Alabama football vs. preseason predictions: What’s gone right and wrong for Tide?

Alabama’s idle week comes at a good time with the No. 6 Crimson Tide (7-1, 4-1 SEC) beat up in a few areas, including on the defensive line, where Justin Eboigbe is done for the season with a neck injury and DJ Dale and Jaheim Oatis will try to get back in time for the LSU game after missing the Mississippi State contest.

The week should also be beneficial for quarterback Bryce Young. He’s shown no signs of drop-off after missing the Texas A&M game due to a shoulder sprain, but a week with no game should certainly aid in the recovery.

Now is as good a time as any to revisit some predictions from the preseason about what we thought this Alabama team could be. Some are easier to dissect than others.

The schedule allows an easy path to a national championship

Original verdict: Myth
Current verdict: Myth

We were dead on with this one. Of the legitimate contenders for the College Football Playoff, Alabama has faced the toughest strength of schedule (seventh overall) so far, according to ESPN’s College Football Power Index, and it has the No. 4 strength of record.

Even with the Crimson Tide not quite being the team we thought it would be, the schedule was always going to be tricky to get through. I’ve written many words about the three-game stretch in October of Arkansas, Texas A&M and Tennessee, and one of those games did jump up and bite the team. Even the wins were closer than expected.

The road contest at Texas at the start of the season was no easy one, either. And with toss-up games remaining at LSU and at Ole Miss, a second or even third regular-season loss is in the realm of possibility. Had you told anyone that at the beginning of the season, I’m not sure they’d have believed you that Alabama could potentially lose three regular-season games. But here we are.

That uncertainly exists because Alabama hasn’t been as dominant as it is capable of being, and the schedule is downright tough.

Part of that is that the SEC has closed the gap on Alabama’s dominance. That’s both an Alabama thing and a transfer portal thing. The transfer portal is, in some ways, a great equalizer. It allows programs to reshape their roster more quickly than before. We’ve seen it with Ole Miss this season and with Tennessee too, given that Virginia Tech transfer quarterback Hendon Hooker is now one of the Heisman Trophy favorites.

The schedule is also proof that not every conference schedule is the same. With apologies to some other contenders, like Clemson, the schedules are not comparable, which is why SEC commissioner Greg Sankey is wise to protect as many at-large bids in CFP expansion as possible.

This is one we got right. It’s been a favorite pastime of many college football enthusiasts to take shots at the Crimson Tide’s schedule. But this year, it’s simply not true.

Alabama lost to Tennessee for the first time in the Nick Saban era. (Randy Sartin / USA Today)

The wide receivers aren’t what they’ve been in recent years

Original verdict: Truth
Current verdict: Truth

Boy did we nail this one. What was one of the biggest question marks heading into the season is now a full-blown issue after eight games. There still isn’t a defined go-to wide receiver. On one hand, that’s good because defenses can’t shade coverage to attempt to take one player away. On the other hand, when a play needs to be made, there’s not a receiver you’d feel comfortable saying, “He’s the guy.”

There’s no Jameson Williams. There’s no John Metchie. And we didn’t expect there to be one in this year’s wide receiving corps. We did expect more production, though. Alabama’s top wide receiver this season in yards per game is Ja’Corey Brooks, the hero of last year’s Iron Bowl. His 47 yards receiving per game rank 22nd in the SEC. At one point this season, he appeared to have turned a corner on his way to being the guy. Against Vanderbilt, he had four consecutive receptions, including a touchdown. That one drive has been nearly 20 percent of his production in receptions (21).

Alabama’s most consistent receiver isn’t actually a receiver at all. Running back Jahmyr Gibbs’s 31 receptions rank first on the team. His 301 yards receiving are third and his three touchdown receptions are tied for third. We knew Gibbs would be a weapon, but it’s a little bit telling that he leads the team in catches.

JoJo Earle’s return has helped. He’s a big-play option with a 20.4 yards per reception average, but he’s caught only five passes, two of which have gone for touchdowns. The longest completion of the season has been 53 yards to Isaiah Bond.

The biggest issue with the group is what seems like an inability to get off coverage. That’s particularly noticeable with a quarterback who has the ability to extend plays. But even with extended plays, there are too many times when Young isn’t able to find an open receiver.

There are times he has too, like last week’s first touchdown pass to Earle. But the play of the receivers can, at best, be described as inconsistent, even if Nick Saban said he sees the unit progressing.

“I think that they’re playing better, and I think it’s important that they continue to improve,” Saban said after the Mississippi State game.

For the team to be in a position to compete for a championship, this group has to get more consistent.

The offense will look the same in Year 2 under Bill O’Brien

Original verdict: Myth
Current verdict: Truth

Let me start by defining what I meant by this. I don’t presume to know the intricacies of the offense installed each week. It would be foolish to think or act like I do. So I don’t want to get too far out over my skis on this one. What I meant when I first wrote it, and what I mean now, is that I thought the offense would be able to run the ball when it wanted to. That simply hasn’t been the case.

We all see what a talent Gibbs has been. He’s averaging 84 rushing yards per game and has nearly singlehandedly increased the number of explosive runs. But the offensive line has failed to provide of a consistent push to make this offense the punishing one it could be.

Saban noted in his postgame remarks after Mississippi State that the offense isn’t able to take advantage of things built into the offense.

“We couldn’t run the ball very well; it affects play-action passes,” Saban said.

And for a pro-style offense, which is essentially the concepts Alabama’s offense is built on, not having an effective play-action passing game is a killer. That’s sort of where Alabama is.

The lack of a consistent short-yardage running game is also concerning for a second consecutive year. On third downs with 1-3 yards to go this season, Alabama has run the ball 17 times. It has converted nine of those opportunities for first downs and ranks 129th with an average of 0.82 yards per carry in such situations. By comparison, Georgia, which ranks sixth in the conference in rushing (Alabama ranks fourth), has had 22 third-down runs with 1-3 to go and has converted 14 of those chances and averages 5.23 yards per carry.

There was a moment near the end of the Texas A&M game when Alabama could have ended the game by gaining a first down. But the offensive line couldn’t get the push, the running back got stopped on third down, the offense was forced to punt and Texas A&M had the ball on the Alabama goal line with a chance to win. You get the point.

I thought the offense would look different because I thought the team could effectively run the ball when it wanted to. The stats aren’t bad. As noted above, Alabama ranks fourth in the SEC in rush offense — and second in yards per carry. But when it needs to run the ball, it has difficulty doing so. I didn’t expect that to be the case.

The defense is the best it’s been since 2017

Original verdict: Truth
Current verdict: Truth

This one is surely to ruffle some feathers, especially being written so closely to the Tennessee game. If the trip to Knoxville had gone differently, the statement wouldn’t elicit many protests. I still don’t think it should, and that’s because the defenses that came after 2017 haven’t been classic Saban-era defenses. To make this statement true, it’s only in competition with last year’s defense, which finished seventh in total yards (304.1), 11th in yards per play (4.8) and 18th in scoring (20.1). This year’s defense ranks 15th in total yards (295.6), seventh in yards per play (4.3) and 11th in scoring (16.6).

In half of the games, the defense has allowed fewer than 10 points, including a shutout. It nearly had its second shutout of the season last week before Mississippi State scored on the game’s last play. It’s the Tennessee game that skewed the way this defense is viewed.

It’s not the 2017 defense. It was never going to be. But it still has a chance to be the best defense since that unit. What’s been noticeably missing from this year’s group is sacks and turnovers. The Crimson Tide rank 15th in sacks with 23 and have forced just six turnovers, which ranks tied for 121st. According to TruMedia, the defense ranks 38th in pressure rate (35.3 percent of dropbacks) and 34th in sack rate (7.6 percent).

It’s inexplicable that a defense with as much talent as Alabama has trouble forcing turnovers. But it’s on an uptick with five of the six forced turnovers coming in the past four games.

The last time we saw the group, it bounced back from a miserable performance against Tennessee, which in retrospect seems more like a poor matchup than an indictment of the entire defense. But there are tough upcoming assignments as well, including road tests against Ole Miss and LSU. Eli Ricks solidifying his spot at corner after his first Crimson Tide start would go a long way toward settling the secondary. He was targeted 10 times against Mississippi State and had four pass breakups and allowed just one completion, per PFF.

This one could go either way, but I’m sticking with the original verdict.

Alabama’s offensive line will determine the outcome of the season

Original verdict: Truth
Current verdict: Myth

I changed direction on this for one reason. Alabama didn’t have the best offensive line play last year and might have won the national championship had the wide receivers stayed healthy. So I’m left with two theories for how Alabama could win a national championship this year. No. 1: The offensive line starts overpowering defenses to the point where the running game becomes dominant. No 2: The wide receivers start performing at a level where the offense becomes explosive. Of the two, which is more likely? If a couple of receivers just took a step forward, the group becoming more consistent is more plausible to me.

As I wrote above, I thought the offensive line would set the table for a dangerous run game that would complement the passing game. That hasn’t happened. That’s why I wrote their importance was the key.

Let’s be clear about this too: The offensive line is better than it was in 2021. While it’s true Evan Neal is gone, JC Latham has been quite good at right tackle. According to PFF, Latham has allowed no sacks and has an 89.8 pass-block grade and an allowed pressure rate of 0.7 percent. The line has allowed 12 sacks this season through eight games. It allowed 41 in 15 last year. Alabama ranks only 59th in pressure rate allowed, per TruMedia, but that’s up from 103rd.

My point is that the pass blocking has been better. The run blocking has been similar, although the explosive runs are up.

So the offensive line has been better, but the team is on a trajectory similar to last year.

GO DEEPER

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(Top photo of Jahmyr Gibbs: Butch Dill / USA Today)