Greg McElroy explains why Alabama doesn’t need to panic

Alabama has had two shaky weeks in a row, first losing to Vanderbilt 40-35 and then surviving a 27-25 scare from South Carolina.

But at least one ESPN analyst is going against the grain and not buying the panic around the Alabama program. Former Alabama quarterback Greg McElroy, now with ESPN, explained why following the South Carolina game.

“Let me just tell ya: I didn’t come away from that thinking that ‘Bama has some serious ineptitudes,” McElroy said. “I think ‘Bama came out of that one — I feel better if I’m a ‘Bama fan today. I really do. Because I look at a few different things here.”

The first thing McElroy pointed to was the team’s defense.

After giving up 418 total yards to Vanderbilt, Alabama cut that figure down to 374 yards against South Carolina. And a good chunk of that yardage surrendered occurred on a few broken plays.

“I thought the defensive line had LaNorris Sellers constantly feeling harassed,” McElroy said. “They were able to hit him a bunch of times. They were able to get some free runners. I thought the secondary played pretty well, to be honest with you. I thought the secondary did a lot of good things. I thought they tackled in space, there were a couple underneath throws where they rallied up and made tackles on long yardage situations where if they missed a tackle a guy could be out the game. I thought Alabama’s defense played better. I think the linebackers, there’s still some room for growth. Still seems like those guys are just a little hesitant to take off.”

But all in all, it was a much better performance for the Crimson Tide defensively. There were a few key mistakes, but nothing out of the ordinary.

“They gave up a fourth-and-9 touchdown on a perfect playcall,” McElroy said. “Tons of credit to Dowell Loggains for making that incredible call. It was a perfect throw, perfect execution touchdown. They gave up one drive in the game, really, just one. On the first drive of the second half. And they gave up another Hail Mary type situation there at the end of the game. I think the defense was fine.”

So what led to the game being so close? Well, mistakes on the other side of the football proved costly. That’s an area Alabama had been mostly immune earlier in the season.

“The thing is the offense didn’t play very smart football at times,” McElroy said. “You have a safety where you roll into your own end zone. But hey, that’s a fixable mistake. It’s a fixable and correctable mistake. You have an interception thrown right before halftime, just trying to do too much. Trying to be aggressive, but trying to be too aggressive and it cost you. Then you catch it on third down and 10, you go down. That’s a teachable moment.”

Bottom line: McElroy isn’t ready to hit the panic button.

“So everybody that’s panicking about Alabama, like I think Alabama showed progress from the Vanderbilt game to the South Carolina game,” he said. “Now it’s about the details. It’s about fixing the details and making better situational decisions. That’s it. And those, to me, are, if you have physical problems, that’s one thing. Physical problems can’t get fixed overnight, but mental mistakes can get fixed in a walk-through or a film session. So I’m not panicking if I’m Alabama.”

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