What Mizzou Fans Need to Know About Alabama, with Joe Gaither of BamaOnSI

Alabama football reporter Joe Gaither gives insight on how the Tigers could attack the Crimson Tide.

Oct 26, 2024; Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA; Alabama Crimson Tide running back Richard Young (9) runs the ball against the Missouri Tigers during the fourth quarter at Bryant-Denny Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Will McLelland-Imagn Images | Will McLelland-Imagn Images

No. 14 Missouri spent the extra time in the bye week doing some extra studying on No. 8 Alabama.

"The beauty of the bye week is to look at every game they’ve played from last year, starting with us and how they tried to defend us," Missouri head coach Eli Drinkwitz said in a press conference Tuesday. "You look to see if there’s common themes that people have tried to exploit."

Alabama is an interesting case study. The Crimson Tide started the season with a concerning loss to Florida State. Since then, Alabama has gone 4-0, grabbing two wins over ranked Southeastern Conference opponents. But the Crimson Tide still aren't perfect.

To become more familiar with the Crimson Tide before Missouri hosts them Saturday, MissouriOnSI reporters talked with Alabama football reporter Joe Gaither of BamaOnSI. The three discuss what Alabama has done well in the pass game so far this season, the weaknesses on the Crimson Tide's run defense and more.

The conversation can be watched through the YouTube link below.

Here's a glimpse at the insight Gaither provided.

Q: What went wrong for Alabama against Florida State, and how has the team improved since then?

Gaither: "For Alabama, you struggled stopping the run, and you couldn't really generate a consistent running game yourself. And I think Ty Simpson was uncomfortable at playing quarterback in that first week. Kalen DeBoer essentially said, 'Ty Simpson, when he sees it, he's got to go ahead and rip it. He's got to trust his reads and and take the the passes that are there,' insinuating that he might have pulled it down too early and scrambled too quickly. He does have an athletic ability to move the football with his legs, but this this coaching staff wants him to read the progression and get the ball out in a passing format, and he wasn't able to do that really effectively in the Florida State game."

"The sky was falling around here for about five or six days, and they came back and they answered a lot of questions against ULM. But, ULM is not good competition. You ended up beating them 73 to nothing. You got the ground game going, but it's really kind of been a struggle still on the ground since then and up until this past week against Vanderbilt. So there's still a lot of questions to be answered, but the team has improved."

Q: Alabama's passing offense is ranked as the second-best in the Southeastern Conference. What have the Crimson Tide done well there?

Gaither: "What Alabama has been doing pretty well in the passing game is keeping your eyes in different places. As soon as you zero in on Germie Bernard, well, you're going to get an Isaiah Horton pass. As soon as you zero in on him, you're going back to Ryan Williams. There's just too many options in the passing game. And Josh Cuevas underneath playing tight end has been a pretty reliable target as well. Hurdled a Vanderbilt defender last weekend. He was the option on fourth-and-7 last week when Alabama really needed to make a drive happen at the end of the first half. So I think what they've been doing is just keeping all the looks mixed up pretty consistently."

Q: How big of a concern is the Alabama run defense against Missouri?

Gaither: "It's a huge question, because I think Ahmad Hardy is probably the best running back in the SEC. And you kind of extrapolate the first handful of games, Florida, state, Georgia and Vanderbilt in particular, the running back was able to get going in all three of those games. Now, Alabama shut down Vanderbilt after basically quarter and a half in the run game. They ended up having a couple of really strong drives. And Sedrick Alexander (had a 63-)yard touchdown run as kind of the exclamation point. But outside of that, they were able to make some adjustments and slow down Vanderbilt's running game. I think that you look at the Georgia game, Chauncey Bowens was able to rip off three, four or five big runs, and they ended up hitting Dillon Bell with a fake reverse for 40, 45, yards as well. So Georgia ended up with over 200 yards rushing, but 6,7, of those plays came on explosive plays. It's either feast or famine for Alabama in the run defense, it's Alabama stopping the opposing team for one yard, negative one yard, two yard situation, or not filling their gaps, and it's going for 15-plus. And so I still feel pretty shaky about Alabama defending the run."