A point of discussion any time there’s a coaching change is how long will the honeymoon with the new coach actually last.
For Kalen DeBoer, it probably ended at 6:48 p.m., Oct. 5, 2024.
That was the point in time that Vanderbilt’s Diego Pavia picked up a first down against a Bama defense fully committed to stopping simple runs. The problem was that Bama was no more capable of stopping Pavia at that moment than they had been at any point in the game prior to that.
A week after beating Georgia in one of the most stupefying wins in recent college football history, Alabama proved incapable of keeping momentum even through a trip to Nashville, which is essentially a home away from home for the Crimson Tide program. All the goodwill, all the excitement over Ryan Williams and Jalen Milroe and an offense that – even against Vanderbilt in a loss – looked pretty unstoppable … all of it is gone.
Vanderbilt wins over Bama happen about once every 30 years. The last time Vanderbilt beat a good Crimson Tide team was back in Paul Bryant era, and how good the 1969 Alabama team actually is debatable. There’s a reason for this: Vanderbilt is outclassed athletically every time it takes the field against another SEC program. There’s no way this Commodore team stacks up in any way against Bama, but it didn’t matter.
What was so frustrating to watch in this game was the lack of discipline and an apparent lack of preparation, especially on the defensive side of the ball. It’s one thing to let a future NFL quarterback like Georgia’s Carson Beck engineer a second-half comeback against a Bama defense in schematic transition. It’s quite another to watch Diego Pavia, who by all rights has no future in the sport outside of perhaps whatever the USFL is going to call itself next, carving up the Alabama defensive front as a runner and throwing into open windows.
Pavia’s substandard arm strength was on display every time he needed to throw deep. The thing is – he didn’t need to. Vanderbilt whipped Bama up front the entire game, even though the Commodores’ per-carry average of 3.2 yards didn’t show it. Alabama couldn’t get a stop when it needed to, and Vanderbilt set up action to the tight end in the passing game over and over again. It looked like Alabama’s defense didn’t practice this week, or at least didn’t practice for Vanderbilt.
The whys of the loss will be covered in the breakdown below, but first it’s time to address what this loss means for the rest of Alabama’s season: Alabama must now win out, period. That includes road games in Knoxville, Baton Rouge and Norman. A second loss anywhere probably knocks Alabama out of all playoff scenarios.
The other thing to look at going forward is discipline, which has appeared lacking at times in 2024. The snafu on a punt return today, the large number of overall penalties (some of which are to be expected due to the scheme changes), the unsportsmanlike conduct foul at the end of the first half last week against Georgia – it’s a substantial list. Explosiveness shouldn’t be a synonym for instability, but that’s what it has felt like at times watching this team emerge from behind the sometimes ruthless degree of control that the program operated under for the past 17 years.
The one clear thing here is that the coming weeks in Tuscaloosa won’t be as fun as the weeks that preceded this one. Fans will forgive a lot, even a loss to Vanderbilt every Halley’s Comet cycle or so, but the pressure just went up. And in the near term, it’s going to land not just on the new coach, but on the backs of a defense that got dominated by an inferior opponent. A loss is one thing; a lack of composure, comportment and the will to step up – those make up something else entirely.
Here’s the Five-Point Breakdown for Alabama-Vanderbilt:
1. Two turnovers ultimately flipped the scoreboard, but the real damage was in lack of opportunities to overcome them. Jalen Milroe’s interception came off a deflection while trying to feed Ryan Williams, so even though the window was tight, that’s not an interception you plan to see very often. The second turnover, which happened at the worst possible time for Alabama, came when RT Elijah Pritchett lost his footing setting up to pass protect and left the Vandy JLB with a clear shot on Milroe as he turned away from the rush and was looking backside. Alabama just wasn’t getting enough possessions at that point to cover up either mistake. Whether you fault Milroe for either or both of those turnovers is not the real issue; the real issue is the defense couldn’t get off the field and give the Bama offense another try.
For the most part, Alabama only stopped itself. Two drives ended in turnovers and another on a third-down penalty on a play Milroe probably had the first down had he continued to scramble, but chose to throw while over the line of scrimmage. If you’re looking for positives, even in a game where Alabama didn’t have Kendrick Law and then lost Kobe Prentice to what was likely concussion protocol during the game, Vanderbilt’s secondary couldn’t deal with Bama’s emerging WR unit, and neither could Georgia’s defensive backfield the week before. That’s important going forward, especially if the Bama defense can’t figure out how to get more stops.
2. The duplicate number penalty was a killer, and completely unnecessary. Alabama had CB Zabien Brown and WR Ryan Williams on the field together for a punt return, both wearing jersey #2, which makes it an illegal play. Let’s talk about all the reasons this one should never have happened: The punt was what we call a plus-field punt, meaning Vanderbilt was over or near the 50 and there wasn’t going to be a return; modern punters have started hitting pitching wedges in those scenarios to force a fair catch. So there was no reason for Williams to be out there over Cole Adams, who was also used there on Saturday.
The bigger issue is the modern duplicate number quandary in the first place. For whatever reason, low numbers have become something akin to pirate’s treasure for players, who wouldn’t be caught dead wearing, say, #46. It’s even become a topic of recruiting negotiations over the years. Zabien Brown started off the spring wearing #15 before changing to #2, and if you’re going to do that, you have to commit to either keeping him or Williams off special teams.
Duplicate numbers used to be reserved for walk-ons dressing out at homecoming, but it’s turned into a minor epidemic. Either it’s time to change Brown’s number again (although not back to #15 – LB Justin Jefferson grabbed that one as soon as it came open) or the special teams coaches have to be more aware, or Williams and Brown themselves have to manage the situation.
None of it would matter if the vanity of a single-digit jersey number either didn’t exist, or was managed at the staff level. So what happened after this penalty? Vanderbilt scored a touchdown to go up 20-7 and the game was never the same afterward.
3. Vandy OL/Bama DL cross-matchup is going to look like a Bama win on paper, but it wasn’t. Alabama held Vanderbilt RB Sedrick Alexander to 64 yards on 21 carries, a 3.0-yard average. It held QB Diego Pavia to 56 yards on 20 carries, a 2.8-yard average. You won’t find anyone who thinks Alabama won that particular trench battle, however. Vanderbilt was 12-of-18 on third downs, beat Alabama in total yardage and had a huge advantage in total plays.
The Commodore offensive line also allowed the Commodores to extend drives, especially in the first half, and while time of possession has largely become irrelevant in the modern game, Vandy’s throwback option offense had it 42:08 to 17:52 for Alabama and in this game, it mattered. Alabama did manage to adjust a bit at the half to get better contain on the edges of the formation, but then gave up the middle to tunnel action to the tight end. Bama got barely enough pressure, if that, on the quarterback on a day it couldn’t afford to send the house due to all the responsibilities of defending the full offensive system.
This is the second week in a row where middle pressure from the interior front just didn’t exist. If you’re looking for guys who won a lot of matchups today, Wolf LB Quandarrius Robinson and DT James Smith showed up, but this was far from the best week ever for Alabama’s ILBs and interior linemen outside of Smith. Vandy’s OL knew its limitations and worked within them.
4. The inability to stop the passing game to TE Eli Stowers was sort of the final nail in the D’s coffin. Stowers caught 6 passes for 113 yards but it felt more like 20 catches for a thousand. This was TE route design straight out of Hugh Freeze’s old Ole Miss playbook, and even when Alabama did get the coverage to Stowers in time, it couldn’t make tackles. Twice Stowers dove forward of the sticks, one time a nearly three-yard dive with Rydarrius Morgan hanging on his back. The shovel pass plays, which we bet show up in the playbooks of a lot of offensive coordinators going forward, were killers against what at times appeared live to be undisciplined gap coverage from the middle of the Bama defense.
If Alabama had even just eliminated the Stowers threat and left everything else in place, Pavia didn’t have the strength or the touch to beat Alabama downfield reliably. The long TD pass to Junior Sherrill was set up by the playcall on 4th-and-1, and Pavia still nearly threw it out the window. Again, a lack of adjustment to the imminent threat here was frustrating to see.
5. Defensively, Vandy didn’t stop much, but it did take away Bama’s QB run game. Milroe did score a touchdown on a designed QB sweep, but for the day he put up only 10 total yards on 7 carries. Alabama’s running game as a whole suffered. Jam Miller had a solid day, but Justice Haynes was held to a 3.8-yard average on 6 carries. Granted, Alabama didn’t get enough snaps to really build into a complete running game, and essentially spent the whole fourth quarter in hurry-up mode, but Alabama was looking at second- and third-down plays of 7 or 8 yards-to-go far too often. Alabama has shown the ability to score at will in all five of its games so far and has explosiveness to burn, but the running game has been troubled for two weeks in a row (the backs last week, the QB this week), and this bears watching.
Follow Jess Nicholas on X at @TideFansJessN