Remember a month ago when Alabama had horrible-no-good-very-bad start to the game vs Kentucky and we all thought things couldn’t be worse?
Well they found a way.
The Tide opened the game with a 3-and-out and a fumble, then followed that up with another three and out, interception, and two more punts on short drives – getting only a single first down in the first five drives.
Thankfully, the Alabama defense was playing lights out. The did give up some yards on the opening drive, but eventually held up in the redzone,
and then held UT to two more field goals after the fumble and the interception on short fields.
Finally, the Vols threw a pick of their own on an errant RPO toss across the middle, setting Alabama up with a short field and Keelon Russell took it in for a score on a scramble play.
The Vols then gave Alabama yet another break as they inexplicably touched a ball bouncing on an Alabama punt, only for the Tide to squander that opportunity too with a 4th down fumble when Russell got stepped on while trying to hand the ball off to Daniel Hill.
But, the Tide defense stood tall one more time, getting the offense the ball back. Russell finally hit two passes downfield to get into field goal range, and Talty nailed the 42-yarder in swirling wind to take Alabama to halftime with only a 2 point deficit.
Now, that was truly about as ugly of a half as an offense can put together. The Tide’s only positive plays the entire half were a couple of scrambles from Russell and one off-tackle run from Daniel Hill – up until the final drive when Russell finally connected on two passes for 31 yards. Outside of those two? Russell was 4/10 for 9 yards, an interception, a fumble, and two sacks. Just horrific.
Daniel Hill had a couple of good runs and three bad ones, Trae’Shawn Brown had three runs for nothing, and EJ Crowell got injured on a nasty hit to the legs on his one carry.
On the other side of things, DeSean Bishop has 64 rushing yards and converted a few chains, but the Tennessee passing offense has been pretty much all screen passes. They’re getting a few yards (119), but the lack of any effective downfield passing has kept them from being able to convert any field position into actual scores.
At this point, this seems to be a game of if the Alabama offense can figure something out before the defense finally gives out on holding on in the redzone or not. And right now, I’m not sure we’ve seen anything to say the Tide offense will, in fact, figure anything out.
Oh, and also it looks like Zabien Brown is now hurt and out for the game. Just great.
Oh well, hope for the best. Roll Tide
