Alabama’s offense only has one scholarship senior

Alabama’s offense was, to use a clinical term, pretty alright in 2018. The team set records for points scored, yards per game, and a few other categories. Tua Tagovailoa easily set records for the most passing yards and passing touchdowns. The Tide ranked #3 in scoring offense and #6 in total offense.

Most of that production is back for 2019, largely because of how many freshmen and sophomores contributed.

In fact, Alabama’s entire offense features just one senior. That’s not just the starters or the two deep or even three deep. That’s the entire offense, all 38 scholarship players.

Tagovailoa is a junior. Alabama’s top four four wide receivers from 2018 are back. Three are juniors; one is a sophomore. Najee Harris, a junior now, was the second leading rusher last year. Jedrick Wills, Alex Leatherwood, and Chris Owens, three likely opening day starters on the offensive line? Junior, junior, redshirt junior. Deonte Brown could be the fifth offensive lineman, and he’s a redshirt junior. While he’s suspended, redshirt freshman Emil Ekiyor could take his place.

At tight end, the Tide have Miller Forristall, redshirt junior, Kedrick James, junior, Major Tennison, redshirt sophomore, Michael Parker, redshirt freshman, and Jahleel Billingsley, freshman.

Redshirt senior Matt Womack is the only senior. Womack was a back-up in 2018, though he looks to be a starter once more in 2019.

Sure, Alabama has relied on non-seniors plenty in the past. With the caliber of recruits coming in every year, the Tide will almost always have underclassmen featuring in the offense. However, the offense usually has seniors sprinkled throughout, even if they’re just buried on the depth chart.

That won’t be the case in 2019.

Does this mean anything? Do I have some great point to make? No, not really. I just thought it was interesting that only one offensive player will exhaust their eligibility.

Bama will likely see a number of offensive players declare early for the draft. But with thirteen juniors or redshirt juniors currently on the roster, the Tide should have more than one senior around in 2020.