KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — That was awful.
No. 6 Alabama was the inferior team for all 60 minutes on the field at Neyland Stadium in its 26-10 loss to No. 14 Tennessee. The offense looked dreadful. We may as well have been back in 2024, watching Jalen Milroe's complete inability to move the ball downfield. The defense was uninspiring. I'll expound on all of that in this week's Tide Up, Tide Down, BamaCentral's reactionary postgame series that evaluates some of the ̶b̶e̶s̶t̶ (most decent) and worst players, moments, and trends from Alabama's season.
Tide Up: Conor Talty
Talty hasn't missed a kick in 329 days. His 42-yard field goal before halftime was nice. Oh, he also made an extra point. Good work.
Tide Up: Dijon Lee
Lee's name will not show up on the front page of ESPN tomorrow morning, I won't have to dedicate half of my film study on Monday to his poor play, and Kane Wommack won't have to speak about him being "held accountable" in this week's press conference. That's enough. That's how low the bar is after this team's performance.
Tide Up: Ryan Coleman-Williams
Rico Scott was the leading receiver with 54 yards in what was the worst game of the season for the junior, who saw two balls hit his hands and fall incomplete. Lotzeir Brooks was held to 26 yards, his lowest since the opener against East Carolina. Kaleb Edwards doesn't know what a first-down marker is, Derek Meadows got some excellent cardio in during his first career start, and Noah Rogers and Cederian Morgan were nowhere to be seen.
Coleman-Williams is the centerpiece of Alabama's offense. The success of Alabama's pass game revolves around the coverage he draws. A room full of talented players that has produced all year was reduced to nobodies without him. It was reported that Coleman-Williams underwent arthroscopic surgery to repair a meniscus injury he's been battling for the past few weeks. Alabama had better hope the recovery is quick.
When asked about Coleman-Williams' absence postgame, Keelon Russell said, "It's not like we're missing Jesus."
True, but you're at least missing Peter or John.
Tide Down: Keelon Russell
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
That statement is directed at everybody in the college football world who decided to prop up a sophomore quarterback with six career starts as the next Bryce Young, Jayden Daniels, or whoever you want Russell to be.
Russell may very well turn into that kind of superstar. I expect him to. But not right now. Not with this roster. And definitely not in his first real SEC road environment (apologies to Kentucky and Mississippi State, but it's true).
Russell did what a young quarterback was supposed to do in this kind of test. He didn't flunk it. His legs were lethal, he tried to find guys downfield, and he still displayed his NFL-level release. Russell is a developing player, who shows flashes of absolute greatness, who has as much potential as anybody in the nation, who could put everything together by the end of this season.
Let that be enough for now.
Tide Down: The Defense
Wommack compared his group to Alabama's 2015 defense less than a month ago.
That's laughable.
Yhonzae Pierre and Devan Thompkins, both of whom are being discussed as potential first-round draft picks, have combined for two sacks over the last two weeks. Wait, actually, those were both recorded by Pierre. Wait, actually, those are THE ONLY TWO SACKS Alabama has over the past two games.
Are you serious?
We've spent the better part of a week harping on how awful this Tennessee offensive line was, and this is the production that the team responds with? George MacIntyre got the ball out fast, Tennessee ran the ball nonstop, and it doesn't matter. There is no excuse for that kind of day.
Almost nobody is blameless. Caleb Woodson led the team with 11 tackles — he missed one on a nine-yard completion from MacIntyre to Mike Matthews. Bray Hubbard was second with 10 — he missed one on a 20-yard DeSean Bishop second-quarter run.
Ivan Taylor made a game-altering play with his second-quarter interception that set Alabama up in the red zone for its only touchdown of the day. The secondary was solid, finally somewhat playing up to its expectations, especially with Zabien Brown out for most of the game with a "lower extremity" injury. Those are the only positive words I can find on Wommack's unit.
With the chance to be the heroes, make a statement, and live up to that 2015 standard, the Alabama defense got dog-walked for fifteen plays as Tennessee took nine minutes, 32 seconds on a 72-yard touchdown drive to take a 16-point lead.
This is not 2015.
Tide Down: Kalen DeBoer
DeBoer is 7-6 in true road games. Alabama has lost multiple regular-season games in three straight years for the first time since 2005-2007. I could go on. Take your pick of abysmal DeBoer statistics — there's no shortage of them.
He's not Nick Saban, he's not supposed to be, college football has changed, yada, yada, yada. DeBoer is supposed to be an elite football coach. One of the best in the nation.
For the first six games of the season, he was. This week, he wasn't.
Plain and simple.
Alabama has no margin for error. This team will have to beat preseason top-10 Texas A&M, LSU in a bona fide elimination game, likely at night, in Death Valley, Vanderbilt on the road in a game the team has no business losing (sound familiar?), and an Auburn team that just beat No. 1 Georgia to make the playoff.
One loss, and the season is over. Is Alabama capable of running the table? Absolutely. Is it a likely outcome after what we saw tonight? Absolutely not.
But don't worry, in a year, none of this will matter. DeBoer's 9-3 Alabama teams will be able to cruise into the 24-team playoff and host a first-round game as the No. 15 seed. We thought expansion was supposed to benefit the middle-of-the-pack programs, those who can't expect to go 10-2 and make the playoff on a regular basis, and need a larger field to stay relevant.
Maybe that's what Alabama is right now.
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