For those Bama fans who watched Alabama play Western Kentucky this weekend, let me say this: don’t start panicking about the way the Tide played – at least not yet.

Sure, the defense played tentatively at times, and the offense seemed to struggle with pass blocking and establishing a running game, but the end result was still a 35-0 blowout over the Hilltoppers. You know what that says to me? Even if it doesn’t play up to its ridiculously high standards, it still comes away with convincing wins.

Now, does that mean Alabama can afford to play that way against its future opponents? Absolutely not. But the point I’m trying to make is if head coach Nick Saban has his way, his team won’t perform as badly for the rest of the year. And for you fans out there already wondering about the Tide’s title chances, that is a comforting thought.

And it’s not like Alabama was the only highly-ranked team last weekend to not play to its standards. If you don’t believe me, look at the Arkansas-University of Louisiana at Monroe game. ULM came into Little Rock, Ark., and stunned the Razorbacks at home, 34-31. And, if you didn’t know, Arkansas was ranked No. 8 in the nation when it happened.

In fact, the only top five teams to actually play up to its standards this weekend were LSU and Oklahoma. LSU beat Washington 41-3, while Oklahoma beat Florida A&M 69-10. USC, the No. 2 team in the nation, had to struggle to beat Syracuse at home, 42-29, while No. 4 Oregon beat Fresno State 42-25.

Are you starting to see a pattern here? Most of the top 10 teams this weekend were caught napping. For some, like Alabama and USC, the end result was the same. And, unfortunately for others – here’s looking at you, Hogs – the end result was unexpected.

Now that each of these teams has been brought back to earth, we can start looking for them to play the type of football we expect of the highest caliber teams. And, in the case of Alabama, you can bet Saban is going to find a way to convince his team they haven’t done anything worthwhile yet. I expect there’s going to be a lot of video of quarterback AJ McCarron on his back when the team goes into film study.

Alabama will have the chance to rebound against a good Arkansas team, a team that, much like Alabama, simply wasn’t playing to its standards. Despite the Razorbacks’ loss to the Warhawks this weekend, this game should stand to serve as Alabama’s first true test of the season.

So, Alabama learned its lesson early, against a vastly inferior opponent. And, although the Tide didn’t play the way fans would have liked, the game did serve the purpose of waking Alabama up, with the added benefit of not having to be beaten beforehand. I guess the only thing Tide fans can hope for is that this team learns from its mistakes and avoids repeating them in the future.