Alabama was pushed to the limit against Mississippi State on Saturday, and even though they got the win (31-24) they are currently dealing with a huge number of injuries.
Alabama enters week 12 undefeated. They’re once again one of the most dominant teams in college football this season and despite being hit with the injury bug they will most likely make the College Football Playoffs. However will they be able to win the Championship this time?
Because of all the injuries, it’s very valid to ask, how will the quickly-rising number of injuries affect the Crimson Tide moving forward?
It’s evident that injuries are already affecting Alabama as they have allowed 16 runs of five yards or more in their last two games against the Bulldogs and the Louisiana State Tigers. To put that in perspective those are the two highest single-game totals against the Alabama defense and they’ve come in the last two games.
This clearly shows that all these injuries piling up are beginning to create havoc in the defensive line of the Crimson Tide as they are having issues up front defending the run and have allowed their last two opponents to run the ball effectively on them.
If those issues don’t get fixed by the time they face Auburn on November 25, they will probably struggle to finish the season undefeated as Auburn is a very physical and disciplined team that that’s been executing plays as well as anybody in the nation and has been playing mistake-free games lately.
Auburn’s offense has a lot of people coming in motion and doing things that can be hard to keep up as they are very distracting to inexperienced linebackers.
Nick Saban’s team has a lot of reasons to be concerned because Auburn’s running unit is more than capable of emulating the rushing numbers of Mississippi State and LSU. If that wasn’t enough Auburn is much more of a threat at hitting opposing defenses deep in the passing game.
If Auburn is having success running the ball, and Alabama has to move a guy up into the box to help the run defense they will face some big plays down the field that could catch them off guard.
Saban has less than two weeks to solve, or at least, disguise Alabama’s issues on defense. He must devise a scheme that will help Bama’s banged up defensive unit keep the opposing rushing attacks in check in order to keep dominating and get another shot to play for the title this season.
