Alabama football previews and predictions: Can Tide recover?

Happy Friday everyone. Alabama will look to bounce back from its biggest upset loss in years tomorrow when South Carolina visits. Your previews:

No. 7 Alabama 38, South Carolina 17: A week after Vanderbilt gave Alabama a rude awakening, the Crimson Tide should be back to normal at home. Jalen Milroe might be under a little more pressure than he's used to as he faces one of the better passing offenses he's seen all season. But with the Crimson Tide dealing with an offense that struggled mightily and a line that allowed the most sacks in FBS, this should be enough for Alabama on defense to pull out a comfortable win.

It's safe to say that his team faced the tremendous backlash after last week's loss to Vandy, now Kalen DeBoer officially knows what it's like to be Alabama's head coach.

The Tide will almost certainly react well enough to cruise in this game, but South Carolina's pass rush can lead to takedowns if you're not sharp enough to avoid obvious passing situations. This will at least test Bama's concentration.

Current line: Bama -21 | SP+ forecast: Bama at 19.2 | FPI forecast: Bama until 20.9

What was lost in the Vandy disaster was that Alabama's offense worked. The passing game was fine, Jalen Milroe was excellent and…

The coaching staff forgot to run the ball.

The 21 carries were the fewest for an Alabama team since a 31-6 win over Colorado State in early 2013. The team won't make the same mistake two weeks in a row.

Alabama 38, South Carolina 13

Alex Joyce: Alabama 35, South Carolina 14

Alabama's defense has been floundering lately. In the last six quarters of football against Georgia and Vanderbilt, the Crimson Tide have given up 67 points, accumulated 784 yards of offense, allowed 10 plays of 20 or more yards and allowed opposing offenses to convert third downs at a rate of 54 percent. This should be an incredible opportunity for South Carolina to get back on its feet. However, I just have too many questions about the Gamecocks on offense. Sellers and wide receivers simply haven't gelled yet, third-down conversions are low (30 percent), and turnovers have been poor. While I think it gets better as the season goes on, this isn't the game where everything magically works out. The defense should hold South Carolina in most games, but Alabama's strong offense will be too difficult to stop at some point.

Fisher Brewer: Alabama 42, South Carolina 10

Alabama's explosive offense, averaging 44.6 points per game, poses a significant challenge for South Carolina. With 1,370 passing yards and 971 rushing yards, the Crimson Tide have demonstrated their ability to score effectively this season, including 20 rushing touchdowns. In comparison, South Carolina has accumulated 1,800 total yards with 16 touchdowns, but their defense has allowed an average of 19 points per game and given up 1,484 total yards and 11 touchdowns.

The Gamecocks' offense is currently converting just 30% of its third-down attempts (121 nationally). The dozen teams with worse conversion rates include BYU (5-0), Duke (5-1) and Oklahoma (4-1).

Victory doesn't depend on converting third losses – as long as you keep scoring. A poor third-down offense can stay afloat through explosive plays, deep passes, chunk runs, and so on. Ole Miss scored 27 points against South Carolina last week (and it could have been a lot more) despite going just 3 of 13 on third down (23%). In other words, I'm much more interested in how South Carolina's offense changes on first and second down compared to third down.

▪ PREDICTION: Alabama 34, South Carolina 17

The last two links are from folks in South Carolina. Essentially, you have an elite Alabama offense against a very good South Carolina defense. But on the other hand… woof.

USC head coach Shane Beamer took a diplomatic approach Tuesday after saying he was in the office at 5:15 a.m. Sunday and went over film. And he's neither deaf nor blind: A coach who spends a lot of time online has definitely heard and read the complaints about the Gamecocks' offense.

But there were no major changes.

“We are certainly not changing everything about the program. That’s for sure,” Beamer said. “I don’t think it would have been that bad if I just came in here on Sunday morning and blew up everything in the program.”

Not what the USC faithful wanted to hear as many were clamoring for a firing. And the situation is ominous: The Gamecocks are at No. 7 Alabama this week and No. 18 Oklahoma next week, followed by a bye week.

Who knows what this bye week could bring if there isn't a significant offensive improvement in the next two games?

Admittedly, Kane Wommack faces a “tremendous challenge” this week against South Carolina. But it's not the Gamecocks' offense that presents this challenge, an offense that averages 28 points per game and has one of the worst third-down conversion rates in college football.

“Our guys, including myself, our coaches, can't wait to get back on the field at Bryant-Denny Stadium on Saturday,” Wommack said Monday. “I think we're going to play with a level of urgency that our fans would appreciate.” A response we're all expecting for Alabama on defense this week.”

The Gamecocks' offense hasn't been able to get its act together lately and hasn't been able to convert third downs. Meanwhile, Alabama's defense hasn't stopped anyone for six straight quarters, and in last week's third-and-long quarter, Vandy converted at will.

South Carolina writers can question the offense all they want, but the Gamecocks actually scored 30 points against both Kentucky and LSU. Until Alabama's defense shows some momentum again, it's hard to predict many losses.

I'm calling this one Alabama 41, South Carolina 27. Of course, that's just my opinion. Vote and let us know what you think in the comments.

Finally, Mike Shula talked a little about his return to Tuscaloosa.

The layoff was so unexpected that Shula briefly owned two houses and rented two more at the same time. He and his family were in the process of moving into his newly constructed, 7,000-square-foot home in Tuscaloosa when he was laid off. So they rented a house in Fort Lauderdale – and while they were living there and trying to sell two houses in Alabama – he became quarterbacks coach for the Jacksonville Jaguars and rented a house out there. He paid four rents for a month. He laughs about it now. “I didn’t laugh back then.”

That's it for today. I wish you a great weekend.

Roll Tide.