'Wasted plays' lead to Alabama's inability to capitalize off takeaways
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Alabama’s defense stepped up in a huge way against Tennessee, but the team left Knoxville with nothing to show for it.
The Crimson Tide forced three turnovers against the Vols in the game, which typically is a recipe for success. The problem was, Alabama’s offense didn’t score a single point off those takeaways.
Alabama forced a fumble on Tennessee’s opening drive, a huge play as the Vols had moved deep into Alabama territory with an explosive play. But Alabama punted nine plays later, mustering on only 32 yards of offense on the drive.
After taking a 7-0 lead, Alabama intercepted Tennessee on back-to-back possessions, getting the ball with momentum and a chance to go up by two scores both times.
Both Alabama possessions were immediate 3-and-outs. One drive resulted in -23 yards, while the other gained only eight.
All three takeaways came in the first half, and none were taken advantage of.
“You have to take advantage of those opportunities in those game, against the teams that you’re playing against,” Alabama offensive coordinator Nick Sheridan said. “Credit our defense for doing that. To this point, in the games where we’ve played the best collectively as a team, we’ve done that. Our defense has created turnovers and we’ve been able to put points on the board off of those. Unfortunately for us this past week, we didn’t do that. It’s disappointing, because I certainly felt like there were opportunities in the game for us to capitalize on those, and we didn’t do it. It goes back to execution, the calls that you make you can always reflect on that and what you could have done different, but certainly that was a factor in the game.”
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Execution is what head coach Kalen DeBoer harped on when asked about the inability to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the defense.
“A lot of the things were just drives stalling because we were, I don’t want to say it’s always shooting yourself in the foot, but we weren’t executing,” DeBoer said. “Or something would happen, and a lot of times it was, right, false starts, or whatever it might be. We just wasted plays, and got ourselves behind the chains, not able to have our full offense available on every play.”
Across all three drives where Alabama’s offense took the field following a takeaway, the Crimson Tide ran 15 plays and netted a total of 17 yards. Wasting plays, taking penalties, and not executing properly on early downs all attributed to that woeful stat, which must be corrected for this offense to get back to what it was doing earlier in the year.
“We were good at that early in the season,” DeBoer said. “We’ve got to get back to taking advantage of those opportunities playing off the defense, and those momentum swings, keeping them on our side when those times come. Credit the defense, a couple times in a row they’ve gotten the ball loose or have made some interceptions. Again, we’ve got to play team football and make those opportunities pay off.”
