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What Alabama’s football performance against South Carolina means

What Alabama’s football performance against South Carolina means

After four plays in Saturday’s matchup against South Carolina, Alabama football coach Kalen DeBoer had a decision to make.

The Crimson Tide offense had used three plays to gain nine yards: a pass from Jalen Milroe to Justice Haynes and two Haynes carries to gain one yard from the first-down marker.

Of those three plays, DeBoer said he was confident in the tempo of his offense. He wanted to create momentum. He wanted Alabama to make a statement after Vanderbilt made a statement against the Crimson Tide a week earlier.

“I was pretty confident they were saying we should go,” DeBoer said.

And Alabama went, securing a first down on a 2-yard scramble by Milroe and setting up two 30-yard connections with Germie Bernard and Cole Adams before Milroe got a 1-yard score of his own.

After the embarrassment, this was the statement Alabama needed to make. It wasn’t the team that just lost to Vanderbilt. It was the College Football Playoff contender manning South Carolina’s backfield, running the ball at will to score touchdowns.

Alabama football was back. At least it thought so.

With less than two minutes left in the first half, Alabama cornerback Jaylen Mbawke tackled South Carolina wide receiver Mazeo Bennett Jr. for a 1-yard loss and secured a fourth down play with nine yards to go. Gamecocks quarterback LaNorris Sellers took Alabama safety DeVonta Smith out of the game and found Bennett wide open while cornerback Zavier Mincey was nowhere to be found for a 36-yard score.

The team that lost to Vanderbilt returned. The team that lost to Vanderbilt held on for the remainder of Alabama’s 27-25 win over the Gamecocks. And the dynamic changed.

Milroe was released from the next trip for safety reasons. When Alabama got the ball back after a strip sack by Jihaad Campbell, Milroe had a tackle-for-loss and a sack before throwing an interception to Jalon Kilgore with one second left for a 37-yard field goal prepared break.

On that interception, DeBoer tried to regain momentum, a similar sentiment to that on fourth down in the first drive.

“I actually don’t like to punt at any time,” DeBoer said. “But that was the worst-case scenario for me. I guess I’m just always being aggressive that way. You try to weigh the risk/reward and trust the guys and the things we talk about.”

After halftime, South Carolina responded with a 16-play touchdown drive that lasted nearly nine minutes, a demoralizing series of 3-, 4-, and 5-yard plays and third-down conversions that ended Alabama’s 14-point The lead was wiped out and the Crimson Tide were on a similar path to Nashville a week earlier.

In the end, Alabama did enough. A Milroe touchdown run and a 34-yard touchdown pass proved to be enough of a difference, even with a 31-yard touchdown pass from Sellers to Nyck Harbor, even with an onside kick attempt lost and the Gamecocks received another shot that ended in an interception by Domani Jackson.

Alabama left Bryant-Denny Stadium with a win, the team’s fifth win of the DeBoer era. But it wasn’t because of the dominance the Crimson Tide had shown against Western Kentucky, Wisconsin and, for a time, Georgia.

It was another game “to the finish,” DeBoer admitted, something he’s “getting used to,” with a road game against Tennessee next. And future games include away games against LSU and Oklahoma, with home games against Missouri and Auburn still to come.

“I think there are certainly things we can do to make sure it doesn’t come to that, but we always talk about finding a way to win,” DeBoer said. “And as many times as it may have seemed like we weren’t, we did.”

Colin Gay covers Alabama football for The Tuscaloosa News, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at [email protected] or follow him @_ColinGay on X, formerly known as Twitter.