Alabama doesn\u2019t need to recreate what happened in Tallahassee a year ago to remember what went wrong. Florida State exposed some issues that followed the Tide throughout the season. Saturday isn\u2019t about changing that result. It\u2019s Alabama\u2019s first real opportunity to show just how much it has changed since.<\/p>\n
“I want it to be about us and our improvement in this season,” Tide Coach Kalen DeBoer said Monday. “But any extra motivation, I think the key is to channel that energy into the right things, and that\u2019s our preparation.\u201d<\/p>\n
And Alabama’s latest evidence came when Kentucky made it uncomfortable. Keelon Russell had two turnovers in the Tide’s first two series, including throwing a pick six on the third play of the game. Alabama trailed 17-13 at halftime.<\/p>\n
“I just remember walking out after halftime,” Tide offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb said. “This is going to be huge. It\u2019s either going to be these guys coming out and figuring it out and understanding what it takes to win football games in this conference, or we\u2019re going to have way more work to do than we even think.\u201d<\/p>\n
The offense answered with 32 second-half points. The defense answered, too, tightening up after halftime after continuing a start built on limiting explosive plays.<\/p>\n
“I think we\u2019re building momentum defensively in a few areas from a rushing defense standpoint,” Tide defensive coordinator Kane Wommack said. “I think what we\u2019re doing on third downs is a step in the right direction.\u201d<\/p>\n
That’s the progress Alabama wants this rematch to measure. Not against last year’s score, but against last year’s shortcomings.<\/p>\n
“You think about the Florida State game last year and we got embarrassed in the first game of the season,” Wommack said. “And we saw their absolute best effort and probably the best they played al last season. And I would anticipate we will get their absolute best on Saturday as well.”<\/p>\n
The circumstances couldn\u2019t be much different this time around. Different quarterback, different teams and this one inside Bryant-Denny. But for Alabama, the standard it\u2019s measuring itself against hasn\u2019t changed. Saturday offers another chance to prove it\u2019s closer to meeting it. The Tide and Seminoles kick off Saturday at 2:30 on ABC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alabama doesn\u2019t need to recreate what happened in Tallahassee a year ago to remember what went wrong. Florida…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":400602,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[232,234,233],"class_list":["post-400601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}