On3 Primer: Previewing Alabama’s Week 3 game at South Florida
No. 10 Alabama will play on the road at South Florida on Saturday, Sept. 16, for a 2:30 p.m. CT kickoff at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa. The non-conference matchup between the Crimson Tide and Bulls will air on ABC with Bob Wischusen, Robert Griffin III and Kris Budden on the call. Check out this three-section preview to get ready for game No. 3.
THREE STORYLINES TO MONITOR
1. How will Alabama respond?
Alabama lost to Texas in Week 2, dropping its first regular-season contest to a non-conference foe since Nick Saban’s first season as the head coach in 2007. The Crimson Tide will look to bounce back in its first road game of the year against a team that plays at a break-neck speed on offense and forced five turnovers in its last outing. Alabama should still beat USF, and most likely in convincing fashion, but can it do so without committing some of the mistakes that we saw the last time out – 10 penalties, five sacks, two turnovers – against Texas?
“I would be shocked if this team does not respond in a really positive way to trying to get better, to try to do the things they need to do to get fixed,” Saban said Monday. “But we have to have better execution. We’ve gotta do simple things better, whether it’s pass protection, blocking, controlling the line of scrimmage, not giving up big plays on defense, whatever.
“Those are the things that are gonna change. This is not just about the attitude of players. They all wanted to win more than any fan, more than anybody in this room, and they put all the work and preparation into it. … So I would be shocked if these guys don’t come in here today with the attitude that we’re gonna go out there and try to improve and get better. The future is now. We’ve gotta do it now. That’s the main thing.”
2. Will we see a change at quarterback?
Jalen Milroe started the first two games of Alabama’s 2023 season. He played well in Week 1, earning SEC Co-Offensive Player of the Week honors, but struggled in the loss to UT. Milroe threw for 255 yards and two touchdowns – and saw two more wiped away by penalties – but he also threw two costly interceptions and completed 52 percent of his passes. After last week’s game, Saban said he did give some thought to making a change but did not ultimately do so. If a change is made, it will likely be for Tyler Buchner, who was the first quarterback off the bench in the season opener and is getting more comfortable within the new offensive system. But that remains to be seen, but Saban’s comments on Thursday were… intriguing.
“I’m really proud of this bunch of guys,” Saban said. “I’m disappointed in the game just like everybody else is disappointed in the game, but these guys have worked hard. There’s a good chemistry on this team. I think we just got to get the right players in the right spots to do the right things to complement each other and we can have a really good season.”
3. Defense needs to play better
There were two obvious issues for the Alabama defense in its loss to Texas last week – little to no pressure on quarterback Quinn Ewers and, consequently, too many explosive plays. Ewers threw for 349 yards, three touchdowns and zero interceptions on the road, finding openings in the back end of the UA defense for multiple big plays (8 of 15-plus yards). And he had plenty of time to operate in the pocket with zero sacks and only three hurries. Not only does the Tide’s front seven need to apply more pressure, the secondary needs to play more sound coverage to give them a little more time. This week, they’ll do that against a fast USF offense.
“I think it was OK in the first game,” Saban said Monday. “Of course, it was a different level of competition. And I think that obviously, we didn’t get any sacks (against Texas). We didn’t have a lot of success, the kind of success that we’d like to have on third down, and I think that’s something that we need to improve.
“We didn’t do a great job of covering them. Sometimes you get coverage sacks, so we didn’t cover them long enough that the quarterback couldn’t get the ball out of his hand quickly. We didn’t affect the quarterback in the game, and we all need to improve on that.”
THREE PLAYERS TO WATCH
1. Dallas Turner, LB
We listed Turner here last week as the Crimson Tide defensive front looked to affect Ewers, but as mentioned above, that was unsuccessful. He did record three tackles, including a key tackle for loss on fourth down in the third quarter, but Turner needs to get things going in the box score after not registering a sack in the first two games. A native of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Turner will have plenty of family and friends in the stands at Raymond James Stadium, and he is facing a South Florida offensive line that has allowed 11 sacks already this season.
2. Amari Niblack, TE
Sticking with the theme of Tide players from the Sunshine State, Niblack hails from nearby Saint Petersburg. But he gets a nod here for more than just his ties to the location of Alabama’s Week 3 game. Through the first two weeks of the season, Niblack has made a number of big plays in the Tide passing game, hauling in four passes for 94 yards and two touchdowns, one in each of the first two contests. Niblack is averaging 23.5 yards per reception, which ranks second on the team behind Jermaine Burton but tied for third in the SEC. The sophomore tight end is living up to the “mismatch” player that Saban and others praised before the season.
3. Kadyn Proctor, OL
Proctor made his second-ever start a week ago against Texas and struggled against the Horns. He was flagged for holding in the third quarter, which negated a touchdown pass to Burton, and had trouble against UT’s talented front, allowing five pressures. The entire offensive line had 17 and will look to clean things up this week and in the road trip to Tampa. The youngest starter on Alabama’s offensive line has a chance to rebound against a USF front that, while still talented, doesn’t compare to Texas, and his teammates have helped keep his head up.
“You’re an 18-year-old playing in front of 100,000 people, playing against one of the most talented teams in the country. You’re going to make mistakes,” Tyler Booker said. “I told him my story. I gave up a sack against Texas A&M last year. I just took him through my mindset. The thing that inspired me about Kadyn is, he and I have that same mindset.
“After he had those bad plays, we talked it through, he was like, ‘All right, let’s roll.’ That’s what kept me going last year. To see that out of him after that game, and to see how my season ended up after giving up that sack to A&M, I’m very excited to see how he responds. There’s a lot of great things coming from him.”
THREE NOTES TO KEEP IN MIND
1. Since 2008, Alabama has suffered 22 losses, including 15 in the regular season. After the last 14 losses in the regular season, UA is 13-1. During that time, the Crimson Tide has not lost consecutive regular-season games at any point, with the lone back-to-back losses coming in the 2014 Sugar Bowl against Oklahoma following a loss at Auburn to close out the 2013 regular season. In matchups after a regular season loss, Alabama is outscoring the opposition 460-160 for an average of 32.9-11.4 points per game. The Tide has posted two shutouts in bounce-back games and has held the opposition to 10 points or less 10 times.
2. Saban owns an 85-35-1 (.707) mark in road games across his four career stops as a head coach, including a 57-12 (.826) mark while at Alabama. Saban has notched eight perfect road records with the Crimson Tide (2008, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2015, 2016, 2018 and 2020) and has dropped more than one road game in only three seasons (2007, 2010, 2022).
3. In the last three years as a play-caller, including his year at UCF, Alex Golesh’s offenses are averaging a nation’s-best 3.06 plays per minute as well as 1.53 points per minute, which ranks third in FBS during that span. Each of his years as an offensive coordinator has seen Golesh’s offenses finish in the top 10 in the FBS ranks in both scoring and total offense. This year, USF leads all teams that have played in two games with 176 offensive plays.
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