000 yards in three seasons and has scored a total of 29 touchdowns. Where Henry will fall in the 2016 NFL draft has yet to be determined, but as any Tuscaloosa native would say, the tide keeps rolling.

How long can Alabama keep this up?