How Kalen DeBoer is Aiding Alabama's Run Game During Spring Practice: Just a Minute

Watch the above video as BamaCentral staff writer Hunter De Siver discusses the impact of a potential change in strategy surrounding Alabama football's run game.

Iron sharpens iron is a common phrase used in sports to suggest that when teammates or opponents of equal strength challenge each other, it will lead to improvement by both parties.

There's no way to sugarcoat that Alabama football's run game struggled all throughout the 2025 season. The Crimson Tide's 104.13 yards per game last year was the second-worst in the SEC, holding an extremely slim lead over last-place LSU (104.00).

It's been among the top priorities for Alabama to fix this spring, and head coach Kalen DeBoer opened up about where it needs to improve with The Next Round on Wednesday.

"Across the board," DeBoer said. Everyone takes some type of ownership. It starts with me. What's it look like in practice? What are we really focused on? What are the drills and the physicality? Those types of things. Technically, are we doing drills offensively vs. defensively?

"What's the scout team look like? Just not what their scheme is, but what's the caliber of the scout team look like that you're going against every day? You can look really good in practice and it just be against guys that don't give you much resistance."

That last paragraph is an interesting excerpt, and it's where the iron-sharpens-iron strategy comes into play. Of course, it's safe to assume that Alabama's running backs and offensive line went against the first-team defense during practice last season, but maybe it wasn't enough.

For those who play the EA Sports College Football 26 video game, you're not going to get any better if you play on "freshman" or "varsity" difficulty. Alabama basketball head coach Nate Oats purposely creates one of the toughest schedules each year to prepare his team for SEC play and the NCAA Tournament — and four consecutive Sweet 16 appearances (including two Elite Eights and a Final Four) help his case.

While it may be difficult at first, the change to facing a higher caliber scout team or going head-to-head with some of the best defenders in spring practice could do wonders for the Crimson Tide. DeBoer is well aware of these possibilities and the same could be said for his staff and players, as this will be something to watch during Saturday's A-Day scrimmage.

"The coordinators, of course, are on each side of the ball evaluating their schemes along with the position coaches," DeBoer said. "There's a lot of young faces. There's a lot of guys from tight end, to running back to offensive linemen to where there were some young faces and new faces. So across the board, you're just looking to be better in all of those areas.

"I found that, just generally speaking — not just about the run game — that if you can just have a little improvement in all of these different areas, it's amazing what it can look like no matter what you're doing. In this case, we've got to be better with running the football."

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