You're assuming far too much about the scoring drives. The balance of attack is what you're looking for and not the stuff in garbage time.
The Tide have a great run game with tremendous RB's - they also have great WR's and usually of late, a QB who can get the ball to them -
unlike ND. Now suddenly, ND has a couple of decent RB's and a ton of WR's - the only thing missing is a QB who can get it downfield and
a OC who can design plays and an attack each week to score points.
No one said anything about running the clock down - though it's always a good thing when winning in a close game. And stop with the RPO
lesson. You miss read my post is what you're doing.