Nick Saban has finally won in every SEC stadium.
All he had to do was beat South Carolina yesterday, and his team did just that.
Alabama quarterback Tua Tagovailoa had a career night throwing for 444 yards and five touchdowns.
Here are my biggest takeaways from yesterdays 47-23 loss at Williams-Brice:
South Carolina’s secondary needs some serious work
This is a little upsetting because Muschamp is supposed to be working on the defense, but it’s like the secondary just wasn’t prepared for Alabama’s receivers.
It was ridiculous to let Najee Harris run all over the defense on a fourth down and score a touchdown.
Alabama does have very talented receivers, but the secondary should’ve played much better because they let Tua throw for the most yards in a game in his career.
If they don’t find a way to fix the secondary and make tackles, teams like Georgia and Clemson are going to tear this defense apart.
On the bright side, the rush defense held Alabama to only 76 yards.
The red zone offense NEEDS to improve
South Carolina put up 459 yards of offense on the Crimson Tide, but they could only score 23 points.
The Gamecocks had a lot of drives where they had a chance to score, but they couldn’t get in the end zone.
A couple plays were ruined by penalties, which were controversial, but some were just poor execution.
The last drive in the second quarter was a 77 yard drive that resulted in no points for the Gamecocks.
I know it was Hilinski’s second career game, but that’s something they need to improve on if they’re going to beat tougher teams.
The lack of a run game is concerning
Ryan Hilinski played a hell of a game.
He finished with a 63 percent completion percentage, 324 yards, two touchdowns and one interception. That’s a great stat line for a true freshman in his second career game against a top three team.
The issue I have is that he threw 57 passes while Rico Dowdle only had 12 carries.
I’ve never had much confidence in Dowdle, but after this game I think he’s better than any running back on this roster.
Dowdle finished with 102 rushing yards and 21 receiving yards. Why didn’t South Carolina use him on the one yard line at the end of the second quarter?
All I know is, Dowdle is averaging 7.6 yards per carry this year, and the Gamecocks need to run the ball more.
Conclusion
This was a fun game to watch despite some unfortunate calls and bad plays on defense.
However, this team has a lot of promise with Hilinski under center.
It feels like this team is just a few fixes away from being an eight or nine win team.
This year will be tough to win even six games, but the future is bright for this team.
Nice assessment. However, THIS team only has a couple of seasons to get its act together before it turns the page and starts anew. THIS team has talent and I honestly believe they possess the desire and ability to garnish wins against Georgia, Florida, and Clemson, but can Muschamp rally them to victories? The answer lies in next week’s matchup against Missouri – if Carolina loses it will definitely be the pivotal point for us to truly begin calling for Muschamp’s replacement.
With the raw talent, energy, and desire to win that this team possesses they deserve someone who can lead them there and thus Fatz Muschamp has done a good job proving that he is NOT the one who can do it.
I think the running game is fine. I dont understand why we didnt use big boy kevin harris at the 1 before the half. We shoud have called timeout and put our big package in and punched it right up the gut. O line is night and day since the UNC game Hillinski was upright through most of the game besides the strip fumble from behind and one sack that i remember. Overall not bad against a top 10 defense loaded with NFL draft picks. I think we beat everybody but Georgia and Clemson. From what ive seen watching Clemsuck if we can get our secondary coverage respectable we can beat them! For the love of god bench Jam Williams he has been a liability since he came here. Even if he is in the right position which he rarely is, his size gets him beat.