Alabama’s 2021 team isn’t nearly as dominant as the 2020 version of the Crimson Tide. And that’s been made clear during recent weeks.

First, Alabama lost to Texas A&M on Oct. 9, marking its first defeat since the 2019 regular-season finale. While the Crimson Tide have bounced back with 2 straight wins, their most recent victory — a 52-24 triumph over Tennessee — wasn’t as one-sided early on as many had expected.

The Vols used some big offensive plays to keep things close, trailing the Tide by only 7 points heading into the fourth quarter.

On Tuesday, CBS Sports analyst Barrett Sallee made his weekly appearance on “The Matt McClearin Show” on WJOX 94.5 FM and shared his thoughts on some of Alabama’s problems at this point in the season.

“The secondary giving up some big plays is concerning and the fact that the linebackers seem like they’re out of position at times, and those things are kind of lingering, right?” Sallee said. “It felt like they, at times, addressed it well. It felt like, ‘Oh OK, this is the Alabama team that we expect to see against Tennessee.’ And then there were other times where it was like, ‘Nope, no it’s not. It’s still got those issues.’

“I think they’ve got to fix that, they’ve got to be able to prevent shootouts. Because while they can win shootouts, and probably will win a lot of shootouts, you don’t really want that with Bryce Young as a sophomore and first-year starter. I don’t know, they’re an imperfect team, but when you talk about Alabama in regard to what makes a complete team, what makes an elite team, it’s a different sort of level. Their problems are far less concerning than essentially everybody else outside of Athens.”

Alabama is on a bye this week, but it will look to correct some of its issues when it hosts LSU on Nov. 6.