Alabama Football: Three Bold Predictions for Bama vs South Florida

As Alabama Football heads down to Tampa to take on the South Florida Bulls in a rare non-conference road game, all eyes will be on the Crimson Tide’s energy coming off of an embarrassing effort last week.

Alabama was handled fairly easily by Texas, dropping a primetime home game in front of the entire nation. In the loss, Bama’s toughness and attention to detail were both obvious concerns.

There is little doubt that Alabama Football will get back in the win column this week, but several tangible and intangible factors will be just as important as securing the victory. In addition to its failure to display a championship culture last week, Alabama has uncertainty at several positions heading into week three. The Crimson Tide is expected to experiment at quarterback and offensive line, among other positions, so this game can be considered a clean slate in some ways.

Unfortunately, last week’s bold predictions all fell flat in Bama’s uninspiring loss to Texas. I predicted the Crimson Tide would produce a 100-yard rusher, and for the second straight week its top ground gainer fell short of the 50-yard milestone (Jase McClellan with 45 yards).

I also optimistically projected that Jalen Milroe would play his best game yet, while the Alabama defense would force two Quinn Ewers turnovers. Instead, it was Ewers that played lights out and Milroe who was picked off twice in the defeat.

Due to the wildly inconsistent performances of Jalen Milroe through the first two weeks of the season and the general uncertainty around the quarterback position for Alabama Football, I refrained from making any QB predictions this week. After all, Bama is expected to start Tyler Buchner this week. Buchner was somewhat erratic during his time at Notre Dame and has yet to take a meaningful snap for Alabama. Any guess as to how he will perform against USF, whether positive or negative, would be just a shot in the dark.

With all of the pertinent context and caveats laid out, here are my three bold predictions for Bama vs USF.