3 takeaways from Alabama's ugly road win over South Florida
Alabama seems to still be asleep following Week 2’s loss to the Texas Longhorns.
Nick Saban’s squad looked rough, especially offensively, against the USF Bulls Saturday afternoon. Even a long break for a lightning delay didn’t help quell Alabama’s nerves early, with the Tide taking home a close and ugly 17-3 win.
For reference, USF lost to Western Kentucky 41-24 in Week 1.
But hey, a win is a win. Here are 3 takeaways from Alabama’s win over the Bulls on Saturday.
QB Drama: Tyler Buchner struggles, Ty Simpson sees varying success
Tyler Buchner was… not the answer Saturday against the Bulls.
No, that was apparent very quickly. The Notre Dame transfer failed to lead any scoring drives and was benched in favor of Ty Simpson with 4 minutes remaining int he first half. He finished his day 5-14 for 34 passing yards.
And for what it’s worth, the jury is still out on Simpson. He was given a short field and led the Tide to a field goal, at least getting the Tide on the board before the halftime break.
He finished Saturday completing 5 of his 9 passing attempts for 73 yards with a rushing touchdown. Combined, Simpson and Buchner combined to complete 10 of their 23 passes for 107 yards.
As for Jalen Milroe, it’s unclear why he didn’t see the field even once Saturday. He struggled against Texas, sure, but struggling against Texas is far different from struggling against USF.
Anyone wonder how he feels after being benched only for Alabama to put up this performance? He’s still behind his guys, folks.
Alabama QB Jalen Milroe being the ultimate teammate after Ty Simpson leads Alabama on a scoring drive.
? via Tedddy G @BigTripTeddy
— Touchdown Alabama (@TDAlabamaMag) September 16, 2023
No more excuses, offensive line
Okay, Alabama. There are officially no more excuses for that offensive line play. Especially in the first half.
Alabama got pushed around some by both Middle Tennessee and especially Texas, but it was fair to chalk that up to being a little slow out of camp. Not anymore. This line could present some real problems for Alabama moving forward.
The stat line won’t show this either, probably because of how heavily Alabama had to rely on the run game Saturday. The Tide rushed for 203 yards and a pair of touchdown, with an especially strong performance from Roydell Williams. The Tide averaged a solid 4.9 yards per carry.
But South Florida’s line was all over Buchner and Simpson throughout Saturday’s game. The Bulls totaled 5 sacks for a loss of 32 yards, something that just shouldn’t happen against a G5 opponent.
One positive: Dallas Tuner, Deontae Lawson strong lead effort
This game was a disaster for Alabama, but any Tide fan can take solace in the way the Tide’s LB corps played Saturday evening, specifically Dallas Turner and Deontae Lawson.
Turner had what may be the play of the game on defense for the Crimson Tide, forcing a fumble in USF territory to set up Ty Simpson with a short field. Simpson didn’t finish in the end zone, but the importance of simply getting on the board after 26 minutes of bad football worked wonders.
Turner’s forced fumble added to his impressive statline on Saturday. He finished with 7 tackles and 2.5 sacks. Deontae Lawson looked good as well, leading the way with 10 tackles, 1.5 tackles for loss and a sack.
Alabama’s defense was far from perfect, but it was also far from the problem Saturday against the Bulls. The Tide held USF to 3 points, after all. The Tide forced 2 turnovers, both at major points in the game. Once to give the Tide their first score of the game and once against with an interception in their own end zone to keep USF from getting their hopes up.
But Nick is mad.
Nick is showing no emotion, he’s out there todderong like J0 B1d en
He old.
You ugly, but Nick still has 7 natties. But you ugly bruh
And UGA’s QB sucks! Has a cupcake schedule and still y’all suck. No room to talk until YOU PLAY SOMEBODY!?
I told you so.
That A you sport is Auburn is disguise.
Aaron Proctor, 74, should be made to walk to Tuscaloosa. Held on a play when Williams had already passed with the ball. Whomever is the O Line coach should be fired as well
And if you watched that play again, that particular penalty was a bad call. His hands were inside the pads. However Proctor has terrible technique on the outside rush.
“O” line play is so inconsistent in run blocking and pass protection. This team is playing like a group of Five Stars but not like a Team. They think just because they wear Crimson they will win but it does not work that way.
Bama is terrible. You cold have Joe Montana back there at QB and you’d still be terrible giving up all those sacks to South Florida. How the heck has Bama missed so bad on evaluation and development? That’s on Saban.
UGA’s terrible.
Georgia has a offensive coordinator problem. Alabama has a quarterback problem.
We don’t have an OC problem. We have a jittery quarterback problem. Once our QB settles in he’s fine; we just need him to be settled in more quickly.
UGA’s playing high school teams every week and y’alls fans are jumping around barking. Embarrassing!!
Thank you for making our slow start look not as bad.
Ugly gm. Tide doesn’t have a QB. I could see this tm losing 3 or 4 gms if they don’t improve in a hurry.
Bama will lose a few more games this year. This team is bad.
I haven’t seen a Bama team this bad since they last played USF.
QB is definitely an issue. That fact can’t be hidden anymore. Milroe looks to be the best option. They have Ole Miss next week. The line for that this morning was Bama by 11. I don’t think that holds. That’s going to be a very interesting game.
If viewed objectively, it not even a debate who Bama’s best QB is after today’s disaster.
I have no idea what you mean. All I saw was one qb completely ruled out.
Otherwise it should be a two man race.
Against much weaker competition, today’s QBs did not collectively produce half of the results that Milroe produced against Texas, a top 4 team.
This practice week would be an interesting watch. I expect the o-line to get some juggling. Ty Buchner should be fourth QB now. That experiment is done.
Tyler ain’t it. Oline needs to be redone and reworked and idk who to point to for that but QB play was aight given they were so scared the whole game and rightfully so. A win is a win and it’ll only get harder from here. It’s between Simpson and Milroe now.
Yes. I’d split reps with those two looking to see who seems more ready for Ole Miss.
Point to the O line coach. He isn’t good. Your line will not improve as long as he’s there. I don’t have anything against Alabama, hell, as a UK fan we’re used to getting smoked by Bama; I’m just telling you what we experienced when he stunk up one of the only consistent bright spots of the UK program.
Who is supposed to be o line coach
O line has to block better and pick the blitz , size doesn’t help near as much as experience, maybe they will get better as the season progresses either way ROLL TIDE , real fan here pull for them win or lose bad or ugly win
Scoring in the last minute when could have run the clock out. Pathetic
Pathetic is ringing cowbell. The only team in the nation allowed to do so. With the Pirate gone you’re back to being just annoying. How’s that ground and pound working out?
Cow bells chiming in! Comical!!!
3-weeks in, LSU may be the best team in the SEC. Neither Georgia or Tennessee would have defeated FSU or TX. TN is getting drilled by FL, and UGA has struggled against less talented teams all season.
Have to agree with you. The biggest reason UGA doesn’t have an early loss is they didn’t open with a good team.
This is how it looks today; however, I remain hopeful that Bama will get it together and let the best players play across every unit, offensively and defensively.
I don’t blame Saban for playing the other QBs this week. It was worth the experiment. This was an ugly game though. This will go one of two ways. Ty or Jalen finally make separation and develop similar to how Coker finally broke away from Bateman in 2015, or we never see either markedly improve and this season becomes the first time since 2007 we do not win 10 games in a season. I’m going to remain optimistic because I remember when games like these were the norm. This team still has the pieces to make something happen, but the QBs and offensive line need to get better. The silver lining was the ground game, albeit against a weak opponent. And the defense did a good job too. A win is a win, despite how empty this one feels.
Maybe the offensive line’s NIL checks were late arriving.
To paraphrase Dean Wormer, “Fat, dumb, and slow is no way to play offensive line”.
The O Line has been put on double secret probation
There are a lot of over reaction early in the season both good and bad.
Overall I would agree with this sentiment, but I don’t think it’s too early to draw some conclusions about the atypical deficiencies on this Bama team. It is certainly the worst Saban Bama team since at least 2010, and maybe only better than the 2007 unit in Saban’s first year (and even that is up for debate if things continue to look horrible on the O-line and QB positions).
Milroe was – is clearly the best QB on the team. Saban just wasted an opportunity to get Milroe valuable game reps against an overmatched team.
Next up Ole Miss. Get your popcorn ready!
I agree Tim. Wow. Last night reminded me of the 90’s.
One observation from the game that MIGHT be indicative of the problem this year, is that during a change of possession in the second half, the offense was huddled on the edge of the field, and Coach Saban was no doubt trying to rally the team to close out the game. An offensive lineman was standing directly in front of Saban while he was animatedly talking to the group, but the player had his back to Saban, and never turned around to face him during the entire exchange. That to me made it seem that IF Coach ever had this team’s attention, he has now lost it, for whatever reason. I realize a position coach may also have been speaking, but if anyone on that sideline should have the attention of the players, it should be Saban. Hopefully I am wrong.