‘He does it all the time’: Bryce Young’s heroics help Alabama escape Texas

AUSTIN, Texas – The first thing to know about what took place on a broiling late-summer afternoon in the Hill Country is that the team that played the best did not win the game. Texas capitalized on No. 1 Alabama’s sloppiness, rode the energy of a raucous crowd of 105,213 at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium and twice held the lead over the No. 1 team in the nation in the fourth quarter.

The second thing to know about it is that Alabama escaped with a 20-19 victory because kicker Will Reichard, who made a 33-yard field goal for the victory with 10 seconds left, and quarterback Bryce Young, who led the Tide to 10 fourth-quarter points, are as dependable as the sunrise.

There really is something to knowing how to win. Alabama gave a recital in the fourth quarter. But the Crimson Tide had to do so because it committed an astounding 15 penalties – Texas made eight first downs because of Alabama penalties – and a spell of five consecutive three-and-outs. A year ago, Alabama played four entire games without a three-and-out.

“The one good thing you have to say about our team is they showed tremendous resiliency,” Crimson Tide coach Nick Saban said after the game.

There was more than one bad thing to say.

“We made a lot of mental errors,” Saban said. “We had way too many penalties. Shoot ourselves in the foot quite a bit. Didn’t run the ball with any consistency when we tried. One stretch of the game where we went three-and-out five straight times in the second and third quarter. We had great field position a couple of times and didn’t take advantage of it.”

Texas doesn’t have a reputation as being a tough place to play. But the fans showed up early for an early kickoff, and no less authorities than linebacker Will Anderson and Terry Saban, Nick’s wife, declared it the loudest place they’d ever heard.

“If you jump offside on defense, that doesn’t have anything to do with crowd noise,” Saban said. “Block a guy in the back, that doesn’t have anything to do with crowd noise. A lot of them are undisciplined penalties. But we have to be able to play and manage crowd noise if we’re going to play in this league. Every place we play is going to be like this.”

Texas isn’t in the SEC yet, but it will be soon. Alabama and Texas last played in the regular season a century ago, so long ago that Alabama played Sewanee the week before. The Tide and the Longhorns will play again next year in Week Two and soon after for years to come once Texas joins the SEC. But in the middle of Saturday afternoon, with the vibe of a near-upset still reverberating across an empty stadium, it’s hard to imagine they will play a more tense, taut game than this one.

Alabama made itself find a way to outlast a Longhorns team that played with a fire and an effectiveness that hasn’t been seen around here in a while. The sighs of Texas will center on the 20-yard field goal that Bert Auburn missed at the end of the half and, in a faint echo of its last game against Alabama, the BCS National Championship Game 13 seasons ago, how its starting quarterback got off to a great start and then got knocked out of the game by an injured shoulder on a sack.

In that 2010 Rose Bowl, Colt McCoy lasted six plays, and Texas, left with freshman Garrett Gilbert to run the offense, fell 37-21. This time around, Quinn Ewers made it 20 plays before linebacker Dallas Turner sacked him on first-and-goal at the 1. Turner got a roughing call, and Ewers got helped off the field, never to return.

Sophomore Hudson Card played admirably in his Ewers’ stead, But Ewers, who went 9-of-12 for 134 yards in his limited time, has the arm to stretch Alabama’s defense. Card does not.

“You know, in the end, that’s the best team in the country,” Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said. “In a weird way, we kind of feel good about where we’re at in the state of our program.”

Young finished with pedestrian numbers – 27-of-39, 213 yards, one touchdown, and another 38 yards rushing. But the numbers fail to illustrate how he avoided a safety by throwing the ball while laying atop Texas tackle T’Vondre Sweat, or how Young made the key play in the Tide’s game-winning drive by ducking under a blitzing cornerback.

Young led Alabama on three fourth-quarter drives. The first one produced a touchdown, a 7-yard pass on which Young scrambled back and to his left while Jahmyr Gibbs broke off his route and got open. The last one produced Reichard’s game-winner. The drive in the middle, the one when Alabama had third-and-2 at Texas’ 26 and failed on consecutive runs into the line to convert, proved the most interesting.

On third down, Gibbs appeared to have gotten the first down. The replay cameras said he came down an inch or two short. Saban chose not to send Reichard out for a 42-yard field goal and the chance of a four-point lead. On fourth down, running back Roydell Williams tripped over center Darrian Dalcourt, and didn’t come close to moving the chains. Texas took over and swiftly moved downfield for Auburn to kick a 49-yard field goal for a 19-17 lead. But Texas made the mistake of leaving 1:29 on the clock. Young had a timeout and never needed it.

Which gets back to Saban explaining the decision not to kick the field goal.

“We went for it and needed an inch and didn’t get it,” Saban said. “We could have kicked a field goal, and went up by four and made them score a touchdown. If they scored a touchdown, we probably never would have got the ball back.

“I knew if we could shrink the game enough that we got the ball back, he’d do a good enough job in two-minute. He does it all the time.”

Young does it all the time in practice. He did it last November at Auburn, taking the Tide 97 yards in 1:11 to score the game-tying touchdown with 24 seconds left. And he did it again Saturday, an eight-play, 51-yard drive for the game-winning field goal in which Young made up the key play as went along.

One of the verities of the sport is, “Low man wins.” The lineman who gets underneath his opponent maintains the leverage to control the block. In this case, Young saw corner Ryan Watts coming at him and ducked. Watts sailed past and Young had an open field. He ran 20 yards to Texas’ 17, and four plays later, Reichard won the game.

Young explained the play by taking the blame for the blitz.

“Obviously, when there’s someone hot off the edge, that’s my fault,” Young said. “I have to make sure we slide our protection. I didn’t get us in the right protection. That’s on me. We shouldn’t have had to deal with that. It’s just instinct, obviously. Big moment, big play. I knew I couldn’t get sacked, couldn’t afford to go down. I was just trying to do whatever I could to keep the chains moving, keep the drive alive.”

Alabama almost assuredly will drop from No. 1, and deservedly so. But Saban stressed the errors are correctible.

“In the end, when we had to make plays, the players did a great job of making the plays they needed to make,” Saban said. “Perseverance, resiliency, ability to overcome adversity – you’ve got to give them an ‘A’ for all that.”