Analyzing Alabama's offensive line struggles versus Texas, Jalen Milroe's impact

For the first time in a long time, the Alabama Crimson Tide lost at home, as they were defeated by Texas 34-24 on Saturday.

Alabama struggled to generate offensive momentum throughout the game, as the Longhorns were dominant in a lot of areas all night. But one area they particularly had a strong showing was on the defensive line, which On3’s Andy Staples discussed after the game with BamaOnline’s Tim Watts.

“I thought they [Texas] had a good defensive front, I think Bo Davis is a good coach, I think they’ve got good talent over there,” Watts said. “I wasn’t super surprised, Alabama didn’t get a great push the week before either. I thought maybe they went a little vanilla and we were gonna see a little bit more help.”

Texas’ defensive front stayed in Alabama’s backfield all night, tallying up five sacks and nine tackles for loss on the night as they exploited some of the weaknesses of the Crimson Tide offensive line.

“You have (Kadyn) Proctor over there struggling as a true freshman against a pretty smart defensive attack, you didn’t see a lot of help over there, guys chipping and trying to help him out. He was kind of on an island,” Watts said. “So I wasn’t completely caught off guard, I didn’t expect them to dominate the Texas defensive line, I expected them to be more competitive though.”

Staples suggested that some of Alabama’s sacks given up were the responsibility of quarterback Jalen Milroe, who was definitely quick and eager to run versus the Longhorns even in clear passing situations.

“And sometimes those holes are simply you’re pushing a guy left and then all of a sudden he’s cutting back and you’re having to reach out and grab him. A lot of that’s dictated, you see that at any level, on the reaction of the quarterback. So I totally agree with that, I think it was a little bit of everything there. I think they made it almost one dimensional at some point,” Watts said.

Milroe went just 14-for-27 on the night with 255 yards in the air, throwing two touchdowns and two interceptions. Both of his touchdowns were on impressive deep passes, but they were both in the second half and were not enough for the Crimson Tide defeat the Longhorns.

“I mean Alabama did a fine job throwing the ball deep, but they didn’t really decide to do that until mid-second [quarter], maybe late-second [quarter],” Watts said. “They had some success there but anything in the middle was a battle, I thought Alabama’s receivers did a good job and that was one of the questions we had. Was Alabama’s wide receivers gonna have a lot of drops, which they didn’t, they made some great plays, couple times ended up on their head. So they stood up there.”

The Crimson Tide had a solid outing across the board, but against a team as talented as the Longhorns, some of their weaknesses at offensive line and limitations at the quarterback position were exposed. And it will definitely be interesting to see how Alabama’s offense manages those facets of their game moving forward.