Not every cake is going to be the best cake you ever ate; not every song will have the most memorable melody, and not every date in high school is with the prom princess.
Over the course of a full season, successful college football teams certainly have to win, but sometimes that’s not enough. Sometimes they have to win ugly. And Alabama did just that against LSU, 20-9.
It seems a bit overlooked even this soon after the game’s conclusion, but Alabama covered the betting line, didn’t let the LSU offense reach the end zone, caused the benching of one-time Heisman Trophy favorite and starting QB Garrett Nussmeier, and won its eighth straight game of the 2025 season in the process. So why does it feel like Alabama just got finished swimming through a clogged sewer pipe?
Offensively, the problems Alabama has suffered from all season – and especially over the last month or so – came flying in the Crimson Tide’s faces from all directions and with a vengeance. Alabama ran the ball for only 56 yards on 26 carries, an average of 2.2 yards per try. Ty Simpson had problems connecting with receivers on vertical routes. The offensive line couldn’t keep Simpson’s jersey clean, yielding pressures roughly every third passing attempt.
And yet, Alabama won.
LSU helped Alabama a lot in that regard. Frank Wilson may have been the guy to unite the locker room after Brian Kelly’s dismissal, but he wasn’t the guy to go to for ideas on how to fix his own team’s running game (LSU finished with 59 yards on 22 carries, mimicking Alabama’s totals), nor did the decision to bench Nussmeier in favor of Mississippi State transfer Michael Van Buren appear to be the correct one in retrospect. LSU was also flagged 10 times for 74 yards while Alabama was hit just twice for 25 yards.
LSU was determined to show more effort, more fire, more toughness. And it probably did those things … but it also failed to show enough consistency, discipline or belief in itself to really make a difference. If anything, the more earnest approach to the game felt a bit pitiable, because LSU didn’t appear to know how to get out of its own way, and Wilson’s decision to bench Nussmeier despite being 18-of-21 at the time with no interceptions smelled a bit of desperation.
That’s a good thing, too, because what it says about Alabama is the Crimson Tide has become a team that can be counted upon to get reliable stops against opposing offenses and find ways to turn the game in its favor when the most obvious paths are blocked. No, this isn’t how every week is supposed to look … but what if it does? The survive-and-advance mantra doesn’t care about style points, it just cares about the scoreboard.
To that end, Alabama won where it counts, and by a margin large enough to demonstrate just how far the defense has come along in two-and-a-half months. Alabama has reached the level where it’s not so much about how the Tide will match up with its future opponents, but how its future opponents match up to Alabama,
It goes to show in the end, even if your date isn’t the most attractive, you can enjoy the party as long as you know how to dance. And Alabama is still dancing.
Here’s the Five-Point Breakdown for Alabama-LSU:
1. Defense’s red zone stinginess makes Ebenezer Scrooge jealous. You can slice and dice this game any of a hundred ways, but consider that LSU went into the red zone four times and came away with nine points. That is elite defense by any measure. Sure, there are things to clean up. Alabama allowed five third-down conversions – one more than Alabama’s total, and LSU had a better success percentage than the Tide – but Bama’s defense puts a premium on getting stops, not choking out raw yardage-gained numbers, and getting stops is exactly what they did. LSU only gently threatened the end zone and it never felt like the Tigers could get into a rhythm no matter where on the field they were at the time. Alabama’s defensive line, as projected, won its battle against the LSU offensive line and it wasn’t a particularly close call in the end. Bama simply bent LSU to its will, and the process used looks to be fairly repeatable down the stretch.
2. Inside linebackers continue to improve each week and are now playing at a level we thought they would in the preseason. All three main ILBs did solid work against the Tigers. Deontae Lawson was Bama’s leading tackler for the game, credited with 9 stops total, one of them a shared tackle for loss. Nikhai Hill-Green once again found himself around the ball at a critical time as he caused and recovered a fumble from LSU’s TE Bauer Sharp. Justin Jefferson used his speed to plug holes all night in the Tide front, taking good pursuit angles and redirect running plays. We’ve been highly critical of this unit over the course of the season on weeks when it failed to live up to expectations; there are no such concerns following this week.
3. OL was a mixed bag and didn’t perform as hoped against LSU DL. Alabama was predicted to win both cross-matchups but the offensive line allowed a very average-at-best defensive line to find consistent success. Alabama struggled heavily in the run game, especially in the middle and end portions of the game, and Simpson had to deal with unrelenting pressure under center. The major problem here is that Alabama will see much better lines against both Oklahoma and Auburn and it’s obvious by now that Alabama is having to play around the issue, not being able to fix it on the fly. The amount of pressure once again affected QB Ty Simpson even on throws where there was no immediate pressure to be dealt with — something that happens when quarterbacks grow rabbit ears after being hit too many times.
4. Grubb fell in love with long-developing downfield throws despite issues with pressure. Rather than lean into its short- and intermediate-range passing concepts, Alabama tried to hit too many downfield throws. Simpson spent the night living in the five-step drop zone, taking seven steps on a couple of occasions. The gameplan seemed to be heavily tied to how well Simpson could stretch the coverage vertically, but in reality, Alabama didn’t need nearly as much of those concepts in the weekly plan as it might have thought. Alabama seemed slow to catch on, though, and the combination of nervous footwork on Simpson’s part and the inability of Bama receivers to either catch the ball consistently or get separation from defensive backs nearly made this game a lot closer than it should have been. This was Seattle Seahawks-era Grubb at his worst.
5. Blake Doud’s punts, especially the one downed at the LSU 2-yard line, were huge. The downed punt in question, which came courtesy of Doud and gunner Jaylen Mbakwe, pinned LSU on its second-to-last drive and took the wind completely out of the Tigers’ sails. The Tigers netted 1 yard on the three subsequent plays and punted back to Alabama, which then drive for the game’s final field goal. All three of Doud’s punts Saturday night were downed inside the LSU 20-yard line. It’s the little things like that that can carry a game when all manner of major things are threatening to go sideways.
Follow Jess Nicholas on X at @TideFansJessN