After the 26-10 loss to Tennessee, Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer spoke to the media about his team’s lack of success offensively.
The Crimson Tide only scored 10 points and barely exceeded 200 yards of total offense. Alabama finished 147 passing yards and 54 rushing yards.
DeBoer attributed these struggles to penalties, the lack of a run game and more.
“Some penalties,” DeBoer said first. “And again, when you come up short or there’s a couple times we punted and we are inside a few yards, so those 5-yard penalties matter. Again, we went for it a couple of times too. Those are the pieces to it. They got a pass rush. When you get in down and distances that become pass situations, they can pin their eyes back. They got to Keelon early and kept us from being able to get really anything going. We say stay on the field, but to get anything going, that just kind of wears on you. I don’t care who you are as a quarterback. We got to get back and find ways to get some run game going. That always opens up our play action. I don’t think that part of our game was really existence, both the run and the play action. So, that’s a lot of what we do, and it’s tough to move the ball when you don’t have the run game and you don’t have the ability for explosive plays or you miss the opportunity with some explosive plays.”
The Crimson Tide’s offense picked up seven penalties for 38 yards. Five of those penalties were penalties that came before the snap. The operational piece of Alabama’s offense was awful at times, and the intentional grounding and perhaps the delay of games were the fault of quarterback Keelon Russell.
Russell turned the ball over three times and only threw for 147 yards. He ran 11 times for net 6 yards and a touchdown. This was the only touchdown of the game for Alabama.
The Crimson Tide started the season averaging 40 or more points in each of their games, and that mark has not looked remotely achievable over the last few weeks based on the way Alabama’s offense is playing.
Alabama will look to bounce back next Saturday when Texas A&M comes to Tuscaloosa.
