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O’Gara: Something’s gotta give, but will it be Alabama’s woeful defense or Tennessee’s regressing offense?
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At the risk of being repetitive, I try not to use the “W-word” too much.
No, it’s not “win.” Not using that word as someone who covers college football would be a weird move.
Ah, whoops. I spoiled it. “Weird” is the word I try not to use too much. Why? If you use it too often to describe results and trends, it then becomes … not weird.
But weird it is to see how quickly Alabama’s defense and Tennessee’s offense went from seemingly impressive units on cruise control en route to the Playoff (and perhaps a national title) to units that suddenly feel like a liability that can derail the season. To say that the past 10 quarters have been troubling would be an understatement.
One would think the next 4 quarters of facing each other on Saturday afternoon in Neyland Stadium will tell us just how troubling those units are. Something’s gotta give. Probably. I suppose there’s a world in which Alabama’s defense has coverage busts/broken tackles galore, but Tennessee’s offense can’t capitalize because of drops/penalties. I guess that means “something’s likely gonna give.”
The question is what that something will be.
To find an answer, perhaps we should break down who holds the dubious title of “worst unit in the past 10 quarters.”
Let’s start with the Tennessee offense, which still ranks No. 9 nationally in scoring, but 210 of those 253 points came in the first 14 quarters of the season. In the past 10 quarters (plus an overtime period) dating to the start of the second half at Oklahoma, Tennessee has 5 touchdowns on 32 drives. That’s 1 touchdown in every 6.4 drives. Yuck. The Vols earned 40 first downs on those 32 drives, which breaks down to 1.25 first downs per drive. Double yuck.
Blame it on the offensive line, or blame it on quarterback Nico Iamaleava. What’s undeniable is that the latter is dealing with the first real on-field adversity of his college career. Both the eye test and the numbers confirm that. In those 10 quarters, here are Iamaleava’s numbers:
- 0-1 TD-INT
- 37-64 for 393 yards (6.1 yards/attempt)
- 21 rushes for 38 yards
- 0 rushing TDs
- 2 completions of 30 yards
- 7 sacks taken
Yes, Iamaleava also had a 50-yard play to Dont’e Thornton wiped off because of a holding penalty against Oklahoma. That was 3 minutes into the second half against Oklahoma. We can’t say “maybe it’s a different 10 quarters if that one counts.” We can say “even if that would’ve counted, the efficiency and decision-making have been an issue.”
We can also say that the Vols haven’t been good enough in pass protection at the all-important offensive tackle spots, and Lance Heard’s return after missing the Oklahoma game hasn’t exactly changed that. The good news for Tennessee is that the running game is still reliable. Dylan Sampson is making a strong case to be considered the SEC’s top running back, and DeSean Bishop has emerged as a real weapon as a true freshman.
The other good news for Tennessee is that it possesses something that’s given Alabama issues on 3 different occasions — mobile quarterbacks who are legitimate threats in the running game.
Byrum Brown (USF), Diego Pavia (Vanderbilt) and most recently, LaNorris Sellers (South Carolina) all played in games that were decided in the 4th quarter. Of course, Brown wasn’t part of these 10 quarters for the Tide. Carson Beck’s second half was part of that. As in, the second half wherein he threw for 339 yards and 3 touchdowns to help UGA erase a 30-7 halftime deficit.
In those past 10 quarters, here are some of the numbers for Alabama’s defense:
- 58-84, 829 yards (9.9 yards/attempt)
- 7-2 TD-INT
- 30-yard pass plays allowed: 11
- 3rd-down conversions allowed: 22-for-43 (51%)
In case you were wondering, there are only 3 FBS teams that are allowing worse than a 51% 3rd-down conversion rate for the season. Alabama’s 51% clip isn’t season-long — that’s at a much more respectable 31.3% — but that’s a horrendous stretch for a group that also allowed UGA to convert 5-for-5 on 4th down that night.
Go figure that both of those interceptions were to preserve a win in the final seconds. The same secondary that Nick Saban himself predicted could be what derails Alabama’s path to Atlanta looks like an accurate projection. Alabama has basically allowed an average of 1.1 30-yard pass play/quarter in that stretch. Just for a little perspective, the FBS team that allowed the most 30-yard passes/game this season is Charlotte, which allowed 0.67/quarter. Woof.
Alabama’s young, inexperienced secondary has been picked apart while its most experienced member of the secondary, 2-year captain Malachi Moore, fell apart in the Vandy loss.
Any scenario in which Iamaleava takes advantage of that involves him being decisive and trusting his progressions in the Josh Heupel offense. Whether Bru McCoy and Squirrel White are at 100% shouldn’t necessarily be seen as a dealbreaker because as solid as those guys are, we just watched Alabama nearly collapse against South Carolina as a 3-touchdown home favorite because it couldn’t contain Mazeo Bennett and Nyck Harbor. And with all due respect to Vandy tight end Eli Stowers, who started his career as a quarterback at Texas A&M, if Alabama can’t contain him, there’s no excuse for the Vols in the passing game.
On the flip side, Alabama’s defense is facing relatively new starting quarterback who suddenly looks prone to mistakes and made a couple of costly ones against an inconsistent Florida defense. One would think that could be a recipe for the Tide to pull off a monumental victory on the road. Then again, Alabama needed every 1 of those 4 turnovers to survive South Carolina at home.
For both units, it feels like now or never to turn things around. “A bad day at the office” won’t fly after the 10 quarters those groups played entering Saturday’s showdown.
So who has the upper hand? Iamaleava and the Tennessee offense have more things working in their favor at home, despite their status as a slight underdog (DraftKings has the Tide as a 3-point favorite). Falling back on the ground game and trusting the defense is a more realistic blueprint than the opposite side of the ball, which is Jalen Milroe operating behind the struggling Tide tackles and navigating the James Pearce Jr.-led Tennessee pass rush (I suppose I buried the lede on that).
Still, I wouldn’t rule out anything with “The Third Saturday in October.” Given the roller-coaster nature of those 2 units, it might just be appropriate to bust out another “W-word” by day’s end.
“Wild.”
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
