TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — For University of Alabama senior right tackle Austin Shepherd, playing against Arkansas wasn’t the most difficult thing that he did last week.

It was asking his longtime girlfriend to marry him.

“Probably the most nervous thing I’ve ever done in my life,” Shepherd said, even though he was confident she was going to say yes.

Yet the football game Saturday night at Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium didn’t go nearly as well. While the defensive line has been getting praised for essentially being the difference in the 14-13 victory, the offensive line (and special teams) could have lost it.

Alabama finished with a season-low 227 total yards, including just 66 on the ground. Under a lot of pressure, senior quarterback Blake Sims completed just 11 of 21 passes for 161 yards and was sacked twice.

“Personally, I thought I played terrible,” Shepherd said. “I kind of take responsibility for it. I don’t think any of us had a good game. Probably the worst game we’ve played as a unit just to be straight up. I mean, I thought we were prepared. We just kind of didn’t execute like we wanted to.

“I went back and watched it and it was kind of just one person here and there. I mean, one play I give up a sack, the next play Cam (Robinson) gives up a pressure, the next play right guard gives up pressure. Just a lot of inconsistency.”

Shepherd also said that the lack of cohesion wasn’t due to junior center Ryan Kelly being sidelined by a sprained knee injury, with redshirt freshman Bradley Bozeman making his first career start, or coaches playing both sophomore Alphonse Taylor and senior Leon Brown at right guard.

Whatever Alabama tried didn’t seem to work. Even the two touchdowns were scored on broken plays.

“It wasn’t that we weren’t blocking the right guys, it’s more that we weren’t finishing the blocks,” Coach Nick Saban said. “We would get on the guy, the guy would slip us, come off and make the tackle. That’s the big thing that we need to do up front. Same thing in pass protection. We overset them, we get beat inside, just basic fundamental execution needs to be better and we need to finish better.”

Statistically, Arkansas finished with the edge in nearly every major category including first downs (18-10), total yards (335-227), and time of possession (34:13 to 25:47). The Razorbacks ran 79 total plays compared to Alabama’s 53, and had 19 third-down opportunities.

That Alabama wasn’t able to maintain any sort of ball control stems back to the line, and while that unit wasn’t the only one that had a bad night it does help explain the seven three-and-outs, not including the final possession when time ran out.

The really surprising statistic, through, was the lack of explosive plays. Saban defines them as any run 13 yards or more and a pass of at least 17 yards. After easily reaching double digits during its first four games, Alabama had just three.

Shepherd sad that a lot of it was due to technique and attention to detail, which has obviously been a problem for the line as demonstrated by the numerous procedure penalties this season.

“For instance on my play, just the wrong set,” he said. “I watched some guys (use) wrong technique. We’re in an outside zone, and they just overreached the linebacker, and the running back cuts back and the guy’s in the hole. I mean, just little stuff. If we had done little things right, we would’ve been fine, but it just didn’t happen, and we’ve got to fix all that.”

He added: “Everyone’s got to be committed to what we do. I’ll probably yell at them today when we’re doing individual drills because that’s the kind of stuff that carries over to a game. Coach always harps, ‘You play how you practice.’ You just got to practice better.”

Nevertheless, after cruising through the first month of the season, Alabama has reached the midway point and will enter Saturday’s game against Texas A&M (3:30 p.m. ET, CBS) without an offensive identity.

“I still don’t think we do,” Shepherd said. “We started off the season I wouldn’t say great but pretty good, had a little fault in Florida, but I still thought we played good. And these past two games we haven’t really done anything. I mean, I feel like we’re still searching for it, but I feel like the coaches think we are too.”

As for the big thing that went right, the engagement, Shepherd proposed at a special place for both he and Jenna King, who together in 2012 launched the Austin Shepherd Foundation to support children fighting illnesses.

“I did it at Children’s Hospital with a bunch of little kids,” said Shepherd, who had a bunch of them hold up a big sign that read: “Jenna, will you marry me?”

“One of my favorite ones who I’ve always kept up with really, just held the ring for me.”