Happy Monday, everyone. Alabama moved up to 6th in both polls with the win at Missouri. Ole Miss and Texas A&M are just ahead of the Tide, both sitting at 6-0, and thanks to conference expansion none of the three
will play one another. There is obviously a ton of football left, but I’d be just fine if those three won out and stayed in that order. Both of those would be thrilled to be in Atlanta for the first time ever, and Alabama can relax that weekend then host a playoff game.
Andy Staples slotted Alabama into the No. 5 seed. That means the Crimson Tide would get a home playoff game.
“QB Ty Simpson continues to be spectacular on third and fourth downs,” Staples wrote. “Saturday at Missouri, Simpson saved the Crimson Tide by completing two fourth-down passes on the same drive. The second was a 1-yard touchdown pass toDaniel Hill that became the winning score.”
Staples predicts Alabama will face No. 12 seed Memphis, with the winner advancing to face No. 4 seed Texas A&M in the Cotton Bowl.
Yes, I would like to order one of those, please. But again, we’re getting way ahead of ourselves as there are plenty of landmines left on the schedule. The good news is that this team appears to have the stomach for it, as Matt Stahl notes.
For whatever reason, this year’s team has the stomach for big moments that 2024’s simply did not. The ability to respond goes back to after it seemed like the season was falling apart in Week 1.
“I feel like we’ve done a lot of things, just team bonding,” center Parker Brailsford said, when asked to explain the difference. “Like banding together. After Florida State, we had nowhere to go. I mean, there’s a lot of things out on social media. We told everybody, don’t look at their phones and just be focused on our job and what we got going on inside the program.”
It seems like the Florida State loss was perhaps the shock to the system that Alabama needed to finally learn how to take a punch under DeBoer. If that lesson is truly learned, the Crimson Tide could be a championship contender again.
One player who stood out on Saturday without as much fanfare: Yhonzae Pierre.
Alabama lost Wolf linebacker Qua Russaw to a broken foot during the Georgia game. The injury is not expected to end Russaw’s season, but he will be out for a prolonged period of time. Redshirt sophomore Yhonzae Pierre is one of the players tasked with replacing that production, and he was able to do that in Columbia. He was credited with six tackles and notched a pair of forced fumbles. The Crimson Tide did not score any points off of turnovers, but Pierre is blossoming into one of this defense’s names to watch.
Alabama badly needs that from him going forward, and especially this week.
Enough of that, it’s past time to get the hate on. Obligatory:
Nick Kelly has a general synopsis of the Vols for you.
Tennessee quarterback Joey Aguilar has been one of the best in the conference. His 1,680 yards through the air lead the SEC. He also has thrown for 14 touchdowns to go with five interceptions. His average of 280 yards per game ranks second best behind only Oklahoma’s John Mateer.
Tennessee receiver Chris Brazzell II will be the top weapon Alabama must stop. He averages 89.33 yards per game and leads the SEC with seven receiving touchdowns.
Running back DeSean Bishop leads the Vols with 481 yards on 63 carries (an average of 7.6 yards per carry) as well as five rushing scores.
On defense, Tyre West and Joshua Josephs are the top two pass rushers, having accumulated four sacks a piece. Josephs has been especially disruptive, also forcing three fumbles.
They will certainly score some points, but Alabama should too. Defense is an afterthought for coach Josh Heupel. He wants to turn the game into a track meet and hope to get a couple of turnovers. As Adam Sparks of the Knoxville News Sentinel notes, that’s exactly how Tennessee barely escaped Arkansas last weekend.
Early in the fourth quarter, Joshua Josephs hit Arkansas quarterback Taylen Green’s arm as he attempted to throw a pass, and the ball popped loose. It was ruled a fumble, and freshman linebacker Jadon Perlotte recovered at the Arkansas 19-yard line.
Four plays later, Peyton Lewis scored on a 3-yard TD run to extend UT’s lead from 27-17 to a more comfortable 34-17.
It was a key turnaround because UT had failed to even gain a first down after recovering two previous fumbles.
This Tennessee offense has been very good, but there have been lapses. If Alabama’s secondary plays as they are capable, the Tide should be able to get enough stops for Ty Simpson and company to win this one.
It would be nice if the defense would show up for the first possession this weekend.
Starting games better has been something DeBoer and Wommack have publicly said is a goal all season. Still, the beginnings of games has been an issue that has continued, with Vanderbilt also scoring on its first drive of that Crimson Tide win.
Overton was asked what needed to change for the defense to start better moving forward. The Tide faces Tennessee next, and Josh Heupel’s offense can certainly punish a team that doesn’t hit the ground running.
“Honestly, just practice,” Overton said. “Us starting the week fast, Day 1. That’s really it. Just starting fast at practice.”
Hill-Green also anticipated that the starts would be a major part of practice in the upcoming week.
“We’re going to emphasize this week, starting fast and just doing everything from the beginning, and just starting fast,” Hill-Green said.
It’s not uncommon for offenses to start fast, as the first few plays of the game are usually those they’ve worked on extensively all week. Still, this defense has been alarmingly awful to start games and it needs to stop.
Simpson is embracing the gauntlet.
“That’s why we came here,” Alabama quarterback Ty Simpson said. “That’s why I stayed. Life in the SEC. I told (my teammates), ‘Good. That’s what we want. That’s why we came here for.’”
With the SEC gauntlet in front of his team, Kalen DeBoer wasn’t overly critical of Alabama’s three-point win against Missouri. As he began to address the win, DeBoer called it a “great road win” against “a really good football team,” something the Crimson Tide has seen in droves.
“We did the job, got the job done,” DeBoer said. “Proud of just the fight.”
Because of who Alabama has already seen, Simpson sees toughness from the Crimson Tide. Two of Alabama’s three SEC wins were decided by three points. The other − a 30-14 win against Vanderbilt − was a one-score game into the fourth quarter,
“Three top-25 team games, and they all literally come down to the wire? That’s hard to do,” Simpson said. “The SEC is pretty much like a pro schedule, you know? A lot of good players, a lot of good teams. Just got to keep fighting every week.”
Simpson’s development as the leader of the team has been a pleasure to watch. The dude just seems like a winner.
In case you missed it, James Franklin was canned by Penn State and will receive $45 million not to coach. Andy Staples has some high quality shade.
You may be asking yourself: How do schools keep entering into these ridiculous, one-sided coaching contracts that cost more than the House settlement salary cap ($20.5 million) to extricate themselves from?
Well, consider the dynamics at play in those negotiations.
On one side of the table, we have an athletics director who spends 95 percent of their time on things like fundraising, marketing, facilities, answering fan emails about the long lines of concession stands, and so on. Once every four or five years, if that, they have to hire or renew a highly paid football coach, often in the span of 24 to 48 hours.
And on the other side, we have Jimmy Sexton. Or Trace Armstrong. Or another super-agent whose sole job is to negotiate lucrative coaching contracts. It’s a bigger mismatch than Penn State-UCLA … uh, Penn State-Northwestern … uh … you know what I mean.
Sexton remains the most powerful man in the sport.
Last, how about a little Mark Sears highlight for your Monday morning?
Nate Oats and company take the floor for an exhibition game against Florida State in Birmingham, on Thursday.
That’s about it for today. Have a great week.
Roll Tide.
