Expert reveals the real reason behind Alabama struggling against Vanderbilt and South Carolina
Alabama's slump in the past 3 weeks has been one of the most dramatic this season. From being the top team with everything nearly perfect to struggling against opponents considered a piece of cake, several flaws came to the forefront against Vanderbilt and South Carolina.
On3's JD Pickell believes there was a recurring pattern that exploited Bama's weakness in both games.
"Diego Pavia, the Vandy quarterback, and LaNorris Sellers, the South Carolina quarterback, what those two guys have in common when it comes to what they did against Bama?they were just playmakers," Pickell said on On3's 'Early Look'.
"Playmakers can mean a lot of things, but to me, it means they found plays that weren?t exactly called within this football game to give their team a chance to win. Bama has struggled the last couple of weeks defensively," Pickell stated further.
Pavia's 16 of 20 throws for 252 passing yards and two touchdowns did their part, but it was the way he led his offense that made all the difference. The Gamecocks' LaNorris Sellers followed suit by establishing his 27-19 dominant lead with a touchdown pass. Sellers' offense made Alabama's defense substantially struggle quite a few times.
Perhaps Alabama has had issues from the beginning of the season
The seamless transition that Kalen DeBoer had after Nick Saban's shocking retirement, plus four consecutive wins right from the beginning of the season made their flaws less apparent, but now that they are under everyone's critical eye, they're more obvious.
CBS Sports' Chip Patterson highlighted how. "Some of the issues appear to be more recent, but others have been ongoing throughout the entire 2024 campaign. Alabama entered the South Carolina game ranked No. 108 nationally in penalty yards per game (73.2) and No. 112 in penalties per game (8.0), then proceeded to get flagged seven times for 67 penalty yards.
"The problems started early with a 13-penalty game against USF (some of which wiped touchdowns off the board) but continued with holding calls against Georgia and some incredibly costly penalties against Vanderbilt, including a duplicate numbers penalty that kept a Commodores scoring drive alive."
Penalties piling on and the defensive struggle against playmaking QBs are the underlying problems that have perhaps been there all along. If DeBoer and Co. have any plans to visit the playoffs, they will need to address this immediately.
