Alabama Football: 3 Observations on the Tennessee Game

Alabama lost in Knoxville for the second straight year, and the fan base handled it about as well as you could imagine. Players are benched, coaches are fired and fatalism is the theme of the day. Alabama is certain to lose at least twice more, they say, and should be lucky to get an invite to a mid-major bowl game Christmas week.

One would think that Alabama was knocked out by a mediocre team instead of losing by one point en route to what will now be a top ten team. Losing to this particular type of creature inspires even more fear, although it's kind of amusing to see them tear down the goalposts after beating a team that lost to Vandy.

As usual, we'll discuss some impressions from the game, but the issue of discipline is by far the most concerning. It's likely that Alabama will win the game if they simply keep the penalties back to single digits instead of 15 for well over 100 yards. It was fitting that Kendrick Law's inability to control his emotions dashed the last real glimmer of hope. At some point, players will have to decide for themselves that enough is enough if they have any postseason aspirations.

In any case, the game happened, so we might as well break it down a little. A few impressions:

Jalen Milroe played perhaps his worst game as a starting QB.

Jalen Milroe's strengths and limitations have been well documented, but for some reason he wasn't able to perform at his typical level yesterday. The most devastating stat was 0/5 on 20+ passes, which is his strength. Tennessee was able to successfully block the deep pass because their front line is better able than most to contain it. The medium passing game is certainly not his strength.

Still, he missed wide open receivers several times on throws he made this year. His progress in this area has been made big, and for whatever reason everything went backwards yesterday. Hopefully it was just a matter of a nasty front and a rowdy crowd getting a little in his way, and the early interception in the end zone probably raised some doubts. He would hardly be the first QB to be affected by this of some sort, but he certainly has a lot to prove yet again. Hopefully he responds with the chip on his shoulder that we saw earlier this year.

The receivers seemed to make everything possible with their opportunities. Germie Bernard really had a performance here and Ryan Williams turned 20 targets into eight catches for 73 yards, which would have been a lot more had he been better at passing. Kendrick Law also canceled out a few nice YAC plays that few will remember thanks to the late penalty.

Many are calling for Milroe to be benched at this point, which is quite reactionary. He had played pretty well overall before the South Carolina game, and the last two games came against very good defenses. It's fair to say he shouldn't have an unlimited leash at this point. If we come into halftime against Mizzou and he's still missing open players or doesn't appear to be up to speed, the staff will likely be forced to take him out of the game, at least for a while, to observe him.

Let’s hope it doesn’t end up there though, shall we? I think everyone would prefer the team to get together at this point, including Jalen.

Alabama's secondary is broken, and that hasn't helped

This is not the time of year for injuries to pile up in any position group, especially not the group that saw the most roster turnover in the offseason. Unfortunately, that's exactly what happened.

Keon Sabb was a warrior out there, obviously fighting through pain to be on the field, but he obviously wasn't 100%. The Husky's two best players, Devonta Smith and Red Morgan, were both injured in the game, forcing King Mack to act, and to be honest, the results weren't pretty. He looks a bit small for this particular role and tackling was a big problem. Bray Hubbard has done quite well at safety in place of Sabb. He's physical, but he's not sure he or Malachi Moore has the speed to play single high.

Even Domani Jackson looked a little lacking once or twice early in the game after appearing on the injury report earlier in the week. Malachi was the bright spot with two big plays in the game, taking the ball away from Tennessee RB Dylan Sampson on Tennessee's first possession in the red zone and then picking off the backup QB when Vols coach Josh Heupel gave him the ball on 3rd-and-3 . Throwing the ball 9.

Alabama still can't find a consistent running game and this week they couldn't stop the run either

Jam Miller and Justice Haynes managed just 64 yards on 20 carries as the passing game didn't loosen up the penalty box. However, this has been a persistent problem even when the passing game has clicked. The interior is the strength of this Alabama offensive line, but for some reason there hasn't been much road scoring, which has been a major factor in the ups and downs of the offense.

Alabama's run defense hasn't been elite this season, but it has held up reasonably well. Unfortunately, they created a leak this week that allowed Tennessee's running backs 175 yards on 31 carries. Most concerning was the complete lack of resistance when the ball ended up inside the five-yard line both times. They might as well have just gone to the sideline and regrouped for those two plays, since it looked like the Vols were going to run against the air anyway.

On the positive side, the front seven was quite active in the passing game, which combined with the turnovers resulted in the Tide taking a 7-0 lead at halftime. LT Overton, Qua Russaw, Deontae Lawson and Jihaad Campbell all appeared on their highlight reels at times.

That's basically all there is to say about it. It's not often that “run the ball and stop the run” is the formula for winning in the modern era, and indeed in this case it wouldn't have been the formula if Milroe had simply run the ball at his trademark quality would have been passed has become established this season. It was clear from the start that this team would go as far as he could go. We saw some very high highs and a pretty low low yesterday.

It goes without saying that every game from now on will be about winning and losing and how the team reacts will tell us a lot about their inner strength, which will rightly be questioned. There's the potential for homecoming distractions next weekend, not to mention veteran dual-threat quarterback Brady Cook taking his best shots on a secondary that was suspect even when healthy. And Missouri's defense is active up front, if not the most talented in the conference.

Playoffs for this team begin Saturday, single elimination. I guess we'll see what they're made of.

Hope for the best.

Roll Tide.