Alabama football (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
Cole Cubelic doesn’t rate Najee Harris as the top SEC rusher heading into the new season.
Perhaps no program in college football is in such a hurry to get back onto the field and pen a new chapter as much as the Alabama Crimson Tide. A College Football Playoff mainstay and one of the surest of sure things in the sport, Nick Saban‘s team strangely found itself in 2019 on the outside of the title picture looking in, only to watch helplessly as the rival LSU Tigers won the big one.
Hope springs eternal for 2020, of course, with star running back Najee Harris widely backed to ransack his way through the fall slate and straight on to NFL millions. The problem? Not everyone is convinced he’s even the top runner in the conference, much less the nation, starting with ESPN’s Cole Cubelic.
ESPN analyst Cole Cubelic names Kylin Hill as the SEC’s best running back over Alabama’s Najee Harris
Folks, being No. 2 in your respective pecking order is no reason to mope when we’re talking about the Southeastern Conference, the biggest and baddest brand in college football. This has to be problem for Harris and the Tide, however, because being No. 2 is simply untenable in Tuscaloosa, the land of “If You’re Not First, You’re Last.”
[embedded content]
In 2019, Harris carried the ball 209 times for 1,204 yards, good for a terrific 5.9 yards per carry. He found the end zone 20 times between the ground and the air. Hill logged 1,350 yards for the Bulldogs last season, but was just behind Harris in yards per tote at 5.6.
Yes, we’re talking about a couple of studs that any team would be happy to have. But only one can reign supreme, and when it comes time to decide the SEC West in 2020, you can bet that Harris will be more than happy to turn Cubelic’s fateful power rankings into some serious motivation.