“Our leaders need to hold their heads up high and just show everybody that we’re still here,” Sims said over the jeers from the few remaining Ole Miss fans. “We still have the opportunity to win a national championship.”
This Saturday, Alabama will have its first opportunity to get back on track to the College Football Playoff when it travels to Fayetteville, Arkansas, to take on the Arkansas Razorbacks, a team coach Nick Saban called one of the most improved teams in the nation.
“They’ve really played very, very well all season long, had a great chance to beat A&M, came up a little short in the end,” Saban said. “They’re dominating in terms of the way they’ve been able to run the football and really pass it effectively when they’ve needed to. Their quarterback’s playing really well for them. They have two really, really good running backs. Their offensive line is not only big, they do a really, really good job of executing what they do. They’ve only given up one sack all year long.”
The Razorbacks feature one of the top running offenses in college football, averaging 316.6 yards on the ground per game, good for seventh nationally. Their leading running back, sophomore Alex Collins, has accrued 621 yards on 86 carries this season.
“I’ve heard a lot about Alex Collins,” defensive lineman Jonathan Allen said. “He’s a great back, him and the other back [Jonathan Williams]. A great duo, so it’s really going to be a challenge for this week. We’re real excited to be able to play against them.”
Arkansas runs the ball over twice as often as it throws it, but when quarterback Brandon Allen is called into action, he’s effective. Allen completes around 60% of his passes and has a passer rating of 153.4.
“You’ve really got to play great team defense when you play a team like this, run and pass,” Saban said. “And you’ve got to have the right eye control because if you don’t look at the right things, they’re going to throw a play-action pass and you’re not going to know how that guy got where he got because he’s been sitting there blocking the safety and cracking all day. Now you all of a sudden don’t look at him right and he’s 20 yards behind you. There’s a lot of challenges when you play a team like this, especially when you don’t play teams like this very often anymore.”
While the spread, triple option and hurry-up, no-huddle offensive revolutions have changed the face of SEC football, Arkansas remains one of the few teams to run a “traditional” offense.
“This is really old-fashioned, hard-nosed, Bo Schembechler, Woody Hayes kind of football,” Saban said. “That’s something that is going to be different for our players and our preparation. In fact it’s so different during the bye week we spent a day on trying to review regular defense that we don’t ever seem to play. But we will play it this week.”
The Crimson Tide will attempt to recover from last week’s loss without three of its most important players. Center Ryan Kelly is out with a sprained knee, linebacker Denzel Devall had surgery for a high ankle sprain and running back Kenyan Drake is done for the season after breaking his leg against Ole Miss.
“Those guys are all really good players for us,” Saban said. “You know, we lost three really good players in this game, but it’s going to create an opportunity for some other players here and [they] have an opportunity to play well in the game. I have enough confidence that we have enough depth that our players will respond the right way and take advantage of the opportunity that they have.”
In his post-game comments last Saturday, Saban emphasized the team’s immediate response to a loss, citing prior one-loss Alabama teams that won national championships. Saturday, he said, this edition of the Crimson Tide will get a chance to show its resolve.
“How you respond to a loss is kind of like adversity tolerance,” Saban said Wednesday. “You’ve got to overcome a lot of things. You’ve got to admit what you need to improve. God gave you ability. He did not give you an attitude to make choices. We’ve got to make the right choices so we can improve as a team.”
