The standard for Alabama football is unreasonably yet deservedly high: National championship or bust. When a coach like Nick Saban wins six national titles from 2009 to 2020, of course that's going to be the standard from the media, from Alabama fans and alumni, and anybody who watches college football in general. Everyone expects Alabama to make the College Football Playoff and win the whole thing.

Generally, in order to even make it to the College Football Playoff, a team has to go undefeated during the regular season. Well, that won't be happening with Alabama in 2023. The Crimson Tide suffered their first loss of the season in Week 2, falling to Quinn Ewers and the Texas Longhorns 34-24 in Tuscaloosa.

A year after the Crimson Tide squeaked out of Austin with a one-point win thanks to a game-winning drive led by Bryce Young, they couldn't repeat that result at home. Naturally, people will want to play the blame game following such a disappointing loss, and there's plenty of it go around.

Here are the two players or units most to blame for Alabama's loss to Texas.

2. Jalen Milroe

Before everyone piles on Milroe, it's worth mentioning he does a lot of things well. He has an absolute cannon of an arm. Through just two games this season, Milroe has seven completions on passes of at least 20 or more air yards. For comparison's sake, Young had 21 such completions in 12 games last season.

Milroe's arm strength and comfort throwing the deep ball was evident on his bomb of a touchdown pass to Jermaine Burton against the Longhorns.

Milroe also is a dynamic runner with the ball in his hands. He has three starts in his Alabama career and another game where he filled in and played meaningful snaps. He has 264 rushing yards in those games, good for an average of 66  yards per game.

Needless to say, the sophomore's ability to pick up chunks on the ground through designed runs or scrambles is extremely valuable to Alabama's offense.

The issue in Saturday's game, however, was that it was too much of Milroe running or looking to make a big play deep. His pocket presence just isn't where it needs to be yet. Part of that was because of the pressure Texas was able to get up front, but a panicked Milroe also bailed early on several occasions he was granted a clean pocket.

More damaging, Milroe threw two bad interceptions against the Longhorns while staring down receivers and not scanning the field. He ended the day completing only 14-of-27 passes. The 255 passing yards and two touchdowns are nice, but the two interceptions were back-breakers for the Tide.

Milroe, obviously, is nowhere near Young's level passing the football. That's not to say he can't do great things as a thrower or that he can't develop into a good passing quarterback, but he definitely isn't there yet—and Alabama needs him to be given the considerable skill talent around him.

1. Alabama's trenches

The Crimson Tide don't get whooped in the trenches very often, but that's exactly what happened on Saturday. Alabama insisted all offseason it was ready to revert to a ground-and-pound attack with Young off to the NFL. It certainly didn't appear that way versus Texas, with the Tide's running backs combining for 57 rushing yards on 18 carries.

The offensive line wasn't great in pass protection either. Fortunately, Milroe was able to navigate outside of the pocket to avoid sacks, but the Longhorns were still able to get regular pressure on passing downs. Milroe wasn't able to escape the rush every time, either.

Texas was able to sack Milroe five times. He faced pressured more often than that, lacking the time and opportunity to get more comfortable from the pocket. Meanwhile, Texas kept Ewers completely clean.

That was the the difference in this game. Alabama almost always owns the battle of the trenches. They lost it big-time against Texas, resulting in a loss that clouds their national championship hopes.