Nick Saban questions whether Alabama 'challenged' Texas A&M in the run game

Nick Saban and the Alabama Crimson Tide saw their perfect season crash much earlier than anyone expected, losing in Week 6, and to a team no one predicted would put up much of a fight in unranked Texas A&M.

It was an extremely surprising outcome to most, but it certainly seemed like a possibility early on. The first half was all Aggies — Jimbo Fisher’s Texas A&M team hit the locker room for halftime with a 24-10 lead over Alabama, a lead that in most cases would all but seal the fate of the game. But against the No. 1 Crimson Tide, Texas A&M was still not the favorite to win at halftime, even with a sizable lead.

Texas A&M and Alabama traded blows all throughout the second half, but the Aggies eventually emerged victorious on a game-winning field goal from Seth Small. Saban on Monday addressed Alabama’s shortcomings, which included an inability to challenge Texas A&M in the run game, he said.

“I don’t know that there’s a good answer to that,” Saban said, when asked what Texas A&M did to challenge Alabama rushers in the redzone. “I don’t know if we challenged them running it as much as maybe we could. And that’s one of the things that I think we need to work on trying to improve on.”

Brian Robinson Jr. finished with 24 carries for 147 rushing yards, but the Alabama head coach wasn’t happy with his team’s performance in how he acquired those yards.

Alabama was mediocre all night in redzone opportunities, and Saban was not the only person to recognize the deficiency. Quarterback Bryce Young, who threw an interception but still led the Crimson Tide offense completing 28 of 48 passing attempts for 369 passing yards and three passing touchdowns. Young thought the Crimson Tide could have done a better job in the redzone, too, even though they converted on five of six attempts.

“Whenever we are in the redzone, one, you definitely can’t turn it over,” Young said after Alabama’s loss. “And [two], you definitely want to score a touchdown. We didn’t do that enough today. At the end of the day, that’s my fault. That falls on me. There’s a lot of stuff that I could have done differently, so I’m going to keep working.”

On paper, Young and the Alabama Crimson Tide offense were successful in the redzone, converting on five of six trips to the Texas A&M doorstep. However, a closer read shows just how critical those possessions could have been — three of those five successful trips ended with points, but only three resulted in kicks., as Alabama kicker Will Reichard kicked field goals from the four-yard line, the nine-yard line and the 20-yard line.

When all is said and done, as both Young and Saban alluded, those are opportunities that Alabama’s offense needed to convert; had just one of those trips gone differently, the outcome of this game would have been much different.