BAMA UPDATE: First big test comes for Tide with Texas A&M

Alabama opened the 2020 season with a convincing win over Missouri. Next up - the Aggies of Texas A&M this Saturday at Bryant-Denny Stadium. (Photos courtesy Unv. Alabama Media Relations)

By TIM GAYLE

In a season that will have few “off” weeks, Alabama will face one of its biggest early-season tests when Texas A&M comes to Bryant-Denny Stadium for the Crimson Tide’s 2020 home opener.

While the Aggies struggled at times to put away Vanderbilt, Saturday’s matchup features the top two rushers in the conference, Texas A&M’s Isaiah Spiller and Alabama’s Nagee Harris, and a battle between the league’s No. 1 rated total defense (Texas A&M) against the conference’s third-rated scoring offense (Alabama).

As an interesting side note, Alabama coach Nick Saban will put his 19-0 record on the line against former assistants when he faces Jimbo Fisher, Saban’s offensive coordinator when the pair was at LSU in the early 2000s. Both, as you would expect, had plenty of praise for their counterpart on Monday.

“Jimbo has done a really good job there,” Saban said. “They’ve got like 16 starters back from last year’s team, seven or eight on both sides of the ball. The offensive line has four out of five starters back, Spiller’s a good running back, they’ve got really good players. They’ve got seven or eight starters back on defense and their defense was ranked last year, played very well last week against Vanderbilt in only giving up 12 points. So this is going to be a much more challenging game for us.”

Texas A&M is a 16.5-point underdog to the Tide. The game will be televised by CBS with kickoff at 2:39 p.m.

“They’ve established a culture of winning and playing great football,” Fisher said. “They’ve established that over a long period of time. That’s the first thing, they understand how to win. They’re very sound, they’re multiple schemed – very sophisticated, very complex in all their things on offense and defense. Of course, they have weapons all over the field. They know how to use them … and have created great competition within their team, with their team depth, to get on the field.”

Alabama improved to 14-0 in season openers under Saban with its first true road opener since losing to UCLA in the Rose Bowl in 2000. The Tide jumped out of the gate fast but cooled off after halftime, struggling through a less-than-impressive second half at Faurot Field.

“I don’t think we really played with the same energy and enthusiasm in the second half and I think it showed in our performance,” Saban said. “We tried to give some other players some opportunity to play and it was probably a learning experience for them to understand … the mindset you have to have to come off the bench.

“But you’ve got to give Missouri (credit). I mean, these guys have a good front seven. They’re really physical, they really play hard, they play an eight-man front almost all of the time, every snap. So they’re not easy to run against. But I thought the running game was solid for the first half, not as good as it needs to be in the second half.”

The Tide’s rushing game, expected to be a strength this season, meshed well early with the big-play potential of receivers DeVonta Smith and Jaylen Waddle, but stalled after halftime. The defense, hoping to return to its standard with the return of inside linebacker Dylan Moses, was equally impressive in the first half before fading later in the game. Safety Daniel Wright had a career-high 11 tackles in his first start, but missed multiple tackles as well. 

“There was a lot of formation adjustments and multiples that we had to adjust to in the game and we made some mental errors, some were costly,” Saban said of his defense. “But I think the guys played hard, they played with a lot of toughness.”

Much of the focus in Monday’s press conference was on Waddle and quarterback Mac Jones, who teamed up for eight completions and a pair of touchdowns. 

With Jerry Jeudy, Henry Ruggs and Smith entrenched as starters, much of Waddle’s work in the past was as a slot receiver, Saban noted, in explaining how Waddle’s expanded role following the departure of Jeudy and Ruggs to the NFL could create more opportunities for the talented receiver.

“We can move him around,” Saban said. “Before, he was mostly a slot guy but now he can make plays anywhere on the field and I think that’s very helpful. You expect people to try and double (team) guys like him, so when you can move him around it makes it a little more difficult for the defense.”

Trying to contain Waddle will be just one of the issues facing Fisher and the Aggies, who have watched Alabama reel off seven consecutive wins in the series with big plays on both sides of the ball. 

“You can’t give them anything,” Fisher said. “You’ve got to make them earn everything. I’ll say this, turnovers and big plays affect the game more than anything, then third-down conversions and your red-zone opportunities. We’ve got to take care of the ball on offense, not give them those opportunities. You’ve got to create explosive plays and stop them, but your battle is up front in the trenches because Alabama, on the offensive and defensive lines, is both very physical and very big, as well as very experienced.” 

Alabama has won 18 consecutive home openers at Bryant-Denny Stadium and is 13-0 under Saban in that scenario. A win over the 13th-ranked Aggies on Saturday would give Saban 85 wins over Top 25 competition, one behind Joe Paterno’s NCAA-record 86.

Of course, one factor in the home-field advantage is the crowd, which will be limited to less than 20,000 by COVID-19 regulations imposed by the conference and the state. Saban told his players they will have to create their own energy and motivation on Saturday.

“I have to admit (last week’s game) was different,” Saban said. “But at the same time, I thought we competed really hard. Guys played with a lot of toughness, we controlled the line of scrimmage, we’re flying around on defense. So the fact that there were no fans there really didn’t have any impact on that. But then we didn’t play with the same level of intensity in the second half and there were the same amount of fans and the same amount of noise. 

“I talked a little bit about this last week: what is your DNA as a competitor? Because you can’t really count on external factors like the crowd and the noise and the band. I’m sure we’ll have the best atmosphere that we can have relative to the number of people that we have in Bryant-Denny Stadium but at the same time I don’t think the players can count on that. I think it’s got to come from their DNA of who they are and how they choose to compete.”