There were four players with 20-plus-yard runs during the Alabama-New Mexico State game on Saturday.

The Crimson Tide’s top two running backs — Najee Harris and Brian Robinson — weren’t among those four players.

While Alabama ran for 318 yards as a team Saturday and while Harris and Robinson both ended up averaging better than five yards per carry, the Tide running game is still very much a work in progress.

“I think we’ve still got to work on running the ball a little bit more efficiently and effectively,” Tide coach Nick Saban said.

The final rushing numbers don’t tell the full story.

Besides a 19-yard run from Harris, those top two running backs for Alabama ran for just 3.6 yards per carry during the first half Saturday (50 yards on 14 carries).

Making it worse is that those two were contained like that by a New Mexico State defense that ranked sixth-worst nationally last season against the run and that gave up an average of 12.8 yards per carry to Washington State’s top running back last week.

Still, Saban felt the running game took a step forward Saturday from where it was last week against Duke, when Harris ran for only 52 yards on 12 carries and Robinson was limited to nine yards on nine carries.

Harris finished with 68 yards and a touchdown on 12 carries Saturday after rushing for 22 yards and that touchdown on three carries during the third quarter. Robinson added 34 yards on five carries during the third quarter to finish with 57 yards on 11 carries.

“I think it was better today,” Saban said of the running game. “(New Mexico State) did a lot of stunting. They were bringing the (nickel back) a lot with five-man pressures to try and stop the run. But still, we’ve got to be able to block those things and be able to run the ball effectively.”

Encouraging for Saban was that one of those 20-plus-yard runs came from a young player whose role could grow as the year goes on.

Keilan Robinson, a 5-foot-9, 190-pound freshman running back from Washington, D.C., broke his first carry of the game for a 74-yard touchdown run late in the third quarter.

It was a welcome sight for Saban on an otherwise modest day production-wise for Alabama’s running backs.

“We’ve been wanting to bring Keilan Robinson along because he’s the one guy that has juice that is a guy that’s a little bit different style of back than the other two guys that we play, really the other three guys that we play,” Saban said. “So hopefully he’ll gain some confidence from making a great long run today and that’ll help him and we can utilize his skill set in the future.”

Matt Zenitz is an Alabama and Auburn reporter for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @mzenitz.