Alabama entered Saturday’s game against Ole Miss with lofty expectations, but the team left Oxford with a 23-17 loss and the need to once again find its wayward identity.
How did this happen? Was it the crowd? The penalties? Turnovers, miscues, or the pressure of the moment?
The reasons for Alabama’s eventual loss included all of these.
And unlike in years past, Ole Miss played up to its potential and did not slump away at the end. The Rebels proved that their defense should be feared, their stadium can create a dynamic home field advantage and their quarterback can actually be great, sometimes.
This time it was Alabama that failed to do what it has become known for in the Saban era — finishing
“This was our first game on the road and it affected us,” Saban said. “I don’t know if it was the atmosphere or the bye week. I don’t know what specifically created it, probably that they play pretty well, but we needed to play our best football of the year and we just really didn’t do it.”
The offense that that had defied expectations by rattling of a string of record-setting performances never showed up on Saturday. Instead a timid, conservative Alabama emerged.
The feed-Amari-Cooper-plan was tossed out the window. He finished the game with a respectable but underwhelming 91 yards receiving and no touchdowns, ending his streak of six-straight games over 100 yards.
Quarterback Blake Sims didn’t make a lot of mistakes, but the confidence — the electricity — he had exhibited in recent weeks just wasn’t there.
Tight end O.J. Howard, who Alabama fans had hoped to see get more action, apparently was not ready for his increased involvement. He dropped passes in key moments and put up surprisingly little resistance to Ole Miss cornerback Senquez Golson’s game-clinching interception in the end zone.
The injuries were especially devastating, too. The offense missed the big play capabilities of Kenyan Drake, who suffered a broken leg. Witnessing such a gruesome injury really seemed to take the wind out of the Tide’s sails early in the game. The o-line also lost its anchor when center Ryan Kelly went down with a sprained knee. The offense sometimes seemed to struggle to even get organized at the line of scrimmage in his absence.
On the defensive side of the ball, the secondary remained an eyesore for the Crimson Tide. Defensive stalwart Landon Collins and his cohorts were routinely burned by Ole Miss receivers. Highly touted freshman cornerback Tony Brown, coming off an excellent first start shutting down Florida’s Demarcus Robinson two weeks ago, became a particularly frequent target of the Rebels in the second half.
And the kicking game. Oh, the kicking game.
“There’s a lot of things that we can do better, that we need to do better,” Saban said. “And as coaches, we have to get our players to do better.”
But as difficult as it was to watch the Vaught-Hemingway Stadium goal posts being paraded through Oxford, Alabama’s season is far from over. As recent history has shown (e.g. 2011 and 2012), a one-loss Alabama team coming out of the SEC West has a great shot at a national championship. And this is the earliest Alabama has lost since the Saban era began in 2007, which compelled the coach to point out after the game that “Every goal we have as a team is still in front of us.”
“How do you respond to a loss?” Saban asked. “We’ve had several teams around here that have lost games and responded the right way and ended up having pretty good seasons.”
The SEC West is so brutal this season, it could easily cannibalize itself and a one or two loss team could emerge as champion. While Alabama has games remaining against Arkansas, Miss. State, Texas A&M and Auburn, all of those teams have to play each other, too.
“Our leaders need to hold our heads up high and just show everybody on the team that we’re still here, we still have an opportunity to win a national championship,” Sims added. “The team went out and we fought and we didn’t come up with a victory, but it’s not the end of the Alabama Crimson Tide.”
With more than half of the season left, this loss could be seen as a wake-up call or a sign of things to come. Either way, there’s a lot of football left to be played.
Follow Jonathan on Twitter @Jonathan_Biles
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