Kalen DeBoer, Alabama survive South Carolina for a win that would have been a loss in 2024
By David Wasson
Published:
Precisely 1 year ago, the Alabama Crimson Tide were smarting under first-year coach Kalen DeBoer after being rudely knocked off their top-10 perch by the Tennessee Volunteers – 2 weeks after surrendering the No. 1 ranking in a stunning loss to upstart Vanderbilt.
The obituaries were being hastily assembled far and wide for the Alabama dynasty crafted by Nick Saban, crowing about how the Tide’s brand of joyless murderball had been co-opted by an interloper from the Pacific Northwest and dissolved into JAFT – just another football team.
Flash forward to Saturday night amid a rollicking sea of garnet and black, all set to storm the Williams-Brice Stadium turf and celebrate yet another brick thrown through a Crimson Tide façade that had already taken a coat of garnet and gold graffiti on the road at Florida State.
The fans were ready. South Carolina was on the verge of an upset of the No. 5 team in America. But something very strange happened that was wholly unexpected:
Alabama rallied to earn a victory it certainly would have coughed up in 2024.
They can’t all be pretty, right, these SEC road wins – whether they come in Athens against a Georgia program that very much has an Alabama problem or in Columbia amid the pregame hoopla, echoes of Ric Flair’s entrance music and a near-constant Gamecock crow over the PA system?
They can’t all be pretty, right? But when a team – especially the only team that has beaten 4 top-25 teams in 4-consecutive weeks without a bye week in history – stumbles and sputters like the Tide did against South Carolina, well, any victory is a good one.
And that’s precisely what Alabama earned Saturday. A victory. The 29-22 final score was anything but centerfold-worthy, but again… winning is better than losing by a fair stretch.
Not that South Carolina didn’t help the Tide’s cause along the way. Most notably, it was via Gamecocks quarterback LaNorris Sellers (who diced up Alabama for 289 total yards and 2 touchdowns but also uncorked a first-half pick-6) that got stripped of the football on a 2-yard plunge up the middle with 1:39 to play and the game tied 22-22.
Alabama (7-1 overall, 5-0 SEC) calmly and immediately capitalized, getting the rock back at the Gamecocks 38 and navigating to within field goal range with 42 seconds remaining. The assembled all figured the Tide would just work a little more clock on third down and then try their chances with a long Conor Talty field goal.
Enter Germie Bernard. Or more precisely, re-enter Germie Bernard.
The Alabama receiver (who had already made his mark with a 4-yard touchdown reception from Ty Simpson earlier in the quarter to tie it up) took a direct snap in the Wildcat, faked a pitch to Simpson and rumbled 25 yards to the end zone right in front of the Gamecocks student body that was just itching to tear down some goalposts and earn a hefty fine from the SEC.
As the kids like to say… ballgame.
“Coach gave me the green light to go ahead and score, so that’s what I did,” Bernard said after the game.
Surviving South Carolina shouldn’t have been this difficult for Alabama, of course, but as the 16-team gantlet that is the SEC is proving week in and week out – no one is safe from an upset from anybody. Sure, Shane Beamer’s 3-5 Gamecocks have now lost 5 of 6 conference games and Beamer himself is finding his backside a little toastier than expected as a result.
But dragging Alabama – whether it be Saban’s Death Star-version of Alabama or DeBoer’s version – to the absolute deepest water in the pool should count for something when considering who dismounts what is shaping up to be the craziest coaching carousel in recent memory.
Still, the gifts went both ways as the sun set on a goalposts-intact Williams-Brice Stadium. Beamer and the Gamecocks fumbled away a chance at victory, and Alabama returned the favor by saving South Carolina $500,000 in fines for keeping all those fans off the field.
“We knew that this was going to be a dogfight coming in, right?” said Simpson, who finished with 253 passing yards on a 24-of-43 effort with 2 touchdowns. “… But there was not one ounce of nonbelief, right? We knew what we had to do and we made sure that we were going to be unbreakable with everything that we had — and that’s what we did.”
As Flair himself would shout amid strains of Also sprach Zarathustra, “To Be The Man you gotta beat The Man.” South Carolina came oh-so-close to landing precisely the knockout blow that Alabama wouldn’t have seen coming last year.
But this time around, the Crimson Tide walked that aisle, dodged that big swing and served up a KO shot of their own.
An APSE national award-winning writer and editor, David Wasson has almost four decades of experience in the print journalism business in Florida and Alabama. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and several national magazines and websites. He also hosts Gulfshore Sports with David Wasson, weekdays from 3-5 pm across Southwest Florida and on FoxSportsFM.com. His Twitter handle: @JustDWasson.
