Let’s start from the top, and get through the media appearances from the two coordinators and head coach.
First up is Ryan Grubb, who is pretty much public enemy #1 in the state of Alabama right now.
On the identity of the offense:
“Our identity is to be able to get our playmakers the ball in space. I think we’re a good gap run team. We’ve shown that. We showed it on Saturday. We had some good gap scheme, inside zone and duo. That’s where it starts up front, getting the double teams, getting four hands on their biggest players, and then
exploiting the secondary area where we think their weakest players are.”
I’m glad one of the reporters asked this, and it’s interesting to me what Grubb said.
“be able to get our playmakers the ball in space”
And yet, that’s not really what we’ve seen for the last two seasons from the passing game. Instead, Grubb has tended more towards a mid-range to deeper passing attack that doesn’t often lend to getting the receivers much room to get yards after catch.
I have seen this year’s offense put their identity on the gap, inside zone, and duo runs (even if he went away from it last week), so that tracks. But leading off with the comment about getting playmakers in space just doesn’t really feel what they’ve actually been doing.
One reporter asked him about the opening script, and Grubb did mention that the first play of the game was an RPO that got tipped.
Personally, I’m getting more and more out-of-favor with RPOs as a whole as defenses are getting better at figuring out the binary options and forcing offenses into decisions, rather than the other way around. But that’s a conversation for a different day.
On the decision to play off ball or play press in perimeter defense: “Well, you know, I mean, that’s one of the things that we have to constantly do, right, is you mix coverages in. We probably played more Cover 2 to the field this week than what we had just because you know they were throwing some of those perimeter screens out there, and so we we rolled up to that side and took some of them away at times. But there were other times, right, when number two is on, number one is off. You can’t be in press man in that situation because you’re going to get rubbed and picked. And then they were doing a lot of crack concepts into the boundary that we didn’t feel like we wanted to be in man against some of those structures as well. But you know, you just got to continue to mix those things throughout, and then you got to execute when the ball is thrown on the perimeter. Our guys have done a really nice job of that. We’ve done a nice job improving our screens, but we had four times that we did not execute well in those situations, and gave up two explosives, one being that fourth quarter drive on a on a first-and-19. It just cannot happen.”
This was an interesting answer from Wommack about the screen passes. He’s right, the Tide secondary has been really good against WR screens this year, so seeing them get outflanked on them multiple times last week was weird. And it sounds like it was something formationally with the way UT lined up the receivers. Overall, I think that the Alabama defense wasn’t bad necessarily. In fact, they kept this game from being something like a 41-3 blowout with their 1st half heroics. But ultimately, I felt like Wommack didn’t adjust to the situation or what Tennessee was doing and was sticking to a gameplan that would have been effective if the Tide had a lead, not trying to play from behind.
So, a mixed bag on my opinion on the defense, I guess.
On injury updates for Ryan Coleman-Williams, Racin Delgatty, Zabien Brown, Terrance Green and EJ Crowell: “A lot of these guys are kind of in the same boat. I’ll just go through. Zabien, lower leg injury, trying to evaluate throughout the week what he looks like. Racin is really in the same boat. So just kind of go to him. He’s progressing pretty well, though. And so, we’ll see. Gonna be week to week. Ryan is also, I mean, all these guys are kind of in the same area, the same window. I would not expect them to be practicing all week alone, but we’ll kind of see as the week gets to the end, what that looks like. EJ, lower leg injury, just kind of continue to evaluate. We’ll kind of see where he’s at in the next couple days. I wouldn’t expect him to practice early in the week for sure. And then Terrance is progressing. They’re all kind of kind of in the same spot. So, Terrance is week to week right now.”
Overall, I didn’t think DeBoer said much of anything out of left field. Chase Goodbread did press DeBoer on the play that’s making rounds with the Tennessee defender pointing out Marshall Pritchett right before the Tide ran a TE screen, and DeBoer mostly deflected that one.
I will say that I thought that, between the three coordinators, I thought the beat reporters did a much better job with asking questions to force answers, rather than their usual softball “how do you feel about X’s performance” that they seem to do every week.
As far as injury updates, I feel like DeBoer has been extra ambiguous this season, even compared to the last few years. So who knows if any of these guys are playing or what the injuries are.
Moving on to the upcoming week, this game against Texas A&M was supposed to be part of a brutal 4-game stretch for Alabama. Well, the first two proved to be just as brutal as we all expected, with Alabama not even looking like they belonged on the field against Tennessee. The good news is that the Aggies have barely looked like they belonged on the field this whole season, and if that trend continues, a game against a struggling Marcel Reed could be just what the doctor ordered for the Tide.
The Aggies have yet to score a touchdown on the road thus far in the 2026 season, and Reed has been a big issue in that stat, as the image shown above has become a little too frequent of an image for the 12th Man throughout 2026, as Reed has been sacked 12 times, including five times against the LSU Tigers.
However, head coach Mike Elko has remained steadfast in keeping Reed as the starter, saying that it simply would make no improvement to the team to take him out, even at where they currently are at this point in the 2026 season.
And this weekend, Reed is going to face a Crimson Tide defense that will test the part of his game that has been the shakiest this season, and that is staying out of trouble when the pocket collapses.
In addition to the dozen times that he’s been brought down, Reed has also completed just over half of his passes and before the game against The Citadel, his touchdowns and interceptions were the same number.
Not to mention, his passer rating is ranked near the bottom of all qualifying FBS quarterbacks, a stark contrast to where Reed and the Aggies were last year at this point in the season.
On the other hand, if the Tide struggles, or worse, loses, this weekend, there will be riots in the streets in Tuscaloosa.
While the Aggie offense has looked all season like Alabama did last weekend, their defense has been getting better each week, so don’t count them out (it’s not like Tennessee entered last week with an offense that was particularly functional, either).
What To Watch For:
- Defensive improvement. Don’t look now, but Texas A&M’s pass defense is ranked No. 10 nationally. There’s some context to that, to be sure (giving up a lot on the ground and also some really subpar opponents), but the defense has looked like it’s been rounding into form after some pretty obvious early-season struggles. They’ll need to continue that upward trajectory and then some if they hope to pull out a victory this Saturday.
- Any offense at all. Against LSU and Missouri, the A&M offense looked simply abysmal, failing to even score a touchdown. It may seem silly to expect significant improvement at this point (it is), but it’s what it will take for A&M to have a shot in this game.
- Health? Texas A&M rested a number of players last week, with starters like WR Mario Craver, OG Trovon Baugh, DE Anto Saka and DT DJ Hicks not even suiting up. Will that rest prove fruitful against a Crimson Tide team coming off of games against Georgia and Tennessee? It’s a stretch, but hey, it could happen (flaps arms in a forced Angels in the Outfield reference).
Finally, here’s the weekly SEC shorts, if you can stomach getting to see Tennessee and Auburn gloat.
