Alabama is coming off a 28-7 blowout loss in the SEC Championship. Kalen DeBoer did not seem stressed after the game, praising Georgia, while also being confident that they will be in the College Football Playoff. Regardless, preparing for the playoffs will need a look back at the game with Georgia and figuring out what went wrong.
The start of the game with Georgia was defensive and slow-moving. Each team punted on their first two drives, and had combined for just 42 total yards and two first downs in the first half of the opening quarter. On an Alabama punt, Cole Speer plucked the ball off the foot of the punter, leading to the block and great field position for Georgia. The Bulldogs would convert that into a touchdown.
On the next Alabama drive, Ty Simpson threw an interception, which led to an early second-quarter touchdown by Georgia. It would not be until the fourth quarter that Alabama finally found the end zone. The early mistakes from the team led to an insurmountable lead, and nothing the Crimson Tide could do to come back in the game.
Alabama will be heading to the playoffs and will have a rematch with Oklahoma in the first round, but first, they need to address some issues.
The running game was embarrassing
The Alabama run game has struggled this season. The Tide are averaging 103.8 yards per game and sit 123rd in FBS in rushing yards per game. Alabama's inability to run the ball was not particularly surprising, but the poor performance of the running game was an embarrassment when they faced Georgia.
Alabama ran a total of 16 times in the game against the Bulldogs, gaining negative three yards. Part of the rushing loss was Ty Simpson, who was sacked three times, which is included in the overall rushing numbers. Still, the team's leading rusher was Daniel Hill, who ran the ball four times for 11 yards. The longest run he had of the day was for five yards.
Meanwhile, AK Dear also ran the ball three times for ten yards, a long run of five yards as well. It was the worst rushing performance of the year by the Crimson Tide. While the team was without Jam Miller, their top back, there was no push from the offensive line, and the running backs were consistently met in the backfield. Alabama survived other games when the running game faltered, though. They did that on the back of Simpson, who also struggled in the game.
Ty Simpson made too many mistakes
Simpson has been solid this year as the quarterback for the Tide. Alabama was top 50 in points per game while sitting 18th in passing yards per game. Simpson has been a major part of that. Heading into the game with Georgia, he has passed for over 3,000 yards, 25 touchdowns, and just four interceptions. Further, his QBR has been above 50 in all but two games this season. The first time he was below 50 in QBR, it was a 41.4 rating, against Florida State. The other game he was below 50 in QBR was a 47.2 rating against Eastern Illinois.
In the game with Georgia, Simpson was horrible. He completed just 19 of 39 passes for 21 yards, a touchdown, and an interception. He was also sacked three times while running for negative 28 yards. It was the worst game of the season for Simpson, with his lowest QBR and lowest completion percentage. He consistently overthrew receivers and made incorrect reads in the game. With the running offense struggling, the team cannot afford Simpson to have a bad game. That is exactly what he did in the SEC Championship, and it cost his team a chance to win.
Ryan Grubb deserves a ton of blame
Ryan Grubb is the offensive coordinator and playcaller for Kalen DeBoer. Alabama has not been known for play-calling balance on offense this year. They run the ball 45.01 percent of the time, which is 115th in FBS. Meanwhile, the Tide are 22nd in the percentage of plays that are a pass. While unbalanced, the offense still found success, with there being some threat of a running game.
Alabama attempted to establish the run on the first drive of the game, running the ball three times for seven yards on the drive before punting. They would also open the third drive of the game with a run, before Simpson threw the interception and Alabama went down 14-0. The Tide abandoned the run game from there and never tried to reestablish it.
Another major issue was third downs. Alabama is 40th in the nation on third-down conversions, converting over 42 percent on third down this year. Alabama converted just 21.4 percent of its third-down attempts against Georgia. The major issue Alabama was never in a solid position to convert on third down. They were just one for six on first down in the first half, but only three of the six attempts were shorter than four yards. They converted one of those four short attempts. The long third-down attempts continued in the second half, putting the Tide in consistently bad situations, and a major reason for that was the play calling.
Grubb did not adjust the play calling or protection for Simpson, resulting in the horrible first half, in which the team averaged just 3.3 yards per play. The result was Alabama being behind and not able to catch up. If the play-calling does not improve, it is going to be a short playoff run for Alabama.
