No. 7 Alabama and first-year coach Kalen DeBoer avoided a second loss in as many weeks Saturday, hanging on against unranked South Carolina at home 27-25.
Alabama still hasn’t lost back-to-back regular-season games since the 2007 season, Nick Saban’s first year as head coach of the Crimson Tide, but the Gamecocks had a chance until the final seconds Saturday after recovering an onside kick and led in the fourth quarter.
Alabama entered Saturday’s game as a 21.5-point favorite, one week after losing at Vanderbilt as a 23.5-point favorite.
“Another game down to the wire, we’re kinda getting accustomed to those,” DeBoer said. “There’s things that we can certainly do to make sure that doesn’t get to that point, but we always talk about finding a way to win. And as many times it looked like we weren’t, we did. I’m proud of the response.”
Should the game have gotten to the point where South Carolina even had the chance to come back? At the two-minute mark and on third-and0-10, quarterback Jalen Milroe found receiver Germie Bernard on a busted coverage that resulted in a 34-yard touchdown that extended Alabama’s lead to 27-19. An excellent play call that yielded a positive result, but South Carolina didn’t have any timeouts left. Had Bernard stopped short of the goal line, the offense could’ve salted the game away on QB kneels.
Right on the 🤑@JalenMilroe ▶️@oti_germie
📺: ABC pic.twitter.com/sR0CyejO3O
— Alabama Football (@AlabamaFTBL) October 12, 2024
“We called the play and just executed the play,” Bernard said. “They didn’t say anything about getting down to me, so I just went in and scored a touchdown. … Now that I know, I’ll have that in the back of my mind to do that next time. Hopefully we’re not in that situation anymore.”
A few minutes later, cornerback Domani Jackson’s interception with a few seconds left sealed the game for Alabama but almost put the result in a dangerous spot. Jackson intercepted the pass, and his momentum carried him into the end zone. He was setting up to take a knee, but Malachi Moore motioned for him to run it out to avoid the chance for a safety call. Perhaps Jackson wouldn’t have been flagged because of the forward momentum rule, but perhaps not. That in itself is a snapshot of the past three games for Alabama and the roller coaster it’s been to get to 5-1 overall and 2-1 in conference play.
Domani Jackson Called GAME🐘
— PFF College (@PFF_College) October 12, 2024
All-World Heads-Up Team member Malachi Moore telling Domani Jackson to not kneel a safety there … my goodness.
Saved Alabama the game.
— Nick Baumgardner (@nickbaumgardner) October 12, 2024
“Those are just things that we gotta continue to learn from,” DeBoer said.
Is this Alabama squad even built to win in the Playoff?
So, is this Alabama team even built to make noise if it makes the 12-team Playoff? Saban’s best teams didn’t get dominated up front the way South Carolina handled the Crimson Tide on Saturday. Alabama averaged a measly 2.7 yards per carry, and SEC sack leader Kyle Kennard and five-star freshman Dylan Stewart had Milroe seeing ghosts. Stewart had two of South Carolina’s four sacks and three of the team’s nine tackles for loss.
The sacks weren’t surprising. The Crimson Tide allowed 3.5 per game last year with Milroe at quarterback. But it’s a troubling sign the running game was shut down and Milroe was under as much duress as he was. Alabama’s offensive line came into Saturday’s game grading out as a mediocre power conference unit according to Pro Football Focus, responsible for four sacks and 29 quarterback pressures allowed through the team’s first five games. Four of the team’s eight sacks allowed were blamed on Milroe. There are tougher opponents with excellent pass rush units ahead on the schedule. — Manny Navarro
Bama struggles again but finds a way
Milroe played his worst game of the season but found a way late to help push Alabama over the top. He threw an end zone interception with 12:17 left, only for the defense to give him the ball right back one play later. The result: a three-play, 31-yard touchdown drive culminating in a Milroe touchdown run from 7-yards out to give Alabama a 20-19 lead. Several minutes later, he found Bernard for the aforementioned touchdown.
For Milroe personally, his two rushing touchdowns brings his season total to 12 in only six games. The Alabama single season record is 13, which was set by Jalen Hurts in 2016.
“Biggest strength (on offense right now): mental toughness,” Milroe said. “(We are) finishing despite anything that goes on in the game. That’s important above talent. We have a board that reads TNT — Takes No Talent. That’s something that we try to have — mental toughness, grind, refine and compete as much as possible.”
Alabama fans collectively exhaled in relief as the game ended, but grind is an appropriate word to describe how Alabama won the game. It wasn’t pretty, and the Tide have continued to show how small the team’s margin for error is in SEC play.
Saturday’s game produced a near dead-even result across the board: total yards (South Carolina: 374, Alabama: 313), first downs (South Carolina: 23, Alabama: 20), time of possession (South Carolina: 31:40, Alabama: 28:20), among other things.
And now Alabama faces another big test in heading to Tennessee. Both teams have one loss, an ugly loss, against an unranked opponent. It’s a potential SEC championship elimination game, and whichever team loses will be on the Playoff bubble. On the bright side, the expanded Playoff allows for more margin of error, however, Alabama’s recent results won’t help in the eyes of the committee. The Tide won and will maintain their ranking, but the eye test indicates that this is a team that’s not trending upwards. But from a psyche perspective, overcoming last week’s loss and finding a way to win on Saturday starts this upcoming week on a positive note.
“We talk all the time about how it’s hard to win the SEC,” running back Justice Haynes said. “And we took care of it today. That’s all we can ask for. Look at the film, see where we need to improve on but a win is a win. We’re never going to take that for granted.” — Kennington Smith III
An inexplicable end to the first half put Alabama in danger
Up 14-0, freshman Jaylen Mbakwe made an impressive open-field tackle on third-and-8 with 1:40 remaining in the first half to set up a South Carolina fourth down. At that point, it looked like Alabama had the momentum. Then a series of costly mistakes turned the game on its head.
South Carolina took advantage of an Alabama blown coverage to score a 36-yard touchdown on fourth-and-9 to cut the deficit to 14-7. Entering Saturday, Alabama’s defense allowed a 73 percent fourth-down conversion rate, 112th nationally. A series of miscues led to an interception by Milroe, which was returned inside the Alabama red zone. A short field goal gave South Carolina 12 unanswered points and cut its halftime deficit to 14-12. — Smith
Alabama’s defense is in desperate need of answers
South Carolina opened the third quarter with a 16-play, 85-yard touchdown drive that took up 8:40 of game clock. What’s more concerning for the Tide inside of that drive: The Gamecocks converted 4-of-4 on third downs after going 0-for-5 in the first half. Alabama allowed only one 16-play touchdown drive from 2014-2023. It has allowed three of those drives this season alone.
Third- and fourth-down defense have become increasingly worrisome. Over the past 10 quarters, Alabama has allowed a 47.7 percent third-down conversion rate. South Carolina’s first touchdown came on a fourth-down play.
“I think these last two offenses we faced are more built to have drives that continue to have plays stack on top of each other,” DeBoer said. “Obviously it’s frustrating when they can put five third downs together and then you start wearing on your defense. They’re out there a long time, and the longer the drive happens, the better chance they have of scoring.”
Some preseason personnel questions about this unit arose on Saturday. It’s known that the secondary is thin and inexperienced. Starting cornerback Domani Jackson went down with an injury in the second quarter, and four true freshmen saw snaps through the first half: Mbakwe, Zabien Brown, Zay Mincey and Red Morgan. The inexperience hurt Alabama on that fourth-down touchdown pass where Mincey was out of position. Fortunately for Alabama, Jackson returned and made an impact.
The win notwithstanding, Alabama’s defense is searching for answers against SEC offenses. Over the past 10 quarters, Alabama’s defense has allowed 77 points and 1,136 yards. Kane Wommack’s defense was dominant in the first half against Georgia, but the past few weeks have shown a unit that’s consistently been out of sorts between the scheme and a lack of player execution.
“We’re very confident,” veteran Tim Smith said of players’ faith in the scheme. “But we have a really young team, so it’s just like making sure our backups are just as strong as our starters and making sure we do what we need to do to execute.”
However, the defense does deserve credit for timely plays that stifled South Carolina from breaking the game open. The unit forced four turnovers and stopped South Carolina from taking the lead midway through the fourth quarter when the Gamecocks were driving down 20-19, in addition to a few clutch late game stops. But the overall trends are concerning ahead of next week’s game at Tennessee. The Crimson Tide survived on Saturday, but there’s a ton of work to do to reach their goals of the SEC Championship Game and Playoff. — Smith
(Photo of Kalen DeBoer: Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)