Despite some early struggles and putrid offense, Alabama wound up walking into halftime with a resounding 17-3 lead. The Tide opened the game with a turnover on downs with 4 straight run plays, then the defense
allowed LSU to drive down the field, but ultimately held them to a missed field goal.
Alabama punted after another failed drive, but this time, the Tide defense immediately forced a fumble, giving the offense a 24-yard short field to pay dirt. Unfortunately, they only went backwards, and Alabama settled for a field goal. A big run from Harlem Berry set LSU for a game-tying field goal, and at this point, it felt like LSU had all of the momentum as the Alabama offense was mired in the mud.
However, Ty Simpson hit his two tight ends for a couple of nice gains, then threw one of the prettiest 30-yard sideline go-balls you’ll ever see to Josh Cuevas, setting up a go-ahead TD run from Daniel Hill running up the gut.
The Alabama defense tightened up after that, forcing back to back three and outs on LSU’s final two drives. Meanwhile the Tide offense drove the field again, only to get derailed by a blown up jet sweep and a blown up screen in the redzone. Connor Talty then horrifically shanked a 26-yard field goal. However, after forcing the quick stop, Alabama got the ball back with 56 seconds to go, and Ty Simpson went into full assassin mode. he launched a 53-yard bomb to Lotzier Brooks, then followed that up with a quick 13 yard strike to Ryan Williams in the center of the endzone between two defenders.
Simpson’s 199 yards in the first half featured quite a few throws that are going to be shown on his pre-Draft highlight reel, and the Tide passing game was nearly flawless when going downfield. However, Alabama’s run game was absolutely dreadful, with 12 attempts going for 34 yards (and 7 of those came a tight end screen that got counted as a run).
Meanwhile, the defense pretty well shut down the LSU offense outside of the one 30 yard run from Berry, plus forced a couple of fumbles.
Essentially, the passing game and defense were outstanding, and you can’t ask for better. But the run game is a disaster. I don’t know what the answer is there, but hey, Simpson is playing lights out, so as long as that keeps up, the Tide will roll.
Roll Tide!
