Announced: Third Time’s the Charm? How Ryan Grubb can resurrect the Alabama offense
Two and a half years ago, Bill O’Brien decided to head back to the NFL, and Nick Saban was suddenly in search of a new offensive coordinator. The Tide had averaged north of 40 points per game and was in the top 6 in the country in scoring every single year from 2018-2022, and the expectation was to find someone new to keep that streak going.
At the time, the name Ryan Grubb surfaced as a leading candidate for the Tide. Most fans were extremely excited about him and the dynamic passing offenses he had structured at Washington and Fresno State. It would have been a sharp schematic difference for Saban, but the upside and track record were there. However, Grubb turned down the job to stay at UW with Coach Kalen DeBoer and QB Michael Penix, Jr. It wound up being the right call, as they made it to the National Championship.
At the same time, Saban hired Tommy Rees (Much to RBR’s chagrin) to usher his final season in a flurry of mostly failed attempts to rush the ball, ending with the Tide’s lowest scoring output since 2009.
Then Saban retired, Alabama hired DeBoer, and Grubb came with him. After being the “one that got away” in 2023, Grubb was now seen as the biggest positive of the DeBoer hire. The problem was… That lasted all of 3 weeks before Grubb took a promotion up to the NFL to coordinate the Seattle Seahawks. Again, you can’t blame him — not only do you not turn down your first shot at the NFL, it’s really hard to not take a major promotion when you also don’t have to move houses.
In the process, though, he upgraded in the eyes of Alabama fans from “one that got away” to “Great White Buffalo”.
The program and Grubb again went their separate ways, and this time it didn’t work out so well for either party. Alabama’s offense under the hastily promoted Nick Sheridan was equivalent at best to the one the year before under Rees, and Grubb was fired after one season in Seattle.
While the Seahawks did set some franchise and career records in passing yards, the offense overall was a below average scoring unit, and it was trending worse as the season went on. The long and the short of it was that the new head coach wanted to run the ball, Grubb couldn’t do it, and things spiraled from there.
