Can Alabama Football Run the Table Like It Did in 2015?

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The Alabama Crimson Tide is in a familiar situation.

Familiar to Nick Saban that is.

On Sept. 19, 2015, the Crimson Tide lost to Hugh Freeze and the Ole Miss Rebels at Bryant-Denny Stadium after a weak performance — especially on defense. Alabama was still uncertain about its leader at the quarterback position — like it is currently.

The Crimson Tide lost to an up-and-coming Ole Miss program in 2015 — it lost to an up-and-coming Texas program last weekend. The Rebels had strong quarterback play from Chad Kelly — the Longhorns got a similar performance from Quinn Ewers.

National media outlets called Alabama's 2015 loss to Ole Miss the end of the dynasty — the same is happening now.

After the crushing loss to the Rebels, the Crimson Tide beat up on Louisiana-Monroe. Then, Alabama went on to win every game the rest of the season — culminating in a 45-40 win over Clemson in the College Football Playoff National Championship.

Now, the Crimson Tide is playing against a startup USF program before beginning the SEC schedule next week against who other than Ole Miss.

So — can Alabama do it again?

"We went through some struggles, I forget what year, maybe 2013, 14, 15, somewhere along there, where we were struggling early in the season," Saban said. "We lost to Ole Miss early in the season. We were struggling on offense, couldn't find an identity, eventually found an identity and had a really good season. So you keep searching. I think you've got to have the right combination of players. You've got to get the right chemistry, and everybody's got to do a good job. I don't care what the identity is, it comes down to execution, whether it's running or passing or punting."

"It all comes down to your ability to execute, and we've had too many inconsistencies in execution. When you take drive-stoppers, we had six offensive penalties — those are drive-stoppers. Two of those penalties took points off the board. We got sacked five times. Sacks are drive-stoppers. Dropped balls are drive-stoppers. We only had one dropped ball. And turnovers are obviously drive-stoppers — the other team gets the ball and you don't have it. So when you add all those up, you should be at a much more efficient percentage than we were Saturday night. You can figure it out. So all those things come down to execution, and people's ability to execute to eliminate that. We'll keep working on it."

On paper, the schedule isn't the easiest the rest of the way — but it is manageable. Perhaps the three toughest games, Ole Miss, Tennessee and LSU, are all at Bryant-Denny Stadium. Road contests at Texas A&M and Auburn have given the Crimson Tide trouble in the past — but Alabama will surely be favored in both.

If the Crimson Tide plays like it did against Texas, there's no way it makes the College Football Playoff, or any high-profile bowl game for that matter. But Saban teams have a track record of finding their identity as the season progresses — and the talent is absolutely there.

Alabama has a lot of inexperienced players on its roster. With time, those players could blossom into what Saban wants them to be. Last year, the expectations never fell off because Bryce Young and Will Anderson Jr. were on the roster. But this year's Crimson Tide team could fly under the radar — and maybe that's exactly what it needs.

One thing is for certain — Saban is going to do everything in his power in order to get this Alabama team where he wants it to go.

"I don't really know what the noise is," Saban said. "I haven't listened to one talk radio show, I haven't read one newspaper. I have been focusing 100 percent of my time on the next team that we play, the last game we played and what we need to do to fix that. And all the players would be better served — and everybody in the organization would be better served — if they all did that. Because what somebody else thinks doesn't matter. It's all about what you do and how you respond to what you need to do, so you have a chance to be successful in the future."

The Crimson Tide (1-1) looks to get its season back on track in Tampa, Fla. on Saturday against the USF Bulls. Kickoff is set for 2:30 p.m. CT on ABC.

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