The Alabama Crimson Tide made the necessary adjustments in 2020, winning their division, their conference, and most of all, winning the national championship after a rough 2019 season in which they won none of those three titles.
By Matt Zemek
It helped that Joe Burrow was no longer playing at LSU, but Alabama still had to do the work, and it still had to fine-tune its offense so that if it got into a shootout – which it did in the SEC Championship Game against Florida – it would prevail, unlike the 2019 loss to LSU in Tuscaloosa. That’s exactly what happened.
Now Alabama, after winning the national title for the sixth time under Nick Saban, tries to go for No. 7 and the second back-to-back national title run since the 2011 and 2012 teams turned the trick. The journey begins with a neutral-site game against the Miami Hurricanes in Atlanta. Let’s look at three keys to this contest.
1 – King concerns
It is unlikely that Alabama, an 18-point favorite, will lose this game, but there is certainly a scenario in which the Tide could find themselves in a spot of great difficulty. If D’Eriq King runs circles around Alabama’s defense, this game could become very complicated for the defending national champions. Alabama had a very hard time stopping Matt Corral and Ole Miss last year, giving up 48 points. The Tide allowed 46 to Florida in Atlanta. Alabama’s 2020 offense averaged 48.5 points per game, which always helps, but if Bryce Young and the offense, in an early-season game, score under 40 points, Miami could certainly walk away with a 41-38 or 42-35 victory if King isn’t corralled.
King is an electric dual-threat playmaker who is extremely dangerous outside the pocket. Alabama will need to contain his running lanes and make sure he doesn’t find receivers for deep balls when plays break down and devolve into scramble situations. King knows how to improvise, and he knows how to make clutch plays in the fourth quarter. He led multiple successful comebacks for Miami last season. Alabama doesn’t need to dominate King; it just needs to contain him and prevent him from having a career game. Making him win this game from the pocket is a good starting point. Alabama can’t let him bust loose for a 70-yard touchdown run which might change the complexion of the game.
2 – Offensive line reset
Alabama lost Landon Dickerson and Alex Leatherwood from its stellar 2020 offensive line, but the good news is that Miami lost three prime pass rushers from last year’s team: Greg Rousseau, Quincy Roche, and Jaelen Phillips. Miami is depleted on defense to the extent that Alabama’s reworked offensive line should still have a favorable matchup in the first game of the year. Taking advantage of this one matchup should give Bryce Young all the time he needs to find receivers downfield and begin his Alabama career with the high-impact performance Nick Saban and the rest of the coaching staff are expecting. The offensive line playing well is exactly how Alabama can do what it did last year: Give up a fair number of points but score a lot more. That’s the new reality of football Nick Saban has not been afraid to embrace. A 52-35 win? Bama would take that, and it would be built on the backs of its offensive linemen.
3 – Receivers helping Bryce Young
Mac Jones had a tremendous 2020 season, but he couldn’t have done it without having Jaylen Waddle and Heisman Trophy winner DeVonta Smith to throw to. Now a new group of receivers needs to be there for Bryce Young, so that the latest Alabama quarterback can make lots of easy throws, trusting that his receivers can make plays in space and accumulate lots of yards after the catch. The less complicated this game is for Young, the better. The offensive line and the wide receivers both have their roles to play.
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