Alabama Football jumps around, beats down Wisconsin: 3 instant takeaways

Alabama Football put together an anxiety-free performance in their first road trip of the 2024 season, beating Wisconsin 42-10 and bouncing back after last week's struggle against USF.

Wisconsin QB Tyler Van Dyke injured his knee on the first drive of the game and the Badgers had little for the Crimson Tide's defense with backup QB Braedyn Locke.

Alabama's defense forced a couple Wisconsin fumbles and took full advantage on offense by scoring touchdowns off of both takeaways. A balanced effort on offense with the offensive line finally fully healthy helped the Crimson Tide as they handled business on the road en-route to a relatively easy victory as they take a week off before welcoming Georgia to Tuscaloosa.

Here's three takeaways from Alabama's win to get to 3-0:

3. A fully healthy Tide offensive line is a force

Kadyn Proctor made his 2024 debut and started at left tackle, which allowed last week's hero Elijah Pritchett to shift back over to right tackle, giving the Crimson Tide their first game of the season with a full-strength offensive line.

The results were encouraging, with Jalen Milroe never being pressured in the pocket, and Alabama racking up 181 rushing yards on 5.3 yards-per-attempt. (It was 6.4 yards-per-carry before garbage time).

There were a couple procedural penalties, but no holding penalties that really put the Tide's offense behind the eight-ball. Alabama scored six touchdowns on its first 11 offensive possesions, and missed a field goal on what should have been a scoring drive on the opening possession of the game.

Alabama spent last week on offense sputtering, in large part ue to a lot of issues up front. Those issues were solved with the return of Proctor, and the Tide's offensive line has gone from a concern to a legitimate strength in just one week.

2. Ryan Williams may be the best freshman WR in the nation

The hype has mainly surrounded Ohio State's Jeremiah Smith in the first couple of weeks, but the Tide's 17-year-old freshman phenom once again stated his case as the best freshman WR in the country, and one of the very best skill guys in the nation, regardless of class.

You could chalk up the first two breakout games up to lower competition, but in Williams' first road game and his first game against a power-four secondary that features two potential NFL players, Williams continued to do what he's done in his early Alabama career.

Williams caught 4-passes for 78-yards and his fourth touchdown of the young season. With the Tide trailing 3-0 in the first quarter, Williams burnt the Badgers' DB down the right sideline and hauled in a perfect pass from Jalen Milroe for a 31-yard touchdown.

Williams made a big play again late in the 2nd quarter, on a 47-yard yard catch-and-run on a Milroe rope that set up a Milroe touchdown toss to Germie Bernard to push Alabama's lead to 21-3 heading into the locker room.

I said last week that the sky was the limit for Williams. That may have been an understatement, and Nick Saban's comparsion on College Gameday looks more and more apt.

1. Jalen Milroe makes an early Heisman case

After two games against lower competition, Jalen Milroe was flying under the Heisman radar a bit despite scoring 9 total touchdowns in the first two games. He's not flying under the radar anymore after a big performance against the Badgers at Camp Randall.

He was 12-of-16 for 196 yards and three touchdows passing, to go along with 75 rushing yards and another pair of touchdowns.

With multiple passing and rushing touchdowns in three consecutive games, Milroe became the first player since Texas A&M Heisman winner Johnny Manziel in 2012 to accomplish that feat. Since 2008, only three other players, NIU's Jordan Lynch, Nevada's Colin Kapernick, and Florida's Tim Tebow, have done it.

Milroe looked extremely comfortable in the pocket, facing little pressure from the Wisconsin defense. He never bailed out of the pocket early, took what was there from the defense as he went through his progressions, and delivered strike-after-strike.

Milroe is off to a fast start in 2024 under new head coach Kalen DeBoer's offense. He's more decisive on his run-pass option looks, and is now trusted by the coaching staff on read-option to read the defense instead of being given predetermined reads like he was much of last season.

He's firmly in the Heisman race three weeks into the season, with a game against Georgia in two weeks that presents an oportunity for him to make another big statement.