Alabama suffered its first loss of the season on Saturday night at home, falling 20-17 to Georgia in controversial fashion.
It was a frustrating defeat, with plenty of opportunities to win the game wasted and plenty of blown calls to lament over.
But Alabama went toe-to-toe with Georgia and didn't blink. The Crimson Tide is for real, and they will bounce back and be a player in the National Championship race.
Here's our biggest observations from Alabama's three point loss:
1. Multiple blown calls by the refs made a massive difference in Georgia's win over Alabama
I hate complaining about the refs. If you follow this page religiously, you know we rarely do it. It's saved for the special circumstances, like the 2022 game in Knoxville against Tennessee. But it deserves to be front and center after Saturday night.
And it isn't just the egregiously missed pass interference in the endzone on a Keelon Russell throw to Rico Scott in the fourth quarter of Alabama's last offensive possession. As bad as that was, there were plenty of others.
The missed facemask on EJ Crowell after the Bray Hubbard interception.
The overturned interception by QB Reese that never showed conclusive evidence on the broadcast.
The clear targeting that knocked Ryan Coleman-Williams out of the game.
There are missed calls every game. Georgia fans can certainly complain about some, too. But the biggest moments disproportionately went against Alabama, and the Crimson Tide was robbed of a chance to win the game late.
2. Alabama proved it could line up and match Georgia's physicality
Georgia fans were certain that Alabama was not going to be able to run the ball on them. Wrong.
Alabama picked up 161 yards on a 5.6 yards-per-carry average against an elite Georgia run defense. If you remove the four sacks taken by Keelon Russell, the Crimson Tide racked up 190 yards on the ground.
After netting -3 in the loss in last season's SEC Championship Game, this was a massive step in the right direction.
There are no moral victories as an Alabama fan, but the work done by Adrian Klemm and everyone to fix things up front has been encouraging.
3. Alabama's defense has some major issues
After a hot start to the season, Kane Wommack's Alabama defense has taken some big steps back in recent weeks. The forced turnovers have hid some major flaws, but they only produced one against Georgia.
Georgia put up 455 total yards, and Alabama frequently had a difficult time getting off the field on third down. The Bulldogs went 7-of-13 on third down, and that included a back-breaking 17-yard pass from Gunner Stockton on 3rd-and-7 from the 7-yard-line when Alabama had a chance to make a stop and get the ball back with an opportunity to tie or win the game.
Stockton torched a secondary that has been much better on paper than on the field. He threw for 249 yards on 18-of-22 passing.
Alabama didn't stop the run effectively, either. And while losing Terrance Green for the second half hurt, there were too many missed run fits as the Bulldogs picked up 206 yards on the ground.
Wommack has some work to do to get this defense back to playing at a championship level.
4. Kalen DeBoer's sideline fire was great to see
Despite the loss, I'm not sure I've ever felt better about DeBoer as the Alabama head coach.
The gutsy decision to go for the touchdown at the half instead of kicking the field goal gave Alabama a real chance to win this game.
Then there was the fire he showed in the fourth quarter. He ripped the officials for missing the pass interference in the endzone. And then, for the first time, he ripped a player on the sideline. He laid into Dijon Lee after the sophomore CB got the boneheaded personal foul that allowed Georgia to run the clock out.
Losing sucks, but this game felt like a turning point in the DeBoer era, at least in terms of perception. Alabama will need to get back in the win column next week to maintain those good graces.
5. Keelon Russell still has a ways to go
Russell was the first to admit in the postgame that this was not his best game. Georgia threw a lot at the sophomore QB, and he crumbled under the weight of it at times.
He took two bad sacks, one in the first half and one late in the fourth quarter, that knocked Alabama out of field goal range both times. He had a costly fumble in the first quarter of Alabama's opening drive. He missed some throws he has frequently made over the last few weeks.
And on the Scott play that should have been PI, that was only in play because he was late to the read and underthrew it. It would have been a wide-open touchdown otherwise.
Russell still made plenty happen. He made some big-time throws, and he escaped some pressure to make big plays with his legs.
But Georgia was the biggest test for the young quarterback so far, and they made him look mortal.
That's okay. It's a perfect learning moment for him, and he'll arise better than ever from it. If you're going to get him, you'd better do it now. He's a budding superstar who will continue to get better and better.
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