Alabama discipline issues once again rear its ugly head

Last night, Alabama dedicated and named the field after Nick Saban. Saban, who coached for Alabama for 17 seasons brought to the Crimson Tide program a process and culture that they live by that has produced six national championships during Saban’s time. Saban would preach about discipline, “You get up every day, you're entitled to nothing,” Saban said. “Nobody owes you nothing. You could have talent, but if you don't have discipline, if you don't execute, you don't focus, you get nothing.”

Alabama almost got nothing last nothing. The final score may say 42-16 in favor of the Crimson Tide, but the laundry list of miscues and mental mistakes had Kalen DeBoer talking.

After three fumbles lost, notably an exchange from Parker Brailsford to Jalen Milroe on the snap and Kendrick Law’s fumble on the opening kickoff of the second half,  DeBoer said, “Every day, there's something, but Tuesdays, it's a big-time priority. We start the week off with that. There are other things. We talked about the ball as a program and how important it is, taking care of it and getting it. We won’t have to raise the level of how much we stress it because we stress it significantly.

“It's guys just learning that when you make a big play, there are people behind you, chasing you, and coming from all angles. We've got to do a better job of being conscious of that. This guy got a little loose with it. We'll watch the film. I don’t know exactly how the fumbles were created, but a lot of the things we talk about, I think, are what happened.”

What also came unhinged for the Crimson Tide were mental mistakes that cost Alabama in key moments, notably on Milroe’s 74-yard touchdown run that was nullified to get a holding penalty. If there is one thing Nick Saban did not like was getting the holding call, what he especially did not like we're repeat mistakes. ESPN caught Saban’s reaction multiple times to miscues.

DeBoer took accountability, “I’ve got to hold my guys accountable when we aren’t executing and doing things. A lot of the calls, most of them, we were holding, doing things you can’t do, and we’ve got to clean up our part of it. But I was also addressing things I saw that I wanted to make sure they kept an eye on.”

In recent years, Alabama has had multiple games where the discipline by the players was non-existent. Alabama committed 10 or more penalties against Texas in 2022 and 2023, had 17 penalties in their 2022 encounter with Tennessee that snapped Alabama’s 15 game winning streak against the Vols, and against LSU in 2022 had nearly 100 yards in penalty yards in a defeat.

It is now up to DeBoer to fix the discipline issues Saban couldn’t figure out in his final years. Against South Florida it was all on display, when the Tide played with discipline they seemed to be unstoppable, but when they lack discipline they only beat themselves and get nothing.