Jalston Fowler knows his role out of the Alabama backfield likely won’t involve carrying the ball 15 or 20 times per game, and he’s OK with that.
There might not be anything the 6-1, 242-pound junior loves more than running over his exhausted competition.
“Those guys are great. They have speed. They’re going to bruise you up,” Fowler said of the running backs who may have more carries than him in 2012. “I come in and I’m going to bruise you up a lot more. I know they’re tired.”
With Trent Richardson gone to the NFL and Eddie Lacy out because of turf toe, Fowler took on a new role with the Crimson Tide this spring. Because of his experience edge, Fowler was the de facto No. 1 running back, lining up ahead of younger players such as redshirt freshman Dee Hart and early enrollee T.J. Yeldon.
Running behind Richardson and Lacy in 2011, Fowler still got his fair share of touches. Seeing the field primarily during mop-up duty, he ran for 385 yards and four touchdowns.
“When I see (the hole) open up, I just press it and burst through like Coach (Burton) Burns has been telling me the whole spring,” Fowler said. “When I get myself going, I don’t feel like anyone can catch me from behind unless we have a really long distance to go.”
In the race up Alabama’s running back depth chart, Fowler likely will be caught by Lacy, who has combined to run for more than 1,000 yards over the past two seasons, and a promising player such as Yeldon, who was the star player at Alabama’s end-of-spring scrimmage.
Fowler, though, won’t be left with nothing to do.
“We’re going to use him the ways that he’s most effective,” coach Nick Saban said.
“He is a good receiver; he’s a good blocker. He has demonstrated that he runs the ball well with his pads pointed north and south. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have some ability to cut and make people miss. He does. He’s probably got better speed than people think.”
Don’t get Saban wrong. Fowler’s speed is deceiving, but his power is what Alabama will need.
“If you’re a power pitcher and you get 26 outs throwing fastballs, you ought not lose the game in the bottom of the ninth throwing a changeup,” Saban said. “Jalston Fowler is what he is. He’s a big guy who’s hard to tackle and people don’t like to tackle him.”