Greg McElroy identifies Alabama’s ‘obvious’ weakness following loss to Oklahoma
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Greg McElroy pointed out a key flaw Alabama will need to address moving forward after watching the Tide’s loss to Alabama on Saturday night.
McElroy drew a comparison to Alabama’s loss to Vanderbilt earlier this year. He said that, like in the game against Vandy, the Sooners were able to “play keep away” with the ball and force the Crimson Tide into make some ill-advised decisions on offense.
“Alabama has a pretty obvious Achilles heal,” he said. “Here’s how you play them. You play keep-away. You keep their offense off the field. You get out to an early lead, they’ll probably get a little impatient and they’ll probably get a little one-dimensional.
“If you look at the game plan that Oklahoma used, the game felt eerily-similar to what Vanderbilt did several weeks ago vs. Alabama.”
To McElroy’s point, there are certainly some similarities in the numbers when comparing Alabama’s losses to Vandy and Oklahoma. Alabama’s average time-of-possession in those 2 games was under 22 minutes. In wins this season, the Crimson Tide have held the ball for, on average, almost 31 minutes.
Alabama’s issues were also exacerbated by a couple of interceptions by Milroe in the second half. By the time the Sooners got up by 3 touchdowns in the third quarter, there was little Alabama could do to get back in the game.
Alabama ran just 57 plays on Saturday night in Norman, which was its third-lowest total of the season behind only the Wisconsin game (56) and the Vanderbilt game (45).
Here’s video of McElroy’s analysis on Alabama’s struggles against this “keep-away” style:
Oklahoma's win over Alabama showed that the Tide have an obvious Achilles heel…
"The game felt eerily similar to what Vanderbilt did." – @GregMcElroy #RollTide pic.twitter.com/klICH0zNwp
— Always College Football (@AlwaysCFB) November 25, 2024
Alabama will wrap up its 2024 regular season on Saturday night against Auburn.
Spenser is a news editor for Saturday Down South and covers college football across all Saturday Football brands.
