Happy Monday, everyone. Alabama will now get a week to rest up and prepare for what is going to be a very difficult five week stretch, starting in Athens. Kalen DeBoer created a new buzz word for the season when he said this at halftime.
Trotting toward the tunnel with No. 19 Alabama leading Wisconsin by three touchdowns Saturday at halftime, Kalen DeBoer told his school radio team that the locker room message to his team would be simple.
“Don’t let up,” he said. “No mercy.”
The Crimson Tide took those
words to heart. On the first play of the third quarter, Ryan Williams turned a well-executed screen pass into a 75-yard touchdown — one of five scoring throws from quarterback Ty Simpson — as Alabama rolled past the Badgers 38-14.
This was the version of Alabama expected in 2025, flexing one of the most talented rosters in college football and reclaiming its spot among the preseason top 10. Left for dead in several College Football Playoff projections after a season-opening loss to Florida State, the Tide have since played with precision on both sides of the ball — a testament to DeBoer and his staff’s ability to spark a quick rebound.
As a card carrying Gen Xer, it shouldn’t be surprising that Kalen would use a famous quote from The Karate Kid. Maybe he caught a couple of Cobra Kai episodes in the offseason. In any case, Alabama will need to keep up that mindset to survive the rest of the season. Ty Simpson understands.
“I think if anything, we have to be more intentional now in the bye week than we were the first two weeks,” Simpson said. “We can’t, Coach Saban said this all the time, have relief syndrome. We won two games. We have to understand what we did wrong this week and be more intentional now so we carry into this SEC stretch coming up.”
After a weekend off, the Crimson Tide will prepare to face Georgia on Saturday, Sept. 27 (6:30 p.m. CT, ABC) in Athens, Georgia.
All of Alabama’s remaining SEC opponents are ranked in the latest AP poll except for one. That’s South Carolina, who still is receiving votes.
South Carolina looks legitimately bad, but that game will be on the road. All Alabama has to do after the bye week is play Georgia in Athens, then come home to face what will almost assuredly be an undefeated Vandy (yes, you read that right), then travel to play what will be an undefeated Mizzou coming off of their bye week, then come back home to face Tennessee before the trip to South Carolina.
But the village idiots will ignore blue chip ratios and NFL draft picks every single season to tell you that playing in the SEC ain’t any different.
Alabama moved up to 14th in both polls, which means nothing.
On Saturday, Alabama football dispatched Wisconsin 38-17 at Bryant-Denny Stadium and moved to 2-1 on the season. Sunday, the Crimson Tide was rewarded for the effort, jumping four spots in USA Today’s coaches top 25 poll rankings to No. 14 in the nation.
UA moved up five spots in the Associated Press media poll, released later on Sunday. Alabama landed in the same spot, 14th.
Never call Creg Stephenson a Gump. He still has Alabama 9th in his SEC Power Rankings.
9. Alabama (2-1)Last week’s ranking: 11
Last week’s game: Beat Wisconsin, 38-14
This week’s game: Open date
The Crimson Tide players and coaches have taken to heart all the criticism they heard after Week 1, turning in a second straight outstanding start-to-finish performance. Ty Simpson seemingly can’t miss, and Ryan Williams returned with his biggest game since last year’s star-making outing vs. Georgia. Speaking of the Bulldogs, Alabama has an open date this week before making its first trip to Athens in 10 years on Sept. 27.
Ty’s performance from Saturday is getting noticed.
Since a frustrating season opener against Florida State, Alabama’s Ty Simpson has completed 41 of 46 passes for 608 yards, seven touchdowns and no picks. He had 382 of those yards and four of those scores in a 38-14 win over Wisconsin on Saturday. It was 28-0 just 15 seconds into the second half after a 75-yard Simpson-to-Ryan Williams score. Bama shifted into cruise control from there. Williams finished with 5 catches for 165 and 2 scores, a breakout performance after a poor game against Florida State and a week in concussion protocol. The Crimson Tide defense allowed just 118 yards in the first three quarters and 209 for the game as Bray Hubbard picked off two passes, and four defenders had sacks. It was the second straight comprehensive blowout for Bama. — Bill Connelly
Ty will have to do it against much better competition, but he was quite precise on Saturday. When you can distribute the ball all over the field on time and accurately, and have multiple weapons that are difficult to single cover, it’s almost impossible to stop. Pass protection must continue to hold up, of course.
Last, the one big flaw we still see in this Alabama squad is the lack of a running game.
After a five-game stretch where he scored five touchdowns and averaged over 8 yards per carry to start last season, Miller averaged 3.3 yards per carry in his final eight games and recorded more than 48 rushing yards once. He scored only two rushing touchdowns the rest of the season, both of which came against Missouri.
How is Georgia against the run?
In Alabama’s SEC debut in two weeks, Georgia won’t be an easy run defense to break through against.
Through three games, the Bulldogs have allowed 82.67 rushing yards per game, 20th-best in college football and fourth best in the SEC behind LSU, Auburn and Texas. Backs average 2.67 yards per rush against the Georgia run defense.
The coaches and players clearly believe that Jam is the best back on the roster at this stage, but I’m skeptical that he moves the needle in the run game. Run blocking and defensive choice is the key there. If Ty keeps slinging it as he has been, teams will have to start keeping safeties back to keep from getting blown out. That should open a few more lanes, but the line will definitely need to execute better as well.
That’s about it for today. Have a great week.
Roll Tide.
