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Alabama football: 5 pressing issues facing the Crimson Tide at the season’s one-third mark
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Alabama’s SEC opener has come and gone, and Nick Saban’s house is still in order.
The roof didn’t cave in.
The carousel talked about more than those at any carnival in the Deep South didn’t derail the Crimson Tide with Jalen Milroe back at the controls.
Lane Kiffin didn’t finally take down his former boss and officially put a dynasty on notice.
Kevin Steele’s defense came to play (again), Jase McClellan finally showed why he was nominated for the Maxwell Award, and the Tide brushed aside Ole Miss for the 8th straight time.
And while No. 12 Bama carries the indignity of being ranked outside the top 10 for the 2nd straight week — which only makes headlines in a pigskin paradise like T-town — it heads to Starkville for a primetime game against Mississippi State with its annual goal of getting to Atlanta very much intact.
Is everything peachy all of a sudden? Of course not.
But with the Tide trailing 7-6 at halftime on Saturday at a Bryant-Denny Stadium ready to revolt, everything was in doubt, everyone was on edge, and it was up to Alabama to do something about it in the final 30 minutes.
It did.
And it did in dominating fashion, allowing a stadium, a city and a state (except for The Plains) to take one deep, massive breath.
Now, this flawed 3-1 team Milroe admitted is a “work in progress” heads out on the road, 1st to Starkville and then to College Station, to see if this uneven season can continue to be salvaged, 1 revealing game at a time.
Right now, there is big-time relief. But there are big-time issues, too, and many of them.
So, with Bama at the one-third pole of this huge question mark of a regular season, here are 5 of those issues that the Tide face as they try like heck to convince everyone they are still championship relevant:
1. Can Milroe make that annoying carousel stop?
Naturally, this is Issue No. 1. It simply has to be. Because while there are questions all over the roster, if the Great Quarterback Quandary of 2023 doesn’t settle down and settle down soon, then nothing else really matters. If Milroe can’t keep the mistakes to a minimum, as he did so well on Saturday after a 2nd-quarter interception could’ve made everything unravel, then the carousel that every Tide fan prays has stopped for good will restart — and maybe never stop.
Look, with the way Steele’s defense has played the past few weeks since the Texas meltdown, and with a running game that you would think is going to start cranking out more yardage by the week, Milroe doesn’t have to be lights-out great.
He just has to be solid, consistent and under control.
And he was just that last Saturday, going an efficient 17-of-21 for 225 yards, with a clutch 3rd-quarter touchdown pass and that 1 interception in the Ole Miss end zone that became a footnote by day’s end. Milroe wasn’t perfect against the Rebels, and he doesn’t have to be going forward. He just has to make sure that when he does make a big mistake, like tossing a pick to ruin a wonderful drive with the Tide already trailing, that he holds it all together and keeps going.
He did that against Ole Miss. Milroe pressed on. He threw that huge TD pass to freshman Jalen Hale while taking a monster hit. He eventually got up and couldn’t wait to show everyone it didn’t really hurt, even if it really did. He couldn’t wait to celebrate with his teammates.
And he’s hell bent on showing everyone that he’s indeed The Guy. But he’ll need a few more days like Saturday to make that carousel stop, once and for all.
2. Was that the real Jase McClellan or a big tease?
Tide fans better hope it was the former. Because if it was the latter, then what are we really talking about here? This is a player who has been through it all — a torn ACL, waiting behind a bevy of other backs while they had their turn in the Crimson Tide star echo chamber. Then waiting some more. Finally, the stage is his in 2023, and the senior has got one shot to make it count, in a season when there is no star quarterback, so his production really needs to be there.
On Saturday, he made it count, at home, in the SEC opener, on national television. After sleepwalking through the 1st 3 games with 39, 45 and 74 yards rushing, respectively, McClellan finally came alive when his team needed it the most, in the 2nd half against the Rebels. His numbers weren’t eye-popping, but he finally reached the 100-yard plateau, finishing with 105 yards on 17 carries, and he personally carried the Tide on a game-clinching drive that started near the end of the 3rd quarter and ended with McClellan’s 8-yard scoring run with 12:10 left in the 4th.
The touchdown gave the Tide a 24-10 lead that became the final score, and it answered an Ole Miss field goal that brought the Rebels within 17-10. The drive took 6 plays, and 5 of them were McClellan runs for a combined 54 yards. This is the Jase McClellan that Alabama will need for the rest of the season if it wants to get anywhere near Atlanta. With an offensive line in transition, a quarterback position that’s anything but a sure thing and a group of receivers without a standout (so far at least), McClellan is the 1 difference-maker on this offense.
He needs to keep making a difference like he did last Saturday, and he can’t take any more weeks off, with the schedule and the stakes intensifying as October nears. What happened against Ole Miss can’t be a tease — it’s got to be the norm going forward.
3. How serious is Deontae Lawson’s injury?
Lost in the euphoria (and relief) from Alabama’s 2nd-half surge and lost in the shuffle as a plethora of other defensive players excelled in that dominant 2nd half was the sprained ankle suffered by Lawson. The middle linebacker might not get the headlines like fellow linebacker Dallas Turner or cornerback Kool-Aid McKinstry, but Lawson is a big part of Steele’s defense and losing the sophomore from Mobile for an extended period would be pretty devastating.
Lawson came into Saturday with 25 tackles, 9 of them solo, and 2 sacks. He is a developing star.
The Tide were able to overcome Lawson’s absence and hold the high-octane Rebels to 10 points (3 in the 2nd half), but you just can’t lean on that fact if Lawson does miss time. Saban said after that game that Lawson is day-to-day, and right now he’s considered questionable for the Mississippi State game. On Monday, Saban talked about how Jihaad Campbell (7 solo tackles) and Trezmen Marshall (3 tackles, 1 solo) filled in at the position Saturday, and that they would be called on more going forward if Lawson can’t go.
Maybe this is a 1-week injury, or Lawson ends up playing Saturday. Bama better hope this doesn’t linger though.
4. Can someone, anyone, become Milroe’s go-to receiver?
Yes, this Alabama team is built differently than in recent years, leaning on its defense, running game and even experienced kicker Will Reichard to help carve out low-scoring victories like the past 2 weeks. But still, you would think eventually the Tide will run into a scenario where they’ll need one of their wide receivers to step to the forefront and put on a show. And you would think that Milroe succeeding for an extended period of time depends on 1 of those receivers saying, “Hey Jalen, I’m your go-to guy.”
So far, it just hasn’t happened, either because of the uneven play at the quarterback position or because all of Alabama’s current receivers are talented but not elite. Like, there is nobody even approaching an Amari Cooper-type player. And if that’s the case, that’s OK, as long as 1 of these guys, be it Jermaine Burton, who transferred to T-Town with such promise, or tight end CJ Dippre, who also transferred to Bama with a lot of promise, or 1 of the other guys comes to the forefront to set some kind of pecking order for Milroe to perform with.
Heck, maybe it’ll be Hale, a freshman who announced his presence Saturday when Bama needed someone, anyone, to make a play. It doesn’t have to be 1 of the guys who was expected to become the go-to receiver. It just has to be someone, because right now there’s no one. Right now, through 4 games, only 1 Tide receiver has reached double digits in receptions — unheralded sophomore Isaiah Bond, who has 11. That lack of production from the receivers/tight ends pool simply can’t continue like that for Bama to win the SEC West, let alone the SEC championship.
5. Can Alabama score enough points?
Don’t laugh. This is a legitimate question. We live in 2023, in the era of spread offenses, points by the bushels, where defense is sometimes optional (look up the Big 12 numbers from the past decade or so). It appears that Alabama is about to try to win this season the old-fashioned way, the old-school way, the way the Crimson Tide used to win in other magical eras, and even early in the Saban Era.
Look at the scores from the Tide’s past 2 games — 17-3 and 24-10.
What year is this again?
This new-old formula worked well for Bama the past 2 weeks, but it sure didn’t in Week 2 when the Tide were outgunned by Texas, when they also only managed 24 points and the defense’s dam burst against an elite offense.
Can winning 24-10, or 24-14, or 20-10, like all those Alabama teams of yesteryear, actually work in the here and now? Unless Milroe becomes Bryce Young or Mac Jones overnight, and unless the Tide receivers room suddenly has a massive transformation, it looks like it’s either win this way or don’t win for the 2023 Crimson Tide.
It’s kind of a scary way to live, but after a rocky September that still has 1 more game in it, Tide fans should already be used to being scared.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
