As bad as Alabama looked against Florida State, it looked just as good or better against the Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks Saturday night in Tuscaloosa.
The key now is to figure out which extreme this Alabama team is closer to – the pretender it looked like against the Seminoles, or the well-oiled execution machine it was against the Warhawks.
Alabama nearly set a school scoring record in beating ULM by a score of 73-0, and recorded the biggest blowout win in half a century. Alabama was forced to kick a field goal on one possession; otherwise, it scored a touchdown every other time it had the football. No punts, no turnovers. It’s about as good as a team can do with modern clock rules.
For those who were looking for Alabama to get up off the mat after the thorough beating it took in Tallahassee, this is how you answer the bell. Sure, the Warhawks are the Warhawks, but it doesn’t mean that the execution didn’t matter, or especially the way the team competed, even if it was just mostly against itself and its own demons.
As humorous as it might be to suggest such, Louisiana-Monroe may have been taking Alabama a bit lightly coming into the game. Not that the Warhawks fancied themselves favorites, but an upset was probably on the table – in their minds – after watching Alabama slog through a mess of a game against Florida State. But if there were any Warhawks still entertaining that idea after kickoff, a 21-point first quarter ended those hopes, and another 21-point quarter that came right after it very nearly put ULM in the position of asking the band if it wanted to trade places in the second half, as it couldn’t have hurt either group any worse – except ULM brought no musicians to witness this slaughter.
The focus on the Alabama side wasn’t just whether the Crimson Tide could win (check), or win comfortably (check), or get off to a fast start and bury the opponent’s will to fight (check). It also had to do with more nuanced issues like would the players maintain the same level of engagement and competitiveness (check), could the coaching staff look more composed and show more decisiveness in their calls (check), and would the energy level stay pegged despite the margin on the scoreboard (check). In other words, Alabama hit all its marks.
Kalen DeBoer mentioned in postgame comments that the team is well aware that it made things harder on themselves with the opening-week loss, especially if Alabama intends to make the College Football Playoff. Bama burned its mulligan early. But if the performance it put on tape against ULM can be repeated weekly, we’re back to where we were a month ago, wondering whether Alabama is at or near the top of the conference heap.
After two games, Texas appears to have significant issues with its offense. Georgia is a good defensive team, but we’re not sure about the Bulldogs’ explosiveness. Tennessee’s defense still has some ground to make up, and teams like Ole Miss and Oklahoma can look good for stretches but are also prone to skidding sideways a bit. And then there’s LSU, which opened with a quality road win against Clemson, but let Louisiana Tech stay in the game way too long Saturday night. Where does Alabama fit in?
We don’t know, and we won’t know until at least this upcoming Saturday, when Alabama hosts a decent – not great, but decent – Wisconsin team with revenge on its mind. An Alabama win wouldn’t necessarily be a signal that the Tide is back in the hunt, but it would certainly be a positive step back toward contention. Even with a victory over Wisconsin, Alabama’s road woes under DeBoer have been well-documented, and nothing will have changed heading into a difficult road assignment at Georgia the following week.
It’s all one step at a time from here on out. But regardless of the state of the Warhawk program, Saturday’s dismantling of ULM marked important progress in the right direction.
Here’s the Five-Point Breakdown for Alabama-ULM:
1. Energy matters. And Alabama looked like the power company. There’s no question that the stinging comments from fans and media members alike in the wake of the Florida State loss were heard. Alabama looked restless and eager from the start of warmups and then carried it over into the game. The fact that Alabama was able to keep the energy level at a peak even after halftime, when it would have been easy to sit on what was at the time a 42-0 lead, speaks volumes about the job the coaches did getting the mindset in a good place.
We’ve seen Alabama teams play mad before, and we’ve seen them play as if they had a mission to fulfill. This one evoked memories of the 2020 season, when each successive week seemed like just another chance to set a scoring record, and Alabama’s low output of the year was still 31 points – in a playoff game, no less. Against ULM, Alabama was aggressive without being out of control, which addressed another complaint about DeBoer-led games up to this point, where penalty counts have had a tendency to get out of hand.
Alabama was flagged only 5 times, with two of those borderline call at best, and the only flag that could have even remotely been called the result of a sloppy play was a targeting call on Dre Kirkpatrick Jr. Combine this development with the fact that Alabama scored on every possession, and this was probably the cleanest game, front-to-back, of DeBoer’s young tenure here.
2. DL set the tone early and covered for multiple personnel losses, but pass rush is still an issue. Alabama recorded a total of 12 tackles for loss in the game, and DT James Smith set the tone early, blowing up the ULM line on the game’s first snaps. Smith accounted for 3 tackles for loss on his own and was so disruptive that ULM had to work away from him almost immediately.
Without Tim Keenan and Jeremiah Beaman inside – and without Jah-Marien Latham at Bandit end, a late scratch that was probably the result of a leg injury he sustained in the Florida State loss – the Crimson Tide was put in a position of having just one true big man (Smith) with experience available, yet the Tide made it work.
True freshman London Simmons started next to Smith, and for the most part handled the assignment well, but Alabama ended up getting the most production out of uncommon looks. Alabama ran a lot of 3-man front with a single tackle and two bigger ends (L.T. Overton, Jordan Renaud), and sometimes drifted into a 3-3 front stack with Qua Russaw sometimes working inside. Louisiana-Monroe clearly hadn’t seen enough of any of it on tape to have a plan to combat it. Alabama also got a strong debut from Steve Mboumoua, who was a bit out of control at times but clearly has the frame and the motor to contribute inside.
If there’s a negative to any of this, it’s that Alabama again finished without a sack, although it did apply pressure at times, including on Justin Jefferson’s interception, courtesy of Yhonzae Pierre, who has flashed two weeks in a row. Keenan is due back in time for Georgia, but some reports have him being available for limited snaps next week. His availability for Georgia will be a key factor in that game, and may free up Smith to work with Overton and start bringing home some semblance of inside pressure.
3. Kevin Riley has emerged as a weapon in the backfield. Riley was the only running back to really flash against Florida State, and he took another step forward in his development this week. For a back who is small enough to recall the days of Shaud Williams, Riley’s quick feet and explosiveness in the hole has been a welcome addition to a running back group that has been otherwise unable to create its own working space – not to mention that he runs tougher than his size.
Richard Young was somewhat effective in short yardage but once again had trouble making a larger impact. Daniel Hill and Dre’lyn Washington put up modestly better numbers than a week ago, but their impact largely came after the game was in hand. Akylin Dear had a great touchdown run to close the scoring, but he was also working against the Warhawks well after they had thrown in the towel. Riley makes for a nice changeup from Jamarion Miller, who will almost surely start when he’s ready to play, likely against Georgia. But this is two solid outings in a row for the redshirt freshman, and given Alabama’s struggle at running back in each of the last two seasons, the Tide will take its victories where it can find them.
4. The presence of Lotzeir Brooks at slot seemed to stabilize the receiver corps. Can Ryan Williams find a better role? When Alabama added the tall Isaiah Horton from Miami to its receiver group, the immediate question became who would play in the slot? Germie Bernard had played that role for DeBoer at Washington, but Bernard has developed his game well beyond the point where he needs to be stuck in the slot on a regular basis.
The early thought process was that the lightning-quick Ryan Williams would do well playing out of that spot, at least in a rotational setup, but Williams has begun to fight drops during contact, his slim frame proving to be a less-than-stellar fit for the slot spot. With Williams out in concussion protocol, Alabama started true freshman Lotzeir Brooks there against Louisiana-Monroe and the move paid dividends immediately. Brooks plays bigger than his size, and his ability to make an impact both as an inside receiver and out on the perimeter gives Alabama some much-needed flexibility. Williams will almost certainly be back for Wisconsin, but Brooks shouldn’t lose that much playing time. If anything, he’ll draw snaps from Rico Scott – who himself has turned in solid work so far in 2025 – Jalen Hale and Derek Meadows.
The return of Cole Adams to a full slate of duties was another welcome sign in this game. And we’d be remiss if we didn’t at least throw some congratulations in the direction of fifth-year walk-on WR M.J. Chirgwin, who caught a touchdown pass in this game from QB Keelon Russell on a nice route-throw-catch combination and ignited a bench celebration for the ages. Chirgwin may not see the field again until Eastern Illinois, but he etched his name in the Tide history books forever with that catch.
5. If there is still room to improve – and there is – then it starts on the OL. The problem with a win like the one over ULM is that it creates the opposite problem for us from the one we faced last week: Too many good things to write about after this game; too many complaints to fit in a five-point analysis last week. So we will have to gloss over most of the contributions of QB Ty Simpson – who continues to look more and more like Jake Coker every week – and instead talk about the guys charged with keeping his jersey clean.
First, the good: The return of RG Jaeden Roberts paid immediate dividends, as Roberts’ presence improved the running game immediately. But Alabama continues to have issues at both tackle spots, where pressure seems to come too easily. True freshman Michael Carroll came in early for Wilkin Formby at right tackle and played solidly, making a nice pairing with Roberts at guard and cleaning up the protection on that side somewhat. We profiled ULM’s defensive line as perhaps being ahead of Alabama’s in our game preview, but the Bama offensive line seemed to nullify that analysis as the game went on. Still, we need to see more continuity across the board.
The running game took a bit to get started, and speed rushers remain an issue for Formby. We expect Roberts to take his starting job back next week and allow Geno VanDeMark to rotate in at both guard slots and keep them fresh. And we wouldn’t be surprised to see a change at right tackle, either. It was the only blip on the screen tonight in an otherwise solid team outing.
Follow Jess Nicholas on X at @TideFansJessN