No. 7 Alabama needs 4th-quarter rally, defensive stand to hold off South Carolina and avoid disaster

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — There are SEC teams who pride themselves on their calm, relentless march to victory, and there are teams who live in chaos, every game an adventure where wins aren’t assured but madness is. Alabama used to be one of the former teams. Now, in the Kalen DeBoer-Jalen Milroe era, it’s very much the latter.

You’d never get a soul within a hundred miles of Tuscaloosa to admit it, but last week’s loss to Vanderbilt rattled the Tide to their core. You could see it in the secondary ticket market, which collapsed in the hours following last week. You could see it in the empty seats all over the upper reaches of Bryant-Denny Stadium on Saturday. And you could see it in the final 97 seconds of the first half, where the Tide defense completely fell apart and allowed 12 points — on three separate possessions — to the visiting South Carolina Gamecocks.

Yes, Alabama won, in a deeply unconvincing 27-25 victory after intercepting South Carolina on a potential winning drive in the final seconds.

The Gamecocks were stopped on a potential game-tying two-point try in the final minute, and they got one more shot when they recovered the ensuing onside kick. But Domani Jackson picked off South Carolina quarterback LaNorris Sellers in the closing seconds to save the day for the Tide.

And wow, are there problems in T-Town.

It makes sense, the Tide’s now-shaken self-image. When you establish your identity on a generational expectation of excellence, you’re not exactly built to handle the sledgehammer-to-the-heart of a loss to Vanderbilt. If the sun rose blue in the west, that’d be pretty upsetting too.

The Tide gathered last Sunday to discuss what DeBoer called “the truth” of what happened against Vanderbilt. But whatever Alabama learned from that meeting, it didn’t stick well enough to thump South Carolina, a 21.5-point underdog coming into Saturday.

Given a chance to redeem itself for that Vanderbilt faceplant with a home game against SC, Alabama once again inexplicably, maddeningly fell far short of expectations. Instead, the Tide did a whole lot to confirm the idea that the crew that hung 28 straight on Georgia was the aberration, and the team that flailed against the Commodores is a whole lot closer to the true 2024 Tide.

Alabama took the opening kickoff on Saturday and proceeded to march 75 yards into the end zone in four minutes even, and for a moment, the Crimson Tide’s fortunes seemed to have turned back in the expected direction. When the Tide took a 14-0 lead with 4:38 left in the first half, well, it wasn’t pretty, but hey, at least it was a two-possession lead, something the Tide never managed against Vanderbilt.

But then came the final 1:37 of the half, 97 seconds which defined this year’s Tide program and probably detonated the Heisman hopes of Alabama QB Jalen Milroe. First, the Alabama defense suffered yet another stunning defensive lapse, allowing Gamecock receiver Mazeo Bennett Jr. to get wide open in the end zone on a fourth-and-9. That cut the lead to 14-7.

On the ensuing possession, Milroe, under pressure, intentionally grounded the ball, resulting in a safety. Alabama forced South Carolina to punt, but Milroe then threw the first of his two interceptions. The clock appeared to run out, but officials put a second back on the timer … and that’s never good news for Alabama. South Carolina kicked a field goal to run out the half and draw within 14-12.

The Gamecocks kept the beat going in the third, grinding out a monstrous 16-play, 85-yard, 8 ½-minute drive that ended in a go-ahead touchdown. The stunned aura of what the hell is happening hung thick over Bryant-Denny Stadium, and when Milroe threw an interception in the end zone on the Tide’s next possession, disbelief veered toward fatalism.

But this is the Alabama of 2024, where nothing goes as expected. The very next play, South Carolina’s Sellers fumbled away the ball, and Alabama flipped it into a touchdown to retake the lead, 20-19, in just 1:23.

Milroe found some redemption by running for that go-ahead 7-yard TD, and later throwing a late, crucial 34-yard score to Germie Bernard on third-and-10 with under two minutes in the game to extend the lead to 27-19.

After the game, Bernard said there was no discussion of stopping short of the goal line, even though Alabama would have been able to kneel out the game. “We just called the play and we executed the play,” Bernard said. “They (the coaches) didn’t say anything about getting down to me.”

In a case of no-good-deed-goes-unpunished, Bernard’s touchdown still wasn’t enough to salt away the game; South Carolina marched the field in 1:11 and scored again on a Nyck Harbor toe-tap touchdown:

… .but unfortunately for South Carolina, Sellers floated the attempted two-point conversion far over his receivers’ hands. With the game score at 27-25 Alabama, South Carolina attempted — and recovered — an onside kick, but that final desperation heave ended up in Jackson’s hands.

Alabama finished the game with 104 rushing yards on 38 carries. Milroe threw for one touchdown and rushed for two more, but also threw two momentum-killing interceptions. Sellers had the better statistical game for SC, going 23-of-31 for 238 yards, two touchdowns and that one final interception. Both teams were sloppy — South Carolina turned the ball over four times, and Alabama two, but the mistakes only led to 6 and 3 points, respectively.

“We always talk about finding a way to win, and as many times as it maybe looked like we weren’t, we did,” DeBoer said. “Very very unified group, that understands that there’s still so much more that we can get better at.”

“Survive and advance” isn’t a phrase you’d often attach to the Crimson Tide, but here we are. Alabama fans, for the moment, can exhale. But they won’t be breathing easy any time soon.