Ryan Fowler’s Good, Bad, and Ugly From USF

Good

Alabama won, which is the most significant positive you can take from a game like this against South Florida. Games like this are never as bad as they look, and when you win the way Alabama won last week, they were probably not as great as we thought. Alabama will grow from this game and will become a better team. Probably, the worst thing that happened to this team was beating Western Kentucky 63-3. Certainly, the injuries played a major role in offensive line play. Next Saturday, you will see a different-looking football team in Madison, Wisconsin vs. the Badgers.

It seems like when the Crimson Tide took a step in the right direction, they would take two steps back. This happened all night vs. South Florida. The Crimson Tide made many mistakes, no unit or position was immune to those mistakes. This team kept playing and, at the end of the night, made the score respectable for the casual college football fan. Ask the Notre Dame or Auburn fans if their team played to standard when it counted the most. Alabama did, and they won 42-16. This team kept fighting, reflecting the culture that Kalen DeBoer has been able to build in the last 240 days.

The Crimson Tide defensive unit played solid for the 2nd week. Sure, we could pick apart their mistakes until the sun comes up tomorrow morning. I think we are watching a defense take some steps in the right direction and if it had not been for the red zone defense Alabama could have lost to USF.  Tim Kennan would be my player of the game on defense with 9 total tackles, 1.5 sacks, and 2.5 tackles for a loss. Several other players; like Justin Jefferson, Jihaad Campbell, and Quandarrius Robinson would be my honorable mentions. Alabama’s defense would be graded a solid B- performance with plenty of areas to grow from the mistakes.

Bad

Alabama wins a lot of games by the script A on the jersey. Playing the way Alabama did last year vs. USF gave confidence to the Bulls when they loaded the buses and headed to Tuscaloosa for this matchup inside Saban Field at Bryant-Denny Stadium. They played with some confidence in many areas that were lacking for the Crimson Tide.

Alabama had no rhythm on offense, partly because of the struggles on pass protection from the offensive line. As most people know, they were juggling several injuries on one unit. Two injuries for one position created obstacles that they were almost unable to overcome. Plus, the injuries had this unit backpedaling, and this unit had played enough together to have time to gel. But somehow, when it counted the most, they found a way to overcome the 13 penalties that counted for 120 yards, countless mistakes, and three crucial turnovers to win the game 42-16 over USF. Alabama was 5-13 on 3rd down plays, 38% is not good, especially when playing an inferior team like South Florida.

Ugly

Sure, I could have included the offensive line in this category, but I included them in the bad category for a reason: I saved the third section for my college football administrators.

We have watched a lot of changes in college football, so much so that heads spin frequently while trying to keep up with new college football rules. I have been around Alabama football for a long time, I worked as a student assistant in the early 2000s and worked part-time in radio during the same period.

The transfer portal has had the most significant impact, not just for Alabama, but for all of college football.  Depth concerns abound at many big schools. Why is this happening? The rule structure has allowed any player who is a backup on one team to put his name in the transfer portal and improve his chances of becoming a starter at another college. We have never seen depth this thin in college football, what will the 12-team playoff look like? Will teams go limping into the playoffs with major injuries at significant positions? We will see starting this year because the injuries are going to happen in football.  The team that successfully navigates, will be the team that holds up the trophy in Atlanta on January 20^th. Is that what the college bureaucratic administrators imagined when they designed the new college football playoff system? I was at least hoping for high-quality games, I think I am setting myself up for a major disappointment. We have spread the talent thin around college football. All the blame does not sit on the rule structure, but there are clearly rampant failures with the new system if a team like Alabama has serious depth issues at certain positions. Two games into the season, we just watched the Crimson Tide have their top 2 left tackle options unavailable for most of the game. They flipped a guard to left tackle because they had no other options. Is that Alabama's fault or college football's fault for creating a system that has so many flaws? As the season progresses, I predict that the quality will decline.

Alabama has to play South Florida again in 2026. I think Greg Byrne should start a GoFundMe account to raise money to buy out the Bulls for this game. I am just teasing, but I would like to see better games than the ones played in the 2023 and 2024 seasons.

We will have plenty to discuss starting at 2 pm Monday on The Game with Ryan Fowler which airs on Tide 100.9, online at Tide1009.com, or via the free Tide 100.9 app.