Talk of Alabama’s defense potentially returning to dominance trailed off as Saturday afternoon turned into evening.
Florida was having its way with the Crimson Tide front seven, gashing its way to the highest average rushing attempt since Ezekiel Elliott ended Alabama’s 2014 season in the semifinal.
And no, it didn’t sit well in the locker room even if the Tide walked away a 31-29 winner over the No. 11 Gators.
“This was a real eye opener that we need to get our stuff together for real, for real,” said linebacker Will Anderson who was named SEC defensive player of the week. “And we need to live up to the Alabama standard and we need to play to the Alabama standard. All 11 of us need to be on the same page.”
Florida rolled up 439 yards on the Alabama defense -- 358 of which came in the final three quarters at a steady clip of 6.5 per play. The read option was at the center of the defensive struggles as quarterback Emory Jones and a stable of running backs had the Tide looking unsteady after slowing the Gators early.
The hosts averaged 6.0 yards per carry, the most since Ohio State had 6.7 per attempt in the 2015 Sugar Bowl semifinal.
It was a steady drip since no Florida run broke for more than 30 yards to skew the average.
“The whole room, I feel like we need to start watching more film together,” Anderson said Monday. “Football needs to start being the most important thing right now. Just getting all on the same page in that room. We have a lot of young guys and they’re just trying to come along. We have to get them ready and prepared so they can help out.”
Only two teams recorded more offensive yards on Alabama’s 2020 defense, Ole Miss who had 647 and Florida who tallied 462 with a completely different offense in the SEC title game.
Anderson on several occasions said the Saturday game plan for Florida was solid but it was the on-field discipline that broke down and led to big plays for the Gators.
The loss of injured veteran outside linebacker Chris Allen was felt the most in Gainesville. Sophomore Drew Sanders got his second straight start and had his moments including a quarterback hurry that forced a first-quarter interception.
“Drew Sanders did OK in the game,” Saban said. “I think we all could have a done a little bit better job of playing the option. We focused a lot on quarterback runs. We focused some on the option. I think there were times in the game where we didn’t play the option correctly, so therefore as coaches we’re responsible for that.”
Saban said Florida threw a few different things at Alabama after playing two non-Power 5 teams to open the season with a more vanilla playbook.
“But you’ve got to adapt to those things and play things on principle,” Saban said. “And at times we didn’t do that very well. And we weren’t very aggressive. We didn’t get off the field on third down, especially in the second half.”
Florida converted on 4 of 5 third downs in the second half including a third-and-10 from the 1-yard line on what became a 99-yard touchdown march. The only one not converted after halftime was a third-and-19 that became a first down on a hurry-up fourth-and-two pass.
The moment and the environment weren’t too big for this group, Anderson said.
“We kept our composure,” he said. “There were some things, a few mental errors by me, that comes with the game of football. We need to lessen those mental errors. And I think the biggest thing is just for all of us to be on the same page again and executing what our coaches tell us to do.”
Top-ranked Alabama faces Southern Miss (1-2) with the Golden Eagles coming off a 21-9 loss to Troy before Ole Miss and its high-powered offense comes to Bryant-Denny Stadium on Oct. 2.
Michael Casagrande is a reporter for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @ByCasagrande or on Facebook.
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