Alabama Football: 5 Observations on the South Carolina Game

They say a win is a win, and in some ways it is, but some wins inspire more confidence than others. The way the game ended yesterday didn't inspire much. If you're the overly positive type who's hoping for the silver lining, the Tide won 27-13 despite the disastrous 1:40 at the end of the first half. If Domani Jackson had been in the football game, it's entirely possible that Alabama would leave the field at the 36 instead of breaking coverage, and with good field position, it could easily have led 17-0 or even 21-0 at halftime.

Unfortunately, mistakes become an important part of this team's identity. That 1:40 was an absolute meltdown, the broken coverage was followed by three terrible decisions, one by Kalen DeBoer and two by Jalen Milroe. Give the team credit for fighting back after blowing a two-touchdown lead in spectacular fashion, but it would be nice if they stopped putting themselves in that position.

A few impressions:

The line of attack was a new hole in the dam.

Coming into the game, we knew South Carolina's front line was poor and that should be taken into account when evaluating the offensive line. Still, it's concerning that they could mix up Alabama's defense so regularly. You can live with an elite player winning their battle against you once or twice. Communication problems are a much bigger problem and we saw that several times yesterday. Hopefully it remains an isolated case and doesn't become a trend.

Jalen Milroe showed signs of regression.

This is perhaps the most concerning development of the weekend, as this team will go as far as Jalen can take it. He's now turned the ball over four times in the last two contests, not to mention terrible safety. As shown above, there was plenty of room for him to slide into the bag instead of hanging around. That's a bad habit that seemed to come back yesterday after not showing up so ugly this season, and in this case he also lost his field awareness and ended up in the end zone.

Zone defense seems to bother him the most. He was under more pressure yesterday than he has been all season and that undoubtedly contributed to his mistakes. To his credit, he made the plays to get the game out and used his legs as the weapon that they are, but this team won't get anywhere if he doesn't clean it up.

There was more of a dedication to running the football without much success.

Judge Haynes and Jam Miller combined for 20 broadcasts on the day, a significant increase from last week. Including scrambles and targeted runs by Milroe, the Tide ran the ball 38 times while completing 23 passes. Unfortunately, those 38 carries only yielded 104 yards as none of the defenders averaged more than 3.5 per carry. This Gamecocks front made life difficult for everyone.

A lack of pressure and depth leads to the zone defense being shredded.

The idea behind a zone is to force the QB to hold the ball a bit and get it into tight spaces. When pressure pushes him to speed up his process, mistakes often occur, leading to turnover. Unfortunately, Alabama had difficulty generating any. Part of this is the result of the mobile QBs in the last two games and especially yesterday. LaNorris Sellers is a truly dynamic runner that you'd want to lock in the pocket at this point in his career, but even a passer will find the gaps given enough time. Alabama was able to generate pressure at times, but it was often manufactured, leading to more holes in the secondary.

And it goes without saying that the lack of depth is shocking. Zay Mincey seemed completely lost on that fourth down score.

The run defense wasn't bad yesterday, but it wasn't great either. It's fair to say that South Carolina won both lines of scrimmage.

Kalen DeBoer now has to prove that he is up to this challenge.

In fact, Alabama is 5-1 on the season and has one Elite win under its belt. Still, the team is trending in the wrong direction. New issues appear every week. Something of a blueprint is emerging for how to attack this team with ball control and pressure on Milroe. Penalties continue to be a killer. Malachi Moore engaged in more extracurricular activities toward the end of the game, which fortunately went unnoticed by the referees. These are all things that can be remedied with appropriate coaching. It's time for DeBoer and his staff to go around the train cars and get some of them repaired, because things are only going to get harder from here.

Next week is Tennessee, and despite all the doom and gloom about this matchup, Tennessee hasn't looked any better the last two weeks. Alabama still has everything ahead of them and a chance to recapture what they had at the start of the season, but time is of the essence.

Hope for the best.

Roll Tide.