This is a different Alabama team than Kirk Herbstreit has seen in the past. The ESPN analyst admitted in an interview with AL.com that this year’s defense doesn’t have some of the things the 2018 team did. On the other hand, the running game has taken a backseat the tremendous passing attack.

Herbstreit has joined the chorus of college football fans looking ahead to the Nov. 9 game when LSU travels to Alabama.

“I personally think that the Alabama defense a year ago, it didn’t catch up with them, but I talked about it weekly on GameDay, I saw things last year with the defense I don’t quite see this year,” he said. “But last year, if you took a trips formation into the boundary and had a running back motion him to the field, it was almost, like “whoa, whoa.” The linebackers would look over to the sideline. The sideline is trying to get hand signals in. The linebackers are trying to make sure everyone gets the signal and the ball is snapped. Guys were not quite on the same page. Not until the Clemson game, that caught up to them.”

Herbstreit believes the LSU game will expose whatever team Alabama is this season because the Crimson Tide haven’t been tested yet this season.

“That’s why I think when they play LSU, we’re all either going to go “Aha!, they are that good.” Or we’re going to say, “See, we kind of felt something was missing,” Herbstreit said.

Herbstreit tried to take a wide-angle view of the Crimson Tide and remember that their numbers look as good or better than years past in certain categories. Such as defensively, they are giving up 15 points a game right now. Last year, they gave up 18 points a game, “yet you didn’t hear this as much, the ‘what’s wrong with Alabama.’

“I think Alabama is fine,” he added. “I think Tua being hurt and the timing of it with LSU and Burrow coming into town is a little bit daunting.

“Overall, there’s a lot to like about Alabama. The difference, maybe, is we don’t see the running game pounding through people the way it has in the past,” he added. “All I see is a lot of points and an offense with (Alabama offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian) Sark – they don’t lead the nation, but they are right there with 48 points a game. This will all go away. We will know one way or another who Alabama truly is after 60 minutes of football with LSU.”