Well that was atrocious and my eyeballs hurt just from having to witness that half of a football game.
Alabama’s offense opened the game with Keelon Russell taking a bad intentional grounding penalty, Daniel Hill getting dropped for a loss, then Russell getting picked off by a defensive lineman for a quick pick 6. The Tide defense did turn around and get their own pick six with Luke Metz jumping a slant route, but that was about the last good thing to happen for Alabama.
The Tide defense generally
stood their ground, but one drive got extended twice one “Defensive holding” penalties, then extended again when the Tide got a stop on 4th down, but the referees decided that, somehow, replay concluded that an incomplete pass was actually a fumble, and that fumble somehow occurred over the first down line despite the player not being at the line and ball being in his back arm.
Alabama’s offense did put together two decent drives, but both stalled in the redzone on the backs of multiple penalties taking away touchdowns. Just eye-gouging football to have to watch.
Then, with a chance to go down the field and take a lead before halftime, Russell overthrew Rico Scott by about 15 yards and got picked off, giving Kentucky a short field. The Tide defense stood on their heads again, but Bray Hubbard got called for clapping when he celebrated his team not jumping offsides on a 4th down hard count. Technically the right penalty…. But man. The crucial-situation yellow flags coming out this entire half was awful. Anyway, it pushed Kentucky far enough up they could close the half with a field goal.
On a play-to-play basis, Alabama is generally playing extremely well on defense and not even that bad on offense (Russell is 8/11 for 123 yards), but bad things happening on crucial moments (three turnovers, so many penalties) has the Tide behind the 8 ball, and playing from a 4-point deficit to open the 2nd half.
We’ll see how things go in the second half. Clean up some of the dumb stuff and Alabama can likely build a lead. But if the second half looks much the same, then this game quickly turns into something that is going to hover over the Alabama program and Kalen DeBoer’s career. There was some cautious optimism among Alabama fans over the last month, but three straight years of the Vanderbilt game, FSU game, and now this all feeling similar is looking more and more like a trend than one-offs.
Hope for the best. Roll Tide.
