Alabama Football Three Keys: Southern Miss

Alabama faces Southern Miss on Saturday in Tuscaloosa. Here are your three keys to an Alabama win over Southern Miss.

By Steve Wright

The Crimson Tide offense was outstanding as the No. 2 ranked team in the country beat up South Carolina 47-23 in Alabama’s first SEC game of the season. Next up is a Southern Miss squad that put up 47 points in a win over Troy last time out, but that also lost 38-15 to Mississippi State a couple of weeks ago.

Key 1 – Watch out for Jaylond Adams

Southern Miss shouldn’t have enough weapons to trouble Alabama. That is why the Crimson Tide opened as almost 40 point favorites against the Golden Eagles. What Southern Miss does have, however, is a player in Jaylond Adams who has started this season in electric form.

Adams caught 11 balls for 180 yards against Troy in a career best performance. That isn’t even his biggest accomplishment this season to date though as he also has three kick return touchdowns in as many games, including a 100 yarder in the game last week. Alabama must be aware of Adams on every play and this will be the first real test of the season for the kick coverage unit.

Key 2 – Keep Tua hot

Tua Tagovailoa was on first against South Carolina as he played within the scheme to post a monster day. The Alabama quarterback tossed five touchdowns and went for 444 yards through the air, the sixth highest single game total in school history.

Tagovailoa hasn’t been incredible passing the ball deep so far in 2019, but he hasn’t had to be. His mandate is to get the ball into the hands of his best playmakers as soon as possible, something he is incredibly skilled at. This should be the approach again on Saturday against a defense that is sure to be overmatched.

Key 3 – Avoid injuries

Bigger games are (eventually) coming up on this schedule. The date next week with Ole Miss shouldn’t be too impactful for Bama, but clashes with Texas A&M (10/12) and LSU (11/9) are massive. That means that while a game like this is a needed tune-up, it is also a potential problem if a big name player gets hurt.

We have already seen a pair of SEC quarterbacks lost for the season – Terry Wilson at Kentucky and Jake Bentley at South Carolina – knocking those programs out of their strides and making wins more difficult. Alabama can be a National Championship team this fall, but the Crimson Tide can’t afford any silly injuries in a game where they are favored to win by almost six touchdowns.

Saturday‘s game kicks off at 11:00 AM CT (12:00 PM ET). Watch on the ESPN2 Network.

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