When the book on this season is written, whenever that might be, there is going to be a great deal of focus placed on the third week of the season, when Jalen Milroe was benched for Tyler Buchner and Ty Simpson in a humdrum 17-3 win over South Florida.
In a way, that game feels like the game that never happened. It is already so out of character with the other games on Alabama’s 2023 schedule that it’s almost like a different team entirely traveled to Tampa and played on a cloudy, soggy day before stumbling home with a modest victory.
But if Nick Saban’s goal that day was to truly do what has been suggested – give Jalen Milroe a chance to watch a game from the sideline, before reinstalling him as the starter the following week for a crucial home game against Ole Miss – which just happens to be sitting on the edge of the top 10 now with a single loss to Milroe-led Bama – then what took place in Tampa will be the ultimate confirmation of good scheduling.
If it was just a happy accident … well, Alabama will take that, too.
What Jalen Milroe did against LSU on Nov. 4 was completely unforeseen back on Sept. 9, when Milroe threw two critical and ugly interceptions in a loss to Texas. Never in a million years would most Alabama fans have even bet a dollar that Milroe would still be starting by this point, much less starting and making plays.
To put what happened Saturday in perspective, understand that Alabama – one of three or four teams along with Texas, Oklahoma and Nebraska that are credited with being the champions of wishbone football in the 1970s – had never had a quarterback run for four touchdowns in a game. Against LSU, in 2023, Jalen Milroe changed that.
Milroe ran 20 times for 155 yards and 4 touchdowns. He really ran 18 times for 167 yards, because two of those rushes were actually sacks that took 12 yards off his total. He also threw for 219 yards, recorded a QB rating of 96.3 – only barely beaten by LSU’s Jayden Daniels who scored a 97.6 despite being seemingly everywhere at once when LSU had the ball – and most importantly, didn’t commit a turnover, something Daniels couldn’t say at the end of the night.
And as it turned out, Alabama would need every bit of that production, because Daniels was everywhere, doing everything in his own power to keep LSU ahead and was clearly the best player on the field for the Tigers. Daniels technically has another season of eligibility but after his display Saturday night, one of Alabama’s NIL priorities might be paying an NFL team whatever it takes to draft him and get him out of the SEC.
The win granted Alabama revenge over both foes from 2022 that found a way to beat Bryce Young-led Alabama teams. Both wins came as the result of slamming the door on the Crimson Tide’s opponents in the second half. And both had a heaping helping of Jalen Milroe heroics as part of the recipe.
The loss to Texas might end up keeping Alabama out of the College Football Playoff eventually. That’s the risk you take playing a tough out-of-conference game in a system that rewards undefeated records, even if the teams that possess them really aren’t the best teams in the country. College football will ameliorate the issue when it expands to a 12-team playoff field, but for now, the system is what it is. Alabama can only keep winning and hope to get some help.
But even if that turns out to be Alabama’s ultimate fate in 2023, a few things were set in stone during this game: This is Jalen Milroe’s team, the change in defensive coordinators from Pete Golding to Kevin Steele was an upgrade, and if Alabama keeps playing like this, Nick Saban won’t want to think about retirement for many years to come, because Alabama will be terrorizing opponents and settling scores well into another decade.
Beating LSU in 2023 demanded exactly what Alabama brought to the table Saturday. Anything less would have been insufficient.
Here’s the Five-Point Breakdown for Alabama-LSU:
1. Milroe embraced the “running quarterback” moniker and Alabama’s offensive staff brought their imagination. We could beat this horse to death and back again, but Jalen Milroe had his best career game even though he threw no touchdown passes, and buying in fully to what Alabama can do with him as a runner makes this offense so much more dangerous. It appeared early on that Alabama might try to lob shots at LSU’s depleted secondary for the duration of the evening, but LSU was gamely winning as many of those battles as it was losing. Then Milroe started running the ball, and the scenery changed. Milroe’s first touchdown run, which saw him break a zone-read play off left tackle, caught LSU so flat-footed that he could have walked the last 10 or so yards to the end zone and probably still have made it. From that point forward, Milroe seemed to want to chew up more and more yardage on the ground, and LSU had little success stopping him. But it wasn’t all Milroe’s doing; offensive coordinator Tommy Rees called a gem of a game, and Alabama rolled out a host of new sets and plays that it hadn’t previously used. Among them, an offset two-back look with WR Kendrick Law lined up as a running back, a flexbone-type look with RB Jam Miller getting a big carry around right end for a first down, and a slight deviation on the popular “tush push” goal-line set, with Milroe having the option to dive at the corner rather than go straight up the middle. What’s more, is it that it never felt like Alabama was hitting the bottom of the playbook. It makes us wonder what’s next.
2. On Alabama’s offensive line: “Joyless Murderball” isn’t so joyless after all. Alabama’s offensive line played fantastically outside of the first series of the game. One of Jalen Milroe’s two sacks was purely a coverage sack on which Milroe should have thrown the ball away. The offensive line gave up only one other tackle for loss all night. But the most impressive stat line was Alabama’s ability to convert third downs over and over: The Crimson Tide finished the night 11-for-14 (78.6%) on third down conversions, a stat that is almost beyond belief, and Bama was forced to punt just once. The Crimson Tide put up 28 first downs, getting only 1 by penalty, and rolled up 288 rushing yards on 46 carries, an average of 6.3 yards per run. In addition to the 2 sacks, the Tide OL yielded just 2 other QB hurries. Special mention should go to RT J.C. Latham and RG Jaeden Roberts, who both appeared to take their games to another level of aggressiveness.
3. Jayden Daniels confounded the defensive scheme; DL reverted early before coming up big at the end. If TideFans.com were to get a vote for the Heisman Trophy (spoiler alert: we don’t), we would probably spend that vote on Jayden Daniels this year. He has electric speed and was more than accurate enough to lead LSU to an upset before getting knocked out of the game on a hit from LB Dallas Turner late in the game. Alabama had no answer for Daniels, and while Alabama would certainly have been in a good position to win the game even with Daniels still in it, there was clearly a difference in the LSU offense when Daniels was knocked out and Garrett Nussmeier had to come in to relieve him. Alabama tried just about everything in the first half – rush four with an even front, three with an odd front, spy him (although that didn’t happen as often as most thought it should have) – to no avail. Bama finally hit on the right plan in the second half: Rush five, keep Daniels from being able to find an exit lane, and hope the lack of a self-safety valve would speed up his clock, which it appeared to do. Bama did a good enough job with LSU’s running backs – a combined 13 carries for 43 yards (3.3 avg.) and 1 touchdown, a nice bounce-out play from Josh Williams after his initial path to the end zone had been stuffed. But Daniels accounted for 163 rushing yards and a touchdown of his own, was sacked just once and frankly, one of the two defensive plays of the night was the hit that knocked him out of the game. The other play was the tipped-ball interception, another play started by Dallas Turner and finished off this time by Terrion Arnold. LSU’s offensive line isn’t bad but it’s also not a veteran unit, especially not at the tackles, yet Alabama couldn’t figure out a way to work that to its advantage until late in the game and most specifically after Daniels was no longer in it. A mixed bag.
4. Injuries in the LB and DB groups could have caused even bigger issues than they did; credit the defensive staff with adjusting to the problem. The loss of S Jaylen Key to a quad injury was huge. Kristian Story came in to replace him, and it became clear immediately that LSU was going to be looking for Story on every route and challenging him. Story had, to be kind, a very rough evening. A missed tackle led directly to LSU’s game-tying touchdown at the end of the first half, and he took poor angles on several plays in space. For the second half, Alabama moved Terrion Arnold to Star and Malachi Moore took Key’s place as a deep safety, with Trey Amos taking over at Arnold’s corner spot. This will probably be the alignment Alabama plays against Kentucky unless Key has an uncommonly quick recovery. Story continued to play in dime packages the rest of the night, but Bama might take a look at Jake Pope or Earl Little this week in practice. At linebacker, Deontae Lawson appeared to hurt an ankle, and he reinjured it on the interception play. From that point forward, Jihaad Campbell and Trezmen Marshall played inside linebacker, but Marshall had a couple of plays he would have liked to have back. Kendrick Blackshire, who hasn’t played much in recent weeks following a strong start, could end up being the rotational linebacker against Kentucky. To put it succinctly, Bama needs Key and Lawson back ASAP.
5. A strong night from the RB group took the heat off Milroe. A lot of this is due to the offensive line’s contributions, but Alabama rotated three backs in this game and each made plays. Jase McClellan was steady, picked up a couple of first downs late in the game and had a big reception on what was probably Jalen Milroe’s best individual passing play of the night, then finished off the scoring with Bama’s last touchdown. Roydell Williams was never stopped, and probably should have gotten a few more carries; he ran with purpose and his game-tying touchdown in the third quarter was about the point in time that LSU’s defense started playing on its heels. Jamarion Miller had a nice blitz pickup, a long catch and run and looked powerful as a runner; getting him involved in more plays would be a welcome addition to the mix at this point in the season. Alabama needed a strong performance from its stable of backs to control the ball and the clock in this game. Consider it mission accomplished.
Follow Jess Nicholas on X at @TideFansJessN