Greg McElroy isn't going to be confused with Florida's Tim Tebow or even UAB's Joe Webb, but he had a career-high 30 yards rushing on four carries Saturday in a 31-3 victory at Mississippi State, and that included a career-long 16-yard run.
How about that? An "explosive" play that wasn't a pass.
That run came on the last play of the first quarter, on second-and-1 from Alabama's 29-yard line. McElroy faked a handoff to running back Mark Ingram, who started to run to the right. McElroy kept and raced around left end, where he found a lot of running room before he was knocked out of bounds at Alabama's 45-yard line.
"We haven't done a lot of zone read stuff, but Mark had been ripping people on that play," McElroy said.
"A lot of defenses were starting to crash. We put it in last week to keep those guys honest. I got a chance to read out that end. He crashed inside and I got around the edge."
The play could have gained more yards, but wide receiver Julio Jones missed a block.
"We were giving Julio a hard time," McElroy said. "If he makes a block, I'm scoring.
"But another good thing about that is that the quarter ended right after that, so I could regain my breath. I could barely breath, I was so tired."
Four plays into the second quarter, McElroy threw a pass to Darius Hanks that went for 45 yards and the first score of the game.
But back to McElroy's run.
"Two positives on that play," he said. "That allowed things to open up a little more on that play for Mark throughout the rest of the game and hopefully for the rest of the season, because they'll have to respect it a little more.
"Obviously people are going to try to minimize his output as opposed to mine. It's just a nice little wrinkle we've put in. We're going to keep it in our back pocket that we can use at a given time."
McElroy also ran for 10 yards down the middle of the field just before halftime.
He now has run 37 times for a net of 100 yards.
Unlike many quarterbacks, he isn't one to slide to minimize contact.
"When I do run, it's usually third down and I'm close to the chains," he said. "If it's third down or it's in the red zone, I'm not sliding.
"I've said it before: My body will probably pay the price for it on Sunday, but I'd rather be sore on Sunday than come up short on a key play on Saturday. So on third down, I'm going to try to put my head down.
"I feel like I've put in a lot of time and effort in the weight room. I might as well use my body for something. I feel confident that maybe I can make a guy miss or maybe get a little bit of forward leverage and give the punter an extra yard as opposed to sliding and marking it down. I don't mind taking the hits.
"Every other guy on the team is taking a hit. Why not me? As long as I take smart hits and don't lower my head and hurt my neck."

Alabama Local News, Breaking News, Sports & Weather - al.com
Kausler Jr.