In the end, it was hard to complain about Alabama's 45-17 road win over Kentucky in Week 2. But the final score ignores the fact that the Crimson Tide played a pretty sloppy ballgame in the first half. The kind of sloppiness that would have dug them a much deeper hole to climb out of against the better teams on their schedule.
That's no offense to Kentucky. They are a solid team, but far from a College Football Playoff contender, which is where Alabama plans to end up. To beat those teams, the Crimson Tide has to continue getting better every week, especially on offense.
A young Tide offense took its lumps in Lexington, but will look to iron out some issues as a massive home favorite on Saturday against Florida State with revenge on its mind.
In order to cover a three-touchdown spread, Alabama needs to fix a few things from last week:
1. Keelon Russell must avoid putting the ball in jeopardy
The sophomore phenom struggled during the first half of his first road start. He turned the ball over three times, with two interceptions and a fumble. The first interception was at the goal line and led to an easy Kentucky pick-six. And while he played much better in the second half, he had a turnover-worthy play early in the third quarter, too, on a ball that probably should have been intercepted.
You are always going to have to live with some mistakes from a young quarterback, but he can't continue putting the ball in jeopardy the way he did in Lexington. That's a recipe for losing games.
Russell has a lot of talent, but he's still growing into the role. It's certainly possible that his struggles in his first road start will ultimately be the best thing for him. The game should start slowing down for him soon, and Florida State's beleaguered secondary should offer a golden opportunity for Russell to get right.
2. Alabama needs to establish the run earlier in the game
A positive development in the second half for Alabama was that the run game really got going. After notching just five yards in the first half, largely due to sacks and negative plays, the Crimson Tide racked up 150 rushing yards in the second half. The ability to impose their will up front on Kentucky really opened things up, and Alabama scored 32 unanswered points over the game's final 30 minutes.
There's no better friend to a quarterback than a quality run game. Hopefully, this week, Ryan Grubb will choose to establish the run immediately and allow Russell to get comfortable with some easy play-action passes with simple reads.
Alabama's offensive line looks improved, and Daniel Hill and the backs certainly are. With Michael Carroll expected back in the lineup this week, Alabama should try to immediately impose its will and send a message to Florida State.
3. Alabama must cut down on the penalties
Alabama was penalized eight times against Kentucky last weekend, but the good news is that they only had one after halftime. They really cleaned up the operation in the second half, which led to a dominant effort on both sides of the ball.
Against FSU, it would be nice to see a full 60 minutes of that. The offense has been far too sloppy in the first two games. It always figured that Alabama would have to rely on the defense more in the first few weeks while the offense worked out the kinks.
But with the upcoming schedule after this week, Week 3 against the Seminoles needs to be a game where Alabama really starts to figure things out.
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