What's fixable and what's not for Alabama football following 2nd loss of season

It's been a disappointing 2024 season for the Alabama Crimson Tide in Kalen DeBoer's debut season in Tuscaloosa. A season that started with so much promise and saw the Tide rise to No. 1 in the AP Poll following a win over Georgia in Tuscaloosa three weeks ago has come crashing back down to reality in the last three games.

Alabama has lost two of its last three games after falling to Tennessee, and the one win was by two points in an uninspiring effort at home against South Carolina. Alabama is 5-2, its worst record through seven games since 2007 when Nick Saban was in his debut season with the Crimson Tide.

Where Alabama goes from here is anybody's guess. There's no recent precedent for an Alabama team that looked to be all but out of the national championship hunt by October 19th. Does this team still have fight left in them? Or will they roll over, have a plethora of opt outs, and force Crimson Tide fans to start analyzing the future of the program under DeBoer?

I said we'd find out a lot about this team the last two weeks, and unfortunately we have. The Crimson Tide is what it is at this point: a talented, yet deeply flawed football team that can't get out of its own way or make plays when plays are there to be made.

Which parts of Alabama's struggles are fixable, and which aren't? Let's examine:

These things are fixable:

Jalen Milroe played his worst game as the Alabama Crimson Tide quarterback. Worse than he played in the home loss to Texas last season. He missed easy throws, sailing the ball over his receivers heads or throwing so far behind them that they couldn't even make a play on the ball, like we saw in the game ending interception where he was targeting Germie Bernard.

I know there are a lot of Milroe haters out there. If you are reading this in hopes I'm going to trash him like so many others, it's not going to happen. He was bad yesterday, there's not getting around it. But we've seen what Milroe can do. He led the team to the SEC Championship last season despite his flaws, and until the last two weeks it looked very obvious that he had taken the next step in his progression as a quarterback.

It might sound like a cop out, but I don't think Milroe is completely healthy. He's shouldered the entire offensive burden through the season's first seven games, and that has obviously weighed on him. I think he's looked tentative running the football since the second half against South Carolina a week ago. He hasn't looked like the same explosive player with his legs we saw earlier in the season or the entirity of last season.

Milroe will remain the Crimson Tide's starter moving forward. The calls for Ty Simpson will go unanswered. And we will see a better version of Milroe moving forward, although that might not be a popular opinion among the fanbase right now.

Secondly, Alabama's defense will keep getting better. That doesn't mean it will ever be an elite unit in 2024, but there will be improvement. I'm not sold on Kane Wommack as a play caller, but the defense was far from the issue on Saturday afternoon. The unit pitched a shutout in the first half, forcing three turnovers in the process that the offense netted zero points off of. The defense put the offense in position to put the game away early. It refused.

The defense also made two key fourth quarter stops to put the ball back in the offense's hands with a chance to take the lead and then to tie the game. It did nothing with the opportunities.

Alabama's defense is littered with youth, but those young players will get better the only way they can: with experience. Freshman Jaylen Mbakwe is going to eventually be a star, and he's gotten better each and every time he's had the opportunity.

Now, if Alabama can start playing complimentary football and playing well on both sides of the ball at the same time, then maybe they can still be a really good football team and approach the peak we saw in the first half against Georgia. Otherwise, there's another loss or two left on this schedule.

What isn't fixable:

Penalties have been a problem now for a third straight season. It's hard to blame DeBoer, though fans are certainly trying, for an epidemic that started under Nick Saban. Penalties killed Alabama in Knoxville two years ago, and it bit them hard again on Saturday. The Crimson Tide has been one of the most penalized teams in college football the last three seasons, and that's an issue that is obviously not an overnight fix.

What else isn't an overnight fix is a dormant running game that can't seem to get anything going. I thought coming into the season that Alabama would build an offensive identity around being a power running team with an athletic running QB and two talented running backs.

Unfortunately, Milroe hasn't looked right in two weeks, and neither Jam Miller nor Justice Haynes have found much success when it matters against high level competition. In fairness, South Carolina and Tennessee's defensive lines are probably the two best Alabama will face all season, and perhaps the two best in the entire country, but the Tide is simply too talented up front on the offensive line to have these struggles.

Part of it is the offensive line not getting consistent push, part of it has been inconsistency with the running backs themselves. Jam Miller has the ability to make people miss, but struggles to break free of contact. Justice Haynes can power through contact, but struggles to make anyone miss in one-on-one settings.

Alabama fans wanted more Miller and Haynes last season and less Jase McClellan and Roydell Williams, but we're seeing why Jase and Roydell were ahead on the depth chart.

Alabama's inability to consistently run the football has left the team with no real identity. This can't be the Washington offense of last season that relied on Michael Penix and three NFL WR's. Because Milroe isn't Penix-level as a passer and the WR room isn't as talented as it was in Seattle a year ago. Alabama's No. 2 WR this season was the No. 4 guy at Washington a year ago.

The Crimson Tide can be a good, maybe even a great, football team. We've seen the glimpses. But the flaws are too much to ignore, and they aren't going anywhere. DeBoer and the coaching staff just have to figure out how to work around them.