TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Alabama’s slow starts continued against Florida State on Saturday. But so did its strong finishes in the second half.
The Crimson Tide, as it had the previous week at Kentucky, found itself in a first-half hole against the unranked Seminoles. The defense was leaky. The offense wasn’t quite clicking, going three-and-out on its first two possessions.
Then it clicked. First-year starting quarterback Keelon Russell found a rhythm and the running game came alive as No. 10-ranked Alabama scored on nine straight possessions to win 50-36. But after thanking the fans for sticking around through two lightning delays, coach Kalen DeBoer’s tone changed.
“We obviously got to start faster,” he said. “Two games in a row now where we find ourselves behind. Probably different scenarios on how that happened, but nonetheless we got to do a better job of coming out of the gates.”
DeBoer harped on the little mistakes — missed assignments and penalties. The Alabama defense struggled to get off the field, allowing conversions on eight of 15 third downs and two of three fourth downs. They also gave up nine plays of 20-plus yards.
“You’ve got to be sharp,” DeBoer said. “You’ve got to be got to be locked in. Can’t have the foolish penalty or just the lack of execution. You know, get your pads on a guy and finish the block. You know, go out there and have the physicality that we showed the last two and a half quarters.
“So, there’s a lot of things that our guys will take and build from, and there’s a lot of things that we’ll look at and be upset about. And I’m confident in this group that they’ll get back to work and never take it for granted. These guys are resilient in a lot of ways, but they’re also very competitive, and I saw that tonight again.”
The running game, which had been a sore spot for much of last season, really made a push coming out of halftime. According to ESPN Research, Alabama had negative-1 yards before contact in the first half and 148 such yards in the second half.
True freshman Trae’Shawn Brown led all rushers with 86 yards and a touchdown on 12 carries. Russell scrambled in the second half and scored on a 57-yard rushing touchdown.
It was Russell’s most productive game to date. The second-year player was 23 of 30 passing for 320 yards and three touchdowns.
A week after committing three first-half turnovers at Kentucky, Russell didn’t turn the ball over once against Florida State.
“This offense is amazing,” he said. “Y’all can see what we can do when we go fast. Shout out to two-minute situations where I think we scored two times in four plays. That’s the easy stuff. You know, shout out to [offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb] for just calling great plays right there, getting the ball downfield and just giving us opportunities to just go out there and just play ball.
“But we’re going to get better at just starting fast. You know, coming into the game, [FSU] had two weeks off. We weren’t sure about what they were going to [do], but I mean, obviously watching film, it can be different on the field. So once we got everything situated, we were on.”
No. 10 Alabama (3-0) will look to stay unbeaten when it hosts unranked South Carolina (2-1) in Bryant-Denny Stadium next Saturday.
