At most places, winning 11 games in a season is cause for celebration.
Alabama isn’t most places.
But it wasn’t just Alabama’s 2 regular-season losses and first year without a College Football Playoff berth that made 2019 strange.
From the moment the Tide went to Santa Clara and were annihilated 44-16 by Clemson in the national championship game in January 2019 to the final, fateful snaps of the Iron Bowl, Alabama looked more mortal than it has in over a decade under Nick Saban. The Tide lost 3 times in a calendar year for the first time since 2010, triggering the usual fantasy fiction about whether Nick Saban’s imperious reign over the SEC, and as such, the college football universe, was finally over. Even Paul Finebaum wondered if Saban’s promise that “the Alabama standard” would be re-established would be kept?
Most Bama fans, however, rightly still believe.
There’s a lot to like about the 2020 football team and plenty of reasons to think Alabama will re-establish “the standard” on the Capstone this autumn.
Here are 5 ways the Tide will be a better football team in 2020.
1. They won’t give up 28 points or more in a game 4 times in 2020
The past 2 seasons, Nick Saban defenses have surrendered 28 points or more a total of 4 times each season.
Read that again, because prior to 2018, they had only given up 28 points or more a total of 10 times the previous 5 seasons.
Alabama had finished in the top 10 nationally in scoring defense every season since 2010 until the past 2 years, when the Tide finished 12th and 13th, respectively. Again, those numbers are elite at most programs, but below the standard at Saban’s Alabama.
This defense, with the return of All-American Dylan Moses, coupled with a likely return to at least some variant of a ball-control offense that will keep the defense on the field for fewer snaps, should once again be a top 10 scoring defense unit and they won’t allow 28 points or more in a game 4 times.
2. The run defense will be back to Alabama’s lofty standard
The biggest reason Alabama’s defense allowed 320 yards a game, finishing 16th nationally in total defense, the program’s lowest mark since 2007? An oddly leaky run defense that allowed 137.4 yards per game, outside of the top 30 nationally and the worst number in the Saban era.
This season, the Tide return their most experienced group up front in 5 years, losing only All-SEC lineman Raekwon Davis. That’s good news, but the truth is even better news is the fact that the tackle play, so vital in years past in preventing opponents from getting any leverage in the run game, should once again be dominant.
Christian Barmore figures to be the next man up, and he enters 2020 as one of the highest-rated players at tackle in the SEC (Barmore has the versatility to play on the edge in a contain position as well).
Highest graded returning SEC DTs:
1. Christian Barmore, Alabama – 87.8
2. Bobby Brown III, Texas A&M – 82.3
3. Tyler Shelvin, LSU – 80.4
4. Neil Farrell Jr, LSU – 78.3 pic.twitter.com/uRwilsjzFL— PFF College (@PFF_College) May 18, 2020
Barmore will be joined by DJ Dale, the big-time nose tackle prospect who is healthy, slimmed down and has impressed this autumn. LaBryan Ray is also healthy again, and along with Byron Young, he’s a guy who has big-time size but doesn’t compromise quickness. This will be the most improved group on the defense, and with Moses behind to clean things up, the run defense will be much improved.
3. Improved defensive line plus Moses and McMillon back means they’ll also pressure the quarterback better
Noticing the trend?
Alabama’s defense has a chance to be a vintage Saban championship caliber unit in 2020.
Moses isn’t the only veteran linebacker back for the Tide in 2020. They also return Joshua McMillon, who was playing well (14 tackles, 2 tackles for loss) when he tore his ACL a season ago. McMillon recently graduated with an engineering degree, so he’ll be able to focus solely on being a key piece of the Tide defense as a 6th-year senior in 2020.
They will join Shane Lee and Christian Haris, who learned on the fly as freshmen a season ago, along with Christopher Allen, who has been far more consistent in fall camp than he was last autumn.
Collectively, Alabama has depth on the defensive line and elite talent at linebacker, and they should generate more pressure on the quarterback– and force more difficult down and distance situations– in 2020.
4. Alabama will be able to establish the run and control tempo again in 2020
Look, I know the Tua Tagovailoa track-style, frenetic offense was fun. It was productive, too. Historic, even. Alabama finished 2nd nationally, behind only national champion LSU, in scoring offense, total offense and S &P+ offense a season ago. The 2019 Tide were a historically-good Alabama team offensively, at least by the metrics.
But Alabama has been at its best when it can beat you with the passing game or, if need be, control the tempo of the game and pound you into submission with the run game.
Last year, Alabama finished only 56th nationally in rushing offense, the lowest number for an Alabama team since 2007. And as often as Saban suggested, with some sincerity, that the Tide were simply adapting to the strengths of their personnel, you also know it cut him deep that the Tide couldn’t run the football more efficiently.
There’s no better way to take the air out of a track meet than the run game — and with a young, banged up defense, that would have been a big luxury for the Tide in 2019.
This season they should be much-improved in that department. Najee Harris returns for his senior season, and he should build on a strong close to 2019 with a 1,000-plus yard campaign for the Tide. Trey Sanders, the nation’s top running back prospect in 2019, returns from a debilitating knee injury. He’ll add depth, as will versatile senior Brian Robinson, among others.
With Mac Jones under center, expect Alabama to be a bit more traditional — and the running game to be a big beneficiary.
5. Alabama will win the Iron Bowl — decisively
Alabama didn’t just fail to reach the College Football Playoff for the first time in 2019.
They also lost the Iron Bowl for the 2nd time in 3 years, a first under Nick Saban.
The last thing Saban wants is any hint that Auburn has closed the gap or is the superior in-state program, and a decisive Iron Bowl win will go a long way in demonstrating that for all the ups and downs on the Capstone the past 2 years, the Tide are still the state’s — and the SEC’s- – gold standard program.
Neil Blackmon covers Florida football and the SEC for SaturdayDownSouth.com. An attorney, he is also a member of the Football and Basketball Writers Associations of America. He also coaches basketball.
