The Alabama Crimson Tide landed former Seattle Seahawks offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb, who teams back up with head coach Kalen DeBoer.
Outside of Grubb’s one-year stint in the Pacific Northwest with the Seahawks in 2023, DeBoer and Grubb have become intertwined in a head coach-offensive coordinator pairing that dates a decade back. In tandem again, what does Grubb’s addition mean for the Alabama Crimson Tide, specifically their freshman star wide receiver Ryan Williams?
When thinking of Grubb’s stint in Seattle (the one with the Huskies, not the Seahawks), one thing comes to mind immediately: they got the most out of their wide receivers.
Sure, Michael Penix Jr. was an incredible talent, ending his injury-riddled college career with a Heiman finalist nod and an eighth-overall selection in the 2024 NFL Draft. However, Penix’s 9,544 yards between his 2022 and 2023 campaigns had to go somewhere.
Ryan Grubb is headed (back) to Bama. Probably what should’ve happened last year. https://t.co/LTcmhFmufT
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) February 3, 2025
Well — 2,785 yards went to Rome Odunze, 1,853 went to Ja’Lynn Polk, and 1,657 went to Jalen McMillan. This level of three-pronged production got Grubb a gig with the opportunity to maximize a crew of DK Metcalf, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, and Tyler Lockett in the NFL, and the Huskies trio all earned top-100 capital in the 2024 NFL Draft.
However, when projecting Grubb’s offense to Alabama’s roster, you run into a bit of a chicken-egg conundrum. Did the DeBoer-Grubb system produce three players who averaged 66+ yards per game over a two-year stretch, or did three NFL talents produce up to par while the offense simply hummed to the tune best within its range?
The best way to look at this is by looking at Grubb and DeBoer’s habits at their previous stop: Fresno State. With the Bulldogs during the 2020 and 2021 seasons, the duo laid the groundwork for the system they would eventually run at Washington: an 11- and 12-personnel-heavy team that spent 82.1% of its offensive snaps in those two personnel groupings.
Through this, they funneled their targets into three main receivers: Jalen Moreno-Cropper (1,419 yards), Josh Kelly (1,108), and Keric Wheatfall (979). These three receivers averaged 54+ yards per game over two seasons with the Bulldogs, catching passes from Jake Haener who tossed for 6,117 yards. Fresno State was in the 83rd percentile in passing yards and the 92nd in pass percentage, per TruMedia.
At Washington, they kicked this into overdrive, likely both because of the existing system and the existing talent — maybe the answer is the chicken laid the egg, which became an even bigger chicken.
Washington was in the 100th percentile (between 2022 and 2023) in passing yards and the 95th percentile in pass percentage. They boosted their 11-personnel to a rate of 77.0% of their snaps, with 12-personnel packages covering another 17.7% (only 5.3% of their snaps came from any other personnel alignment).
Even crazier — at Washington, DeBoer and Grubb averaged 429.9 total yards per game out of just 11-personnel when their star quartet (Penix, Odunze, McMillan, and Polk) all started the game, which would have ranked just outside the top 30 in the country in total offense regardless of personnel grouping.
So, what does this mean for Alabama’s offense? Well, we’ve established that they’ll likely run most of their plays with three WRs, and they find a way to use their wide receivers like a multi-pronged weapon, but do they have the horses to be more like Washington, or is a Fresno State-style offense more likely to be in play?
Frankly, DeBoer and Grubb have worked together for so long that faith can be had in them to adjust their style best to the weapons at their disposal. The duo started at Eastern Michigan in 2014 as an OC/O-line pairing. Outside of a couple of odd seasons, the two have a decade of teamwork to fall back on when adapting and learning.
That said, in 2023, Alabama clearly did not have the horses for a classic DeBoer/Grubb offense. As dynamic as Jalen Milroe was, he was not the passer either Penix or Haener were at the college level — right?
Well, Haener averaged 7.9 net yards per dropback (excluding scrambles) between 2021 and 2022, and Penix averaged 8.5 (2022 and 2023). Milroe averaged 8.5. So, per dropback, he was just as productive.
However, Milroe only had 2,844 passing yards, and only two Crimson Tide receivers cleared 260 yards in a funneled passing offense. What changed?
Well, for one Milroe’s threat as a runner was unlike anything DeBoer had seen in the last half-decade. Penix and Haener combined for 57 designed rushes from 2020-23; Milroe had 121 in 2024. Consequently, Alabama ran 12-personnel on 31.3% of its snaps — not an absurdly high rate comparatively (36th in the country), but it was much higher than the previous four seasons.
Furthermore, Alabama’s offense skewed way more run-heavy (57.6% of snaps) than Fresno State’s (46.3%) or Washington’s (41.3%) ever were, even with talented backs like Dillon Johnson, Ronnie Rivers, and Jordan Mims. Milroe also did not succeed in the same ways as a passer as Penix.
With Milroe headed to the 2025 NFL Draft, that likely leaves Ty Simpson as the starter in 2025 for the Crimson Tide. So whether the math changed because Grubb was AWOL or because Milroe demanded a new scheme (though DeBoer’s ability to adapt is a testament to his mind), it seems like Alabama may regress to the mean of a DeBoer/Grubb-led ship in 2025.
Simpson has experience in a spread, RPO-heavy scheme from his high school days in Tennessee. He had a year to learn the system in 2024, and while he’s relatively green for a redshirt junior (50 career pass attempts), his time with DeBoer and Nick Saban’s minds should have him ready for the season’s start.
With Milroe out, running back Justice Haynes headed to Michigan, and an exciting transfer wide receiver, Isaiah Horton, joining the program, the stage seems to be set for a classic Grubb offense.
The Grubb-DeBoer offense that was so successful at Washington was built around RPOs that attacked every level of the field. They forced you to account for the run threat and then spread you thin at every depth and third when they got a look they liked.
The new acquisition, Horton, will likely fill a role similar to Polk’s, primarily as an outside receiver who threatens the boundary but finds work in the middle of the field as a crosser. Williams will likely fill a role more like Rome Odunze’s, a versatile outside threat as an X but with an emphasis on getting him the ball in every bucket.
Lastly, Germie Bernard will probably transition to a more inside role like McMillan’s, with Horton being able to allow him to kick inside, lining up primarily as a motion-heavy slot receiver who gets most of his action behind the line of scrimmage or in the middle of the field on shallow crossers.
Ryan Grubb to Alabama reminded me how tough Kalen DeBoer’s first month was last year pic.twitter.com/qqSiiIrWsZ
— Josh Pate (@JoshPateCFB) February 3, 2025
Overall, I’d buy into Alabama’s stock in 2025 under the assumption that their 9-4 finish in 2024 was a matter of fitting a square in a circular hole rather than an indictment on DeBoer.
Furthermore, their struggles were exacerbated by Grubb’s last-minute exit to the NFL, initially following DeBoer to Tuscaloosa, Ala., before pivoting right before the spring. This led Nick Sheridan, who was Washington’s tight ends coach in 2023 to receive a last-minute promotion to play-caller as the QBs coach/OC, a position he hadn’t held since 2020-21 when he was DeBoer’s successor at Indiana.
With Grubb back in town, an offseason to retool to DeBoer’s liking, and another year to acclimate into the system, expect the DeBoer/Grubb duo to pick up right where they left off.
As phrased so well by The Coordinator Project in an article by Seaside Joe, “Plenty of teams have three guys with the talent to put up a 1,000-yard season. Very few teams have actually produced 1,000-yard seasons for three different players in two years [like Washington], though, especially with all three of them on the roster at the same time.”
College Football Network has you covered with the latest from the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC, and every Group of Five conference and FBS Independent program.
