Vanderbilt ends Tide's reign at number 1

Last week, the Alabama Crimson Tide had its greatest victory of the new Kalen DeBoer era when the Tide vanquished the Georgia Bulldogs. On Saturday, Alabama lost to Vanderbilt for the first time since 1984 – when the late Ray Perkins was the head coach. Tide fans – and college football fans in general – are left wondering which is the real Tide team – the one that outlasted and outfought Georgia or the one that could not stop the Vanderbilt Commodores from scoring at will in a monumental 35 to 40 upset.

Auburn fans remember (in our nightmares) Diego Pavia – the New Mexico State Quarterback from Albuquerque who torched Auburn with a 19 for 28 201 passing yards performance with 3 touchdowns at Auburn. He also had 8 carries for 35 yards rushing against the Tigers as he led New Mexico State to just their second 10-win season in program history (the other season was in 1960). The wonders of the transfer portal means that after two seasons at New Mexico State and two seasons at the New Mexico Military Institute and getting his degree in biology from State last year's number 12 passer in the country can transfer to Vanderbilt to work on his master's degree while dismantling the Crimson Tide defense. Apparently, the Tide defense wasn't watching highlights of New Mexico State versus Auburn in 2023 because they seemed entirely unprepared for what happened on Saturday.

Vanderbilt never trailed. They got out to an early lead and never looked back.

Pavia was 16 for 20 passing for 252 yards and two touchdowns with no interceptions against the Tide defense. He also had 20 rushes for 56 yards. The option offense seems like the ghost of offenses past. The late Paul Bear Bryant adopted a modified version of the option – the wishbone – in the 1970s and dominated the decade with it. That was before the current generation of Alabama players were born and it was obvious that they had never seen the option before and had no earthly idea how to deal with it. Defending the option requires tremendous run lane discipline. Players must remain in their rushing lane rather than giving up the lane for the quarterback or the running back who is taking the pitch to run into the secondary. It also requires a lot of physicality on the part of the secondary who have to be willing to come up in run support and shake off blockers down field. It was a test and Alabama failed. Vanderbilt pounded the ball for 166 yards on the ground. They broke no long runs – their longest was 12 yards and Vanderbilt only averaged 3.1 yards per carry; but they would get 2 or 3 yards on first down another 2 yards on second down and Pavia would complete a pass to move the chains and Bama could not get them off the field. Vanderbilt dominated time of possession with over 42 minutes with the ball.

The Tide offensive line could not establish the run game. Bama rushed the ball for only 84 yards and most of that was from the quarterback Jalen Milroe who had 46 yards rushing on five carries.

Milroe had another stellar day as a passer – throwing for 310 yards. He also had an interception that proved costly in a game where Alabama needed to score on virtually every possession to keep up with the Commodores.

Bama managed to pull within 5 points 35 to 40 with 2:44 left to play. DeBoer made the fateful decision not to go for the onsides kick and instead trusted in his defense to force a 3 and out. Bama had three timeouts and college football has added a two minute warning timeout from pro-football this year meaning that Coach DeBoer could stop the clock four times. That trust was misplaced, because the Tide's woeful defense had no answers at all for Pavia and the Vanderbilt offense. Vanderbilt got first down after first down after first down moving the ball at will on the Tide defense to run out the clock.

The Tide can still go to Atlanta to compete in the SEC Championship game and they are still alive for a berth in the 12 team playoff; but for any of that to happen the Tide defense is going to have to tackle a lot better than they did on Saturday and figure out how to cover SEC receivers. Georgia Quarterback Carson Beck torched the woeful Tide secondary in that second half last week and Pavia looked like Joe Montana finding open receivers at will. The Bama defense is loaded with 4 star athletes all over the field; but they are going to have to play team defense and not keep missing their assignments or Alabama fans are going to be watching the playoffs from the hotel of whatever consolation bowl they are assigned to.

Alabama plays South Carolina on Saturday.

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