The Alabama Crimson Tide continued to be efficient in almost every category on Saturday, winning 52-7 against Mercer.
The win came a week after the Crimson Tide took on LSU in Death Valley and emerged with a 42-6 win, keeping its playoff hopes alive.
Alabama has continuously improved since its loss in Knoxville, with a win against Missouri preceding the win in Baton Rouge.
However, Alabama earned 52 points completely differently against Mercer than against LSU.
Against LSU, Alabama got the ground game going early, leading to 311 yards off of 48 rushing attempts. Quarterback Jalen Milroe made up for the majority of the yards with 185.
Milroe also accounted for four rushing touchdowns out of the team’s six. He had minimal passing stats, going 12/18 while recording 109 yards and no touchdown passes.
Against Mercer, Alabama played an opposite game when it came to the pass and run.
Alabama ran the ball for 189 yards off 42 carries by 10 players. Milroe was also the leading rusher against Mercer but only had 43 rushing yards.
The ground game worked, but the air game led to the dominant performance.
Four quarterbacks saw game time against Mercer, combining 319 passing yards and three touchdowns. Wide receiver Germie Bernard recorded the most receiving yards with 81.
“I was proud of the way they just handled everything from the execution to even just the procedural things,” DeBoer said.
Two factors, specifically within the air game, got Alabama going.
One factor was the team’s ability to hit the deep ball. Alabama hit five passes of 20 yards or more, which fans haven’t seen much of from the Crimson Tide since early this season.
“Coming into this weekend we had a lot of stuff in, we knew we were gonna take a lot of deep shots and give guys opportunities,” wide receiver Germie Bernard said. “Whenever our opportunities came this week, we made sure that we made the most of them.”
The first of those downfield passes came from a 44-yard touchdown catch by tight end Robbie Ouzts at the top of the second quarter to put Alabama up 21.
“[Ouzts is] just kind of a Swiss Army knife for us out there, especially the blocking piece and for him to get down the field,” head coach Kalen DeBoer said. “For Robbie to haul one in, that was really exciting for our guys, exciting for him. I love to see it.”
The second factor was using tight ends in the past. Along with Ouzts, tight ends Josh Cuevas, CJ Dippre, Jay Lindsay and Ty Lockwood also saw action.
The five tight ends comprised 121 of the 319 receiving yards and one of the three receiving touchdowns. Against LSU, only one tight end recorded a catch.
Dippre was the one tight end with one catch for 12 yards against LSU. However, that week, the extensive use of the tight ends wasn’t necessary considering the efficiency of the ground game.
Alabama has been showing an improved ability to spread the ball around whenever or however it needs to, which has been a major contributor to the results seen in the last three games.
