For better or worse, there are still games to be played this football season and the Frank Wilson-led Tigers of LSU are off to Tuscaloosa to take on the #4 ranked Alabama Crimson Tide.
While I don’t much
care for Alabama, I do very much enjoy talking to my very good friend Brent Taylor from our Bama sister site RollBamaRoll.
So what gives? Three months ago I watched Florida State run all over Alabama, now the Tide have ripped off seven straight wins, including winning Between the Hedges, and now they’re a top-5 team with a CFP bid more or less locked up. How did we get here?
It’s easy to chalk the FSU loss up to an aberration of week 1 (everyone knows not to look at any week 1 results in the NFL). However, that game is still part of the DNA of this Alabama team for better and for worse. On one hand, many of those same warts haven’t changed – Alabama still struggles with defending outside rushing and QB runs, the Tide still can’t run the ball, and Ryan Williams still can’t catch the ball unless it’s a circus catch.
On the other hand, two big things have changed: First, the Tide stopped wilting in big moments. This has become an extremely (unsustainably?) clutch team that, when the opponent has them on the ropes, somehow always pulls off a play, whether it’s forcing a fumble or an improbably 4th and 7 pass. It’s a polar opposite from last year when the Tide would either roll their opponent in a blender, or just turn into a pumpkin once the QB run didn’t work.
And that leads into point number 2: Ty Simpson played nervous in game 1 – and while he wasn’t bad on most plays, he also missed a couple of plays when the game was on his shoulders by making a bad decision. Since then? Simpson has had nerves of steel. With the game on the line, I’d trust Ty to find a way to get a 4th and 5 more than I’d trust a kicker to knock in a 25-yard field goal. Simpson internalized his mistakes in that week one and has intentionally attacked them head on ever since, and the rest of the team has followed him in adopting that mentality. It’s making them the opposite of boom-or-bust…. They’re maddeningly consistent and inevitable. They aren’t dominant in any one thing, but they’ll just keep on chipping away, and when it comes down to it, they make the one play they have to make.
I know I just said Alabama’s reeled off seven straight wins, but three of those were close calls. Three point wins at both Georgia and Mizzou, and a seven-point win at Carolina in a game that the Gamecocks gagged away late. Is it just road woes or has Alabama been playing with fire and they just haven’t gotten burnt yet?
Alabama has been generally bad on the road since 2021. Nick Saban spoke on it for three years, talking about internal pressure and “anxiety” getting to the players. It made all of our fans mad, of course, but I generally believe Nick when it comes to matters of player psychology. The further Alabama got from that 2020 National Championship, the more each team felt the pressure to not be the Alabama team that finally ended the dynasty. That little bit of weakness has had other teams feasting on 17 years worth of misery, wanting to take their shot at a crumbling team. Opponents were having fun, and Alabama was playing lost.That bubbled up even further last year under DeBoer, and the season opener to FSU was when it came to a head.
Since then, the Alabama mentality has felt different. I think DeBoer had some to do with it as the head coach, of course (and he has seemingly shifted his gameday mentality to something less stoic)…. But I think it’s more to do with Ty Simpson infecting the team with his approach of relentless self-criticism and self-correction than anything else.
And to answer your question, I don’t think Alabama has played any worse in their road games than their home games like they had in previous years. All of the games are tight – they have some real flaws, and that’s just how this team plays. But they aren’t playing scared anymore.
Explain to me this Ty Simpson thing because now suddenly he’s a Heisman candidate and a contender to go 1.1 to MY New Orleans Saints? What?
I will say this: There have been a large contingent of Bama fans that have been constantly calling for Ty to be the starter since September of 2023. Me included, at times. He was a 5-star prospect as a coach’s kid (cerebral) who was also a dual-threat recruit (athletic) that probably should have found a way to get on the field earlier.
I think the psychology part is what has held him back this long – and it took getting his shot in the FSU game and then learning from it for things to finally click for him on how to run an offense without getting in his own head. I’m speculating, of course, but Ty has been refreshingly honest about himself in press conferences, and that’s the vibe I’ve gotten from his answers.
As far as his actual traits as a QB (again, not to discount the mentals…. They are everything for a QB), he’s got a lot to like. His footwork and timing are extremely consistent, and would make the NFL QBs of the 2000’s proud. He can execute the 3-step and 5-step drops from under center or shotgun in a much more old-school method than the spread-RPO stand-up-and-throw-from-shotgun stuff that has dominated college football for the last decade.
His downfield vision is incredible, and he can move safeties with his eyes and actually work through reads better than most any college QB, and then he has the arm to rifle those 20-yard dig routes over the middle that have made guys like Matt Stafford and Jared Goff have long NFL careers.
On top of that, Ty is really good runner. He’s fast, but he’s also fully capable of juking a linebacker in the open field. And more importantly, he’s (mostly) figured out how and when to use it. When he scrambles, he commits to it.
Now, there are some real flaws. His accuracy on the run drops drastically unless he can fully reset his feel, and he’s still prone to taking some really bad sacks by not just throwing it away sometimes. The backwards spin out of the pocket has worked maybe twice and has also gotten him into trouble even more. The other big one is that he’s not been able to connect on a deep bomb yet this season. He’s hit sideline fades, deep posts, seams, and others, but the bomb just hasn’t connected. Now, Ryan Williams dropped one, and he’s had 4 that looked like they were going to connect but the defender committed a business-decision pass interference. But still, it’s something he really needs to start hitting on to close that checkbox for NFL scouts.
LSU’s offensive line is, as my students like to say, “buns” but apparently Alabama’s defensive front isn’t all that impressive? Is this just a matchup of bad on bad, or will the Tide look like the ‘85 Bears Saturday night?
I don’t think the Alabama front is bad, per se. They do a lot of good things, actually. Tim Keenan swallows up dive plays, and defensive tackle James Smith is a surprisingly explosive one-gap attacker at defensive tackle. And then Yhonzae Pierre has broken onto the scene lately as an edge rushing presence that Alabama hasn’t had in a couple of seasons.
The problem, I think, is that they have a mismatch of personnel and scheme and just can’t seem to figure out gap responsibilities between the linemen and linebackers. They’ll get it right for 80% of the game and play really, well, but then bust a gap the other 20% and give opponents way too many rushing yards.
As fans, I don’t think we’ll ever know who’s responsible. But I know my untrained eye can watch 2 defensive linemen go for a two-gap defense and 1 guy seemingly go rogue trying to shoot a gap, then the linebacker does the same thing and the RB gets a free run.
I don’t know if the coaches are giving the players leeway to freelance, the players are just ignoring their responsibilities, or the coaches just don’t know how to design a front. But that’s more the issue than actual poor performance from the Tide linemen. Well, linebacker Deontae Lawson struggled in the open field early in the season after wrecking his knee in November last year, but he’s starting to look more like himself and not a total liability.
They’re breaking us up! Now that a 9-game schedule is on the way, LSU-Alabama isn’t going to be played every year. This used to be the game on the college football calendar, but now is it just another game?
A year ago, I’d have said, yeah, Alabama isn’t must-watch TV anymore. Teams were taking turns taking us down, and beating Alabama was quickly losing its luster. Plus, Brian Kelly was annoying so the nation at large also didn’t really want to root for LSU there either.
Now, the Tide has gone back to drawing all of the top eyeballs, and their close-game theatrics all season has brought back the national hatred. The question will be: what will LSU do? Joe Burrow, JaMarr Chase, Jaylen Daniels, Malik Nabors, and all the other stars have brought the juice and national headlines. Right now, though? No one has really stepped into that role. I do think getting out from under Kelly will likely add more personality to the program, so we’ll see where it goes.
But as a quick aside, I have two quick soapboxes: 1) I was fully against the 9 game SEC schedule. We need more cross-conference play, not more insular circles. The arguing about strength of schedule is only getting more inane as everyone plays even more games within their conference and we have a playoff built around the “12 best teams” with no structured criteria on “best.”
2) Since we had to do this “three permanent teams” thing, I really wanted to keep Mississippi State. It’s Alabama’s oldest rivalry game, and the two schools are like 50 miles apart on the same interstate. Now, I’d have happily traded Auburn for LSU if they’d asked me…. Auburn needs to go to the ACC where they belong.
We’re friends and I want you to do what a friend is supposed to do after someone gets out of a breakup: talk bad about the ex. What do you remember your reaction being when LSU hired Brian Kelly, and how did you feel when they axed him?
I’m going to toss my humility out the window here and say that I was 100% right. I thought it was a dumb hire when LSU first signed him. Not only was he generally unlikeable (scissor-lift scandal notwithstanding), he also had a long history of being consistently decent but not great – and LSU was never going to be ok with that. The only part of his entire tenure that surprised me was the fact that the LSU offense was actually quite fun in the Daniels year. Everything else? I expected a slow slide into above averageness that wound up with him fired. And that’s exactly what we got.
For what it’s worth, I think LSU is immediately going to play better the rest of this season with his sour attitude gone. So I’m not too happy about the timing. They should have waited until after this week to axe him. I think the Tigers are in a position to get a lot better with the right hire. The questions are: who is that hire, and does anyone trust your administration to get it right?
From an outsider’s perspective, what is the perception of LSU at this moment? Are we a punchline? And who could LSU hire that would make you go “oh that’s a good hire”?
I think Brian Kelly has been the punchline for years now, and LSU has caught the strays from that. With him fired, the Tigers now get to untangle themselves from it. Of course, the recent drama with the governor/president/AD situation has been rather hilarious – but it ultimately won’t matter if they wind up making a good hire.
Personally, I am absolutely infatuated with Alex Golesh. Alabama played USF in 2023 and 2024 so I studied them a good bit both seasons for my previews and the way Golesh turned that program from perennial dumpster fire to something that nearly broke Alabama in back to back years (I fully believe that 2023 disaster in Orlando was when Saban started thinking about retirement) was nothing short of miraculous. Plus he made Hendon Hooker and Tennessee look good in 2022, and I’ll never forgive him for that. He’s a bit of a risky hire without big program management experience, but, honestly, he’d be the very first person I called to interview. The ceiling of what he could do is higher than anyone else out there, I think.
Some other more established guys at P4 programs that I like that LSU might convince to go to a bigger school are Brent Key, Eli Drinkwitz, and Jedd Fisch (gosh, can you imagine how broken the poor Huskies fans will be when they lose back-to-back head coaches to the SEC?).
