Alabama took care of business in its season opener against East Carolina, rolling over a quality Group-of-Six opponent by 38 points. There was plenty to clean up, and Kalen DeBoer would be the first to tell you that the Crimson Tide will have to play better this weekend on the road to take down Kentucky in Lexington.
Kentucky is hungry for a signature win in the second game of the Will Stein era. The Wildcats rolled to an easy win over FCS opponent Youngstown State in Week 1, and now they'll look to slay Alabama to get immediate proof of concept in Lexington.
Alabama has sky-high potential. The ceiling was obvious against East Carolina. But it's going to take some more time for this team to get comfortable together to have a chance to reach that ceiling.
They'll need to take another step in Week 2 in order to win an SEC road game. Here are three things that need to be cleaned up from the first game for Alabama to avoid being on upset alert in Lexington.
1. Alabama has to avoid stacking empty possessions against Kentucky
Alabama's offense was clicking to open the game against ECU. The Crimson Tide scored on each of its first five possessions, including touchdowns on each of the final four drives of the first half to build a 38-7 lead.
But the intensity dropped to open the second half, and Alabama had three straight empty possessions. The first drive ended with a fumble on a missed exchange between Keelon Russell and Ryan Coleman-Williams, and then Alabama punted on the next two drives while running just seven total plays. A touchdown drive opened the fourth quarter to get back on track.
Obviously, the stacked empty possessions against ECU weren't impactful in a game that was already well in hand, but those will need to be avoided this weekend in a matchup that will be much more competitive.
2. Alabama has to clean up the unforced errors
Along with the aforementioned turnover to open the second half, Alabama had too many penalties and too many procedural errors that led to wasted timeouts with the play clock dwindling. The Crimson Tide finished with six penalties, and Russell took the blame in the postgame for all the little errors that stacked up.
It wasn't all on Russell, of course. Ryan Coleman-Williams had a couple of dropped passes. One prevented a big play, and the other took a touchdown off the board and would have caused an interception if it weren't for an offside penalty against ECU.
That will all get cleaned up as this group gets more experience together. Saturday was Russell's first start, and Alabama had four new offensive linemen and an entire group playing a real-live game together for the first time. It was never going to be perfect. But there were plenty of signs for optimism.
3. Alabama needs a sharper Keelon Russell in his second start
Russell looked electric in his first start, putting up 342 yards of total offense (256 passing, 86 rushing). But he was far from perfect. He wasn't always confident in the reads, and he shied away from ripping some throws that were there.
He's going to continue gaining confidence the more he plays. He's going to think less, and he's going to just play. There were a few plays there that he could have made by ripping the ball down the field, but he held onto it instead.
Alabama needs Russell to be confident in the process in Week 2. This will be a much more significant challenge for the first-year starting QB.
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