Nick Saban identifies issues in close victory over LSU

Most times, Alabama-LSU is one of the most anticipated matchups in the country, only for Nick Saban’s team to win by a large margin. The opposite occurred on Saturday, with a closer game taking place in Tuscaloosa than anybody expected.

The Crimson Tide escaped with a 20-14 win, breaking their long streak of scoring at least 30 points. Following the game, the head coach had criticism of how his team played, even in the win. After all, it was just the second one-possession game Alabama has played in this season.

“I think there are a lot of things in the game that we probably didn’t do well,” Saban said during his post-game press conference. “We did not block them upfront very well. We did not run the ball very well. On offense, we couldn’t run it at the end of the game when we needed to. We were not as effective on third down, we had some protection issues. A lot of things we can fix. I think we got to fix them so we can be a bit more consistent.”

Beginning with Alabama’s struggles in protection, LSU was able to sack Bryce Young four times to go along with two additional quarterback hurries. Right tackle Chris Owens was moved to center after Darrian Dalcourt went down with an ankle injury. Saban was forced to put in Damieon George. From there, Young was getting hit left and right by the Tigers.

On third down, Alabama went 4-13, punting the ball six times. LSU was able to stay in the game in the second half thanks to Bill O’Brien’s offense struggling to sustain long drives.

Alabama’s historically bad night

Saban pointed out problems within Alabama’s run game as well. Saturday’s performance against LSU was a historically bad one for the Crimson Tide. Even though Brian Robinson was the leading rusher with 18 yards, as a team, they only had six yards. Young had nine rushing attempts for -22 yards.

Michael Casagrande of AL.com pointed out it was tied for the fewest rushing yards in Alabama’s record book, dating back to 1940. A 9-0 loss to Penn State in 1990 saw the Crimson Tide rush for six yards as well.

With New Mexico State on the schedule for this weekend, Saban will have two weeks to figure out their problems before facing another SEC opponent. Arkansas and Auburn stand in the way of the Crimson Tide appearing in the SEC championship for the eighth time since Saban took over in 2007.