Inside Tiger Stadium, which was quickly filling up, the third-quarter clock was on 1:55 when an entirely unrelated event occurred.
Alabama threw a ball to tight end CJ Dippre on the opening play of its seventh night drive. With 105 seconds remaining in the quarter, he battled his way forward and fought past a lazy tackle attempt, eventually coming to a stop after 12 yards.
In a slog of a Saturday night in what is sometimes referred to as Death Valley, it turned out that those 12 yards would be the end of Alabama’s passing output.
On a gloomy night in Baton Rouge, Alabama delivered a gut punch that included that sentence.
The Crimson Tide’s final score of 42–13 would have been plenty, but there was something special about their performance. This was not the nerve-wracking victory over Georgia in September. In early November, a 75-yard touchdown heave is not necessary.
Not at all. Because it wasn’t a particularly high number in the LSU thumping.
A little over 13 minutes into the second half, Dippre had reached that passing yards total.
LSU was brutalised by Alabama in the traditional manner.
This topsy-turvy season reached a new level on a night at the crossroads, and they did the murderball thing to get their groove back. In Orlando, Jalen Milroe made sure he wouldn’t be Merry with Mickey when the Losers traded playoff brackets on Christmas day.
He used his legs, the traditional method.
It’s trivia time. When was the last time Alabama had fewer passing yards than it did last night and still won an SEC game?
The visit to LSU in 2016. That night’s score? LSU 0; Alabama 10.
Eight years ago, in a game that was 0-0 going into the fourth quarter, Jalen Hurts threw for 107 yards.
In the same rivalry, Alabama threw for 418 and LSU for 393 in the Tigers’ 46-41 victory in 2019. However, the days of Joe Burrow vs. Tua Tagovailoa are over.
Milroe is going about things his way.
Long before the Alabama quarterback made fun of LSU’s illustrious defensive history on the opening play of the fourth quarter, this one was a thrashing.
After Milroe rushed for four touchdowns in an ego-bruising loss the previous season, the Tigers entered the stadium on Saturday night with playoff hopes and two weeks to get ready for him.
On Play 1 of Quarter 4, his 72-yard scamper would be Touchdown 4 of his comeback. After a few difficult weeks, he had dropped out of the Heisman front-runners’ ranks. After sprinting for 117 yards in the rout of then-No. 2 Georgia, the Tide senior was the talk of the sport, but that aspect of his game vanished entirely.
As an alternative, Milroe was a source of turnovers from the Tennessee, South Carolina, and Vanderbilt stretch. In those three games, he only ran for 57 yards total, or 1.5 yards per game if you’re interested in averages.
In terms of rushing yards on 12 runs, the final score on Saturday was 185. Against the 15th-ranked squad in the country, that is an average of 15.4 tries per game.
It was obvious that Alabama was the more aggressive team on Saturday night. Although Milroe’s unique speed played a significant role in his 185-yard run, his offensive line maintained control of the attack.
Additionally, Alabama was determined to see this through to the end.
At LSU, the Crimson Tide carried the ball for an average of 6.7 yards on 21 of their 29 first-down plays. On a day when they lost 24–17 to Tennessee, that split was 17 runs and 18 throws on first downs.
When Alabama showed mercy in their 63-0 thumping of WKU on opening weekend, they threw the ball just 18 times in total against LSU, tying the season-low in terms of attempts.
In the 29-point thumping, the Tide really didn’t need to throw it that frequently. At LSU, this team converted 10 out of 13 third-downs, seven of which resulted in runs (76.9%). During its three-game slump, that same club went 11 for 32 (34.4%).
Those were gloomy times.
They’re not. If Alabama wishes to qualify for the inaugural 12-team playoffs, it is in charge. Because it failed to learn from its disastrous experience with Milroe the previous season and was unable to match Alabama’s physicality, LSU has basically been beaten.
Then things became ugly.
This statement focused more on what the Crimson Tide did than what they had to do.
