For the Alabama Crimson Tide this week, it’s not about what the team has done so far this season, the team’s diminishing national championship hopes, or even Western Carolina this Saturday. The focus this week is just getting back to the basics of executing.
Even with the loss to the Aggies on Saturday, the season still isn’t over for Alabama, which has two games left against Western Carolina and Auburn before most likely facing Georgia in the SEC Championship game. With poor execution being the Tide’s down fall in the last two games, Nick Saban is working hard to make sure the team gets back on track to what the team could potentially achieve this season.
“No matter how you cut the mustard, whether we won both of the last two games or lost both of the last two games, I don’t think we’ve executed as well as a football team,” Saban said. “Whether we don’t focus as well, plan as well, practice as well, rest as well or get emotionally ready as well, for whatever reasons, the focus has to be on not what has been lost, but what can be gained from the lessons learned from those circumstance and situations. We need to look forward in a positive way to what we want this football team to be remembered as and accomplish.”
Having already faced a similar situation last year after losing to LSU, the Tide understands the team has to get refocused and start performing to the level it needs to be at if the team wants to have a successful end to the season. Many leaders in the locker room, including linebacker Nico Johnson, quarterback AJ McCarron, and offensive lineman Chance Warmack, spoke up after the game Saturday to re-motivate the team and remind everyone they have to keep fighting even after the loss.
Johnson in particular believes the key to getting the Tide back on track is just getting refocused, which he said is the main reason the team has been struggling the last couple games.
“We haven’t been playing our best ball,” Johnson said. “I think everybody lost their focus; everybody lost their ‘why.’ I don’t think we understood how important every game was. I don’t think we understood that you can get beat week in and week out in the SEC, and it showed. I think everybody understands now, and I hate it we had to lose, but if that’s what it takes, that’s what it takes. We are just going to re-motivate ourselves this week and go forward.”
The miscues that haunted the Tide on Saturday are the same that nearly cost them against LSU: not making tackles in the open field, not being able to make defensive stops on third down, and costly turnovers ending drives and momentum.
Let’s start with tackling. It’s unusual to see the normally stout Crimson Tide miss so many open field tackles and allow so many yards after the catch, but that’s been the case the previous two weeks as the Tide has allowed 435 and 418 yards after previously only allowing an average of 197 yards per game in the team’s first eight games. Johnson hopes the defense will be able to work out its tackling issues in practice over the next two weeks.
“We have to tackle better, and we got to start during the week and practice it,” he said. “If we don’t practice it well during the week, it’s going to carry over to the game. Coach loves to preach the way you practice carries over to the game. If you practice bad or we do things bad over and over in practice it’s going to carry over. It’s showed all year, just teams haven’t really took advantage over those aspects of our game, but now it’s catching up to us, so we just got to re-motivate ourselves and do better. “
The defense’s other major issue – not being able to get off the field on third down – has been attributed by pundits to the Tide’s lack of a dominant rusher, like last year’s Courtney Upshaw. Saban believes it’s less about the pass rush and more of an overall team effort in a combination of the rush and coverage. He points to the second half of the LSU game and first half of the Texas A&M game as good examples, where the opposing teams each converted five straight third downs.
Senior defensive lineman Quinton Dial said the problem against the Aggies was strictly just not executing in those big spots on defense.
“We didn’t execute, and we just didn’t come ready to play,” Dial said. “They made big plays when we didn’t execute and do the little things right, and they capitalized on it.”
The third notable issue for the Tide is turnovers, losing possession of the ball over four times in the last two games after only six previously over the course of the season. Notably, freshman running back T.J. Yeldon has been a part of two costly fumbles, once on a botched hand off from A.J. McCarron in LSU’s redzone and the other against Texas A&M, halting an important drive in the fourth quarter.
While there has been some concern about Yeldon’s confidence for the next couple games with ball security, junior running back Eddie Lacy, who also had some fumbling issues early in his career, is confident Yeldon will be able to move past it and bounce back strong.
“He just needs to remember that this is football,” Lacy said. “Bad plays are going to happen, and so are good plays. He just has to block the bad ones from his mind, keep playing, and not let it affect him. It’s always tough to get over a fumble, but that’s why you have your teammates. They’re here to support you and make you feel better about it.”
If the Tide can get improve on these miscues and get refocused, then the team isn’t out of the national championship hunt yet. Similarly to last year, when the Tide found itself ranked fourth behind undefeated LSU, Oklahoma State, and Stanford, it only needs two of Kansas State, Oregon and Notre Dame to lose to get right back in the national championship game. And in college football, where chaos dominates the month of November, it’s not improbable to imagine the Tide getting a chance at defending its national championship come January.
But for now the team is focused on getting back on track, improving from the loss to Texas A&M, and letting the season play out as it may.
“We had a bad game and we had a couple mistakes, but all we are worried about right now is getting better together as a team,” offensive lineman Cyrus Kouandijo said. “Just working real hard to play Bama football and whatever happens, happens after that. Wherever the chips fall is not really in our control or anything, so we are just going to play Bama football and see where it takes us.”
