No. 6 Alabama Football Lacks Discipline in Loss to No. 2 Georgia

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — "Even the emotional piece of the game, when things flare up and it gets a little crazy there, I thought our guys just responded. We've been, I think, mentally disciplined and physically sharp."

The quote above is an excerpt from Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer's opening statement two days after beating South Carolina. Gamecocks edge rusher Dylan Stewart had been suspended by the team for losing his cool numerous times that day in Tuscaloosa.

No. 6 Alabama fell to No. 2 Georgia 20-17 at home on Saturday night. With just over two minutes remaining in regulation, the Crimson Tide stuffed the Bulldogs for a 1-yard gain on second-and-medium, which would've translated to a third down.

However, after the play, Alabama cornerback Dijon Lee Jr. got into a scuffle with a Georgia wide receiver, was called for a personal foul penalty, moved the chains and a couple of kneel-downs ended the game.

"We preach emotional maturity, and I really feel strong that across the board we have that with our team, and would have never expected that to happen," DeBoer said during the postgame press conference.

Alabama safety Bray Hubbard had similar thoughts to DeBoer regarding Lee's penalty.

"He's just got to stay locked in, all across the board. We talk about having no foolish penalties, and that's kind of a crucial penalty. It would've been third down.

"Say we hold them there, say they have to punt the ball and give the ball back to our offense. Instead, the chains move, and as soon as the ref blows the whistle and time starts ticking, too many timeouts, so they basically gave them that."

Nevertheless, Lee's outburst wasn't the only moment that lacked discipline for Alabama. The Crimson Tide came into Saturday tied for 24th in the country in opponent third-down conversion percentage (31.71).

The Bulldogs finished the night completing 7 of 13 (53.85 percent) third-down attempts. In any football game at any level, the crowd is often the loudest when their team's defense is facing third down, but Alabama really struggled to stop it and force a punt.

In fact, five of Georgia's conversions came in the fourth quarter, when Bryant-Denny Stadium was at its loudest. UGA quarterback Gunner Stockton played a big role on all three downs, as he finished the game completing 18 of 22 pass attempts, and DeBoer called him "clutch" and "extremely efficient."

"We're disappointed on some of the runs that they had, especially in the second half, and everyone's got to do their job, stay in their gap and that won't that won't happen. But when they can run the ball, and he can do his thing, those guys are making plays for him. It gets tough to stop. So you want to make them one-dimensional, so you can get off the football field. But he did a nice job making plays.

"You make your own breaks, and it wasn't that our guys weren't hustling and giving everything they got. They gave great effort across the board as a football team, there's just some execution errors, or just us being a step slow or just short of getting the football. That's the difference in the game."

The offense showed a lack of discipline at times in this one. It was fairly safe to say that this would be Alabama's lowest-scoring game of the season thus far, as it was yet to score under 45 points coming into Saturday.

There were plenty of times that Alabama could've taken advantage of its field position inside of Georgia territory, but it resulted in field goals or punts.

"It happened towards the end of the game there, too. Just getting in that fringe area where you get some points, taking a sack or having a negative play, and certainly the offense was frustrated with that. Obviously, I am too.

"That's where you've just got to look and figure out how to avoid those mistakes. And it wasn't one person. It was just execution. It wasn't necessarily from what I saw the blown assignments or anything. Just got to execute and be better in those moments."

The aforementioned Bray Hubbard is one of Alabama's three captains, alongside wide receiver Ryan Coleman-Williams and cornerback Zabien Brown. Before the season, BamaCentral conducted a poll at Alabama Media Day and asked several players: if you could only vote for one captain, who would it be? Hubbard won by a landslide.

So, where does Alabama go from here? How does the Tide respond after losing to the No. 2 team in the nation and an SEC rival at home?

"We've got to watch film tomorrow, flush it and get back to the drawing board," Hubbard said. "We can't carry this over to the next game. We can't carry the loss into next week. We've got to correct it on Monday and get back to work on Tuesday when we practice and just keep moving forward."

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