Admit it, you had questions.

It’s OK, we did too.

When Alabama struggled to run the ball against Duke, you wanted to know why Steve Sarkisian was on the Alabama sideline. When the Crimson Tide couldn’t really get it done much on the ground against New Mexico State either, you wondered if Alabama would ever run it effectively again.

But Saturday, surrounded by the acres and acres of pavement and gravel that is a part of South Carolina’s Williams-Brice Stadium experience, those questions were answered with the following query:

Who needs to run the dang ball when you can pitch it around this well?

Alabama beat South Carolina 47-23 behind a record day from Tua Tagovailoa. The sweet Hawaiian prince finished 28-for-36, setting a career-high with 444 yards and matching the program record with 5 TD passes.

It took a minute for things to get going. Well, 1:39 to be precise, as Tagovailoa needed that long to find the end zone via a 24-yard swing pass TD to Najee Harris. Two possessions later, the Tide went up 14-3 when Henry Ruggs III took a seam route 81 yards to the house.

Not that South Carolina was going away. Buoyed perhaps by the distant memory of upsetting then-No. 1 Alabama in 2010 and maybe more by a home crowd fueled by tailgating on all that pavement and gravel, the Gamecocks appeared to take the lead on a fake punt run for a TD (called back by holding) and then cut it to 14-10 when freshman QB Ryan Hilinski hit Shi Smith for a 31-yard score.

That was as close at the Gamecocks got. Tagovailoa calmly navigated Alabama down the field — mixing traditional throws to Ruggs and DeVonta Smith with runs-disguised-as-passes to Harris and Brian Robinson Jr. — for an eventual Will Reichard chip shot FG.

But it was the next Tide possession that fully cracked the code on what Alabama’s offensive plan was for the entire season. Facing a 4th-and-2 at the South Carolina 42, Tagovailoa calmly found Harris out of the backfield for a first down. Only Harris wasn’t content with just a first down. He tossed down D.J .Wonnum like a rag doll, hurdled R.J. Roderick at the 20 and shrugged off Ernest Jones en route to the goal line and a 24-10 lead.

Game, set, boom … right?

Not that Alabama is a perfect team in mid-September. Far from it.

Reichard hooked a 37-yarder that gave South Carolina a glimmer of hope late in the 2nd quarter. And the Tide got lucky when South Carolina and the SEC replay official mismanaged a Rico Dowdle dive for the goal line that could have well been a TD.

Dowdle appeared to get to the end zone on a 3-yard run with under a minute to play, but the SEC never buzzed down to referee Hubert Owens to stop the action for a second look — nor did South Carolina coach Will Muschamp call a timeout to give the stripes more time to look at the play.

“I’m not gonna comment on that,” Muschamp said to CBS’ Jamie Erdahl, apparently referring to the SEC replay crew and not his inability to shape his hands in the form of a T. “I’ll get fined for the rest of my life if I comment on that.”

South Carolina’s red-zone woes continued to start the 2nd half, marching all the way to the Tide 5 before sputtering and settling for a 28-yard Parker White field goal. What could have been a tie game instead resulted in just 3 points on drives of 77 and 71 yards.

Give the Tide an inch, and it might as well be a mile. Or in this instance, sit Tagovailoa for the end of the first half and the start of the second, and he’ll come out with a scalpel.

Alabama’s sweet Hawaiian prince shrugged off a 1st-down incompletion to hit Smith for 5, then Ruggs for 17. Harris galloped up the middle for 11 to rope-a-dope the Gamecocks defense into whiffing on a perfect Tagovailoa-to-Smith 42-yard TD pass.

Going on the road in the SEC is never easy. Ever. Even second-tier programs like South Carolina can rise up and smack you down when you least expect it. Happens a couple of times every season, your random Kentucky upset or Ole Miss miracle that makes the “It Just Means More” commercials and the first segment of SportsCenter.

Alabama avoided that trap with aplomb Saturday. The defense bent, especially in the secondary by allowing more than 300 passing yards to Hilinksi, but did not break. The special teams bent but did not break, when Coach Boom emptied the trick-play book at them.

And Tagovailoa was as good as he has been advertised since stepping foot on Tuscaloosa’s campus. The junior, who is in a season-long job interview for the No. 1 overall pick in next year’s NFL Draft, threw his 5th touchdown early in the 4th quarter. At that point, Alabama had rushed for just 60 yards.

Not running it enough? Who cares anymore? When half the NFL seems to already be Tanking For Tua, maybe the Tide’s best shot at an 18th national title ring is to just let great things happen.