After taking big early lead, Alabama has just enough to fend off Florida

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — If you watched No. 1 Alabama march through No. 11 Florida for a 21-3 lead in the first quarter and let your attention wander away from the Swamp, congratulations. You may have what it takes to play for Nick Saban.

The Hare beat the Tortoise in a photo finish Saturday, the Crimson Tide stopping a two-point conversion with 3:10 to play to beat the Gators 31-29, extending the longest winning streak in the FBS to 17 games.

Saban demands that his players focus on process, not result. He has been fretting that a young team that has gone through its athletic career largely untested — did you see last season? The first two games of this one? — might leave itself susceptible to a lapse of concentration. That’s exactly what happened Saturday before the fifth-largest crowd (90,887) in the history of the Swamp.

The Crimson Tide that in the first quarter scored on drives of 75, 75 and, after the game’s lone turnover, 38 yards, looked dominant. Where that Tide went will be the topic of this week’s preparation for Southern Miss. Poor Southern Miss.

“I think the big thing for our players to learn is we continue to have to be able to maintain intensity throughout the game,” Saban said. “We got ahead 21-3. We played absolutely …” — he paused; should he say it? He did — “great football. And then we got three plays-and-out three times in a row on offense. Eventually they score a touchdown and get the crowd back into the game. It was difficult after that.”

Difficult, as in four false start penalties, one at Florida’s 1 on fourth-and-goal in the fourth quarter. As a result, Alabama had to settle for a 24-yard field goal by Will Reichard and remain ahead by one score, 31-23, with 9:30 to play.

Difficult, as the defense being unable to get off the field, allowing Florida to convert third-and-10 and third-and-9 on a 99-yard, third-quarter touchdown drive. In the fourth quarter, clinging to that 31-23 lead, Alabama had Florida pinned on a third-and-19 and let the Gators escape again.

And yet the Tide won.

“Our players showed a lot of resiliency in the game,” Saban said. “Made the plays we had to make on offense. We stopped the two-point conversion.”

Saban showed neither anger nor disappointment. He praised his team for, essentially, knowing how to win. But you don’t see too many games where the losing coach sounds happier than the winning coach.

Say this for the Gators’ Dan Mullen: He’s gaining on Saban. Mullen is 0-11 against Saban. The average margin of the 11 losses may be nearly 19 points, but the past two have been by a total of eight. Florida lost 52-46 to the Tide in the SEC Championship Game last December.

“I think it’s going to be really exciting to see the response at practice this week,” Mullen said. “I really do because I never doubted the effort our team was going to give, the attitude our guys have. Our guys expected to win the game today coming into it. I know they’re disappointed.”

Four times in the first two-and-a-half minutes of his postgame presser, Mullen referred to how small the margin of error is in a game like this. Small, maybe, but large enough to include a missed extra point in the second quarter, a point that came back to haunt the Gators at game’s end.

The margin of error must include the two-point attempt, when, Mullen said, one Gator lined up wrong and another ran in the wrong direction. A stout but exhausted Tide front stuffed running back Malik Davis well short of the goal.

Between those two special teams mistakes, Florida provided Alabama four first downs via penalty and the Gators’ secondary struggled to make tackles in space.

All that in that little margin of error, which tells you how well Florida played to climb back from the 18-point deficit. And the Gators did so without their best offensive weapon, backup quarterback Anthony Richardson, who didn’t play because of a strained hamstring. Redshirt junior Emory Jones, the starting quarterback in order of appearance, if not by performance, for the first two weeks, turned a series of second-quarter boos into cheers.

“I feel like people didn’t think we would come out here and fight,” Jones said. “ … This game right here meant a lot to us even though we didn’t get the outcome we wanted. We got a lot of confidence from this game.”

Jones was 17-of-27 for 181 yards, with one interception, which Alabama converted into its third touchdown of the first quarter. That’s one hint that Jones improved as the game went along.

The other is that he went 8-of-11 after halftime. He led that 99-yard touchdown drive. Jones didn’t show an arm that would scare anyone. But as Gators backs Davis, Nay’Quan Wright and Dameon Pierce combined for 168 yards and three touchdowns, Jones began to find receivers over the middle.

Florida realized Saban’s biggest fears this week, running the ball well even without Richardson, their leading rusher. The Gators finished with 258 yards on the ground and held the ball for 31:55, sapping an Alabama defense in the thick late-summer humidity of central Florida.

Alabama, after gaining 172 yards of total offense in the first quarter, gained 152 yards in the rest of the game. The total of 324 yards snapped a streak of 28 games with 400 yards of total offense. The Tide last season averaged 541.6 yards per game. It became clear Saturday that last season is over.