Alabama Crimson Tide: Best in the nation against the run

There are 64 days till college football season, and today we focus on one of the most telling stats in college football: rushing defense.

The Alabama Crimson Tide know what it takes to win championships. To say that Alabama plays stifling defense might be the understatement of the century. They’re built on the line of scrimmage, and you can bank on the fact that year-in and year-out they’re going to be one of the best in the country, if not the best.

And that leads us to no. 64 in the Southbound and Down College Football Countdown.

The Alabama Crimson Tide allowed 64 rushing yards per game in 2016.

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Technically they allowed 63.9 rushing yards per game, but it’s close enough. That was the best in the nation by a long shot. Western Kentucky was second in the nation in rushing defense, allowing 97.2 rushing yards per game.

LSU was the second-best in the SEC last season and 13th in the nation, allowing 117.3 rushing yards per game, nearly twice as many as the Tide. Alabama has set the gold standard for the way a college football program operates, especially on the defensive side of the ball. And the 2016 team was extraordinary even by Alabama standards.

Since Nick Saban arrived in 2007, Alabama has led the nation in rushing defense four times and finished in the top 10 every year except for his first year. Here’s how the Crimson Tide have ranked since Saban’s arrival:

Alabama Rushing Defense Rank

2016: 63.9 – 1st

2015: 74.0 – 1st

2014: 88.7 – 2nd

2013: 106.2 – 7th

2012: 76.4 – 1st

2011: 72.2 – 1st

2010: 110.2 – 10th

2009: 78.1 – 2nd

2008: 78.8 – 4th

2007: 128.3 – 34th

Ole Miss (101) and Texas A&M (114) were the only two teams to rush for 100 yards against Alabama last season. They held Florida to exactly zero rushing yards in the SEC Championship game. And for the third consecutive year they held Leonard Fournette in check. In Fournette’s three years against Alabama, he rushed for 145 yards on 57 carries, an average of 2.5 yards per carry and 48.3 yards per game.

While Kirby Smart was running the well-oiled machine that is the Alabama defense to near perfection, Jeremy Pruitt came in last season and seemed to somehow take them to another level.

And while they did lose seven players from last year’s defense to the NFL, we’ve all seen this movie before. The Alabama Crimson Tide don’t rebuild. They reload. And we should expect more of the same this season.

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