The Alabama Crimson Tide went into the second quarter against Duke on Saturday afternoon tied 0-0. From that point on, though, the game turned into a rout.

The final score ended up being 42-3 in favor of the Crimson Tide, and Duke coach David Cutcliffe was impressed with what he saw from Alabama.

After the game, he had plenty of praise for the Crimson Tide (via AL.com):

“Games like this kind of — you go one of two ways: They set you back or you get better from them. I know in my heart of hearts that our team will get better from this. Alabama is not good. They’re outstanding. I might say they have a great offense without a doubt. When we needed to play at our best at times, we hung in there and could. But our defense just wore out with the offense not being successful. And then the story in the second half … had a big penalty and an ejection on defense led to the first score. Then we turn around and we have a big penalty, a chop block penalty on offense and then we get a resulting turnover, another score. You can’t turn the ball over and you can’t get big penalties. In the first half, although we weren’t very productive offensively, we were disciplined. We had two penalties the entire first half. And that’s how we knew we would have to play. Alabama, as I said, is a great football team.”

He was also impressed with what he saw from QB Tua Tagovailoa:

“He is incredible. He’s accurate. He’s poised. His release is so compact … and quick. He can throw on the run. … I had never studied him until this summer. I think he’s going to be a great quarterback this year, and he will play in the National Football League a long time. He’s going to be a great player.”

He took responsibility for the Duke offense not moving the ball, too:

“I mean, defensively, Alabama causes a lot of people’s struggles. We weren’t consistent with anything, and I don’t think — and this is on me — that we did a good enough job of using our weapons. You have to be balanced against them.”

Overall, Alabama played a good game to move to 1-0 on the season. How will the Tide fare moving forward? Their next big test comes in Week 3 at South Carolina.