Alabama Football: Nick Saban's 4 Biggest Concerns Entering SEC Play

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The No. 2/3 Alabama football team has had three weeks to gear up for SEC play. It beat a power-five opponent that's looking like a better and better win every week in West Virginia, and then the Crimson Tide had two tune-ups against group-of-five opponents Florida Atlantic and Southern Miss.

As SEC play starts this week with a home game against the Florida Gators (2:30 p.m. CT, CBS), an Alabama team that remains highly ranked in the polls still has plenty to work on.

Here are Nick Saban's four biggest concerns entering conference play.

Play the ball

When looking at Alabama's secondary struggles this year, it hasn't been a matter of positioning. Crimson Tide cornerbacks have been in position to make a play; they just largely haven't done so.

That's on the technique.

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We saw it first on West Virginia wide receiver Kevin White's touchdown grab in the end zone over Bradley Sylve. Sylve was draped all over White, but Sylve's back was turned, and White just made a play.

That issue cropped back up on several throws against the Golden Eagles, especially early on.

"I think that when players are in position to make plays, they need to make those plays," Saban said. "I think a couple of plays that ended up being what you called explosive plays, people are in position to make the play, and their player made the play on the ball."

With a big wide receiver like Florida's Demarcus Robinson coming to town, that technique will be critical.

Getting more players involved on offense

Alabama's offense, at least in the passing game so far, has been Amari Cooper and...Amari Cooper. It's a strategy that has worked so far, as Alabama has averaged 42 points and almost 300 passing yards per game.

But it's one that might not be sustainable in SEC play.

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Cooper tops Alabama's pass-catching list with 33 receptions through three games. Next on the list is Christion Jones with nine. No other receiver has more than six. There have also been only two tight end catches—one to Brian Vogler for five yards, and one to Ty Flournoy-Smith for four.

"I think that there were other opportunities in the game for other guys," Saban said. "Sometimes, we didn't get them the ball. We did have a drop, but I also think that we're really trying to feature the players that we have. So far, what we've tried to do has been effective, and it's worked. A lot of it is going through Amari Cooper."

The Crimson Tide have a plethora of weapons at their disposal, even with wide receiver DeAndrew White's status still uncertain for the game. Tight end O.J. Howard, a preseason favorite by man pundits for the nation's best tight end, has been targeted once and has yet to catch a pass. Receiver Chris Black is explosive with the ball in space.

Cooper is one of the country's top wide receivers, but Alabama would do well to start spreading the ball around a little more.

More physical in the run game

After the Southern Miss game, Nick Saban pointed to a weakness in Alabama's run game, specifically runs up the middle.

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"I think we have to be able to run the ball a little bit more consistently and effectively," Saban said, according to Michael Casagrande of AL.com. "We seem to do pretty well when we run the ball on the perimeter, but our inside running game has not been as good as we'd like for it to be."

Casagrande broke down the numbers, and Saban was right:

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Alabama had 31 carries with the first-team line, 22 were between the tackles and nine tested the edges. Those 22 inside runs averaged 4.6 yards a try while the outside tries netted 11.8 per carry. Both of Alabama's negative running plays came between the tackles in the first half. It opened up more in the third quarter as the eight middle runs went for 51 yards or 6.4 yards a pop.

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Alabama hasn't had elite interior strength since 2012, when Barrett Jones anchored an offensive line flanked by Chance Warmack and Anthony Steen at guards. This year, it's been Ryan Kelly at center with Arie Kouandjio on the left and either Leon Brown or Alphonse Taylor on the right.

The run game is still Alabama's bread and butter, and with a new quarterback under center, the Crimson Tide need that part of their offense to be clicking on all cylinders.

Tackling

By and large, the teams Alabama has played so far have put an emphasis on quick passes in a spread-out attack.

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That changes this week.

The Crimson Tide will face a more pro-style offense with a downhill running game—a dying breed in the SEC. Alabama's linebackers and defensive line will be focused more on playing straight ahead and simply winning those physical battles rather than dealing with motion and misdirection.

"They run the ball a lot more and are good at it," linebacker Trey DePriest said. "They have a real big O-line that knows what they are doing. They push people around, so we have to know what we are doing up front."

The Crimson Tide missed several tackles in the open field against West Virginia, and the Mountaineers had success running the ball early on. It's hard to tell if that was an anomaly because there hasn't been a big enough sample size yet, but Alabama will find that out quickly this week.

And that improvement starts in practice.

"We didn't feel like we tackled very well in the first two games," Saban said. "I thought we tackled much better in the last game.

"We put a big emphasis on how a guy practices because if you start tackling people and taking them to the ground in practice, I think you're going to get a lot of guys banged up—the guys that you're practicing against plus the guys you're playing with. So the emphasis for us is to get yourself in the right position to tackle a guy and thud.

"I thought we did a better job of doing that last week in practice, and I thought we tackled better because of it in the game. I think it's going to be very, very important that we continue to do that because missed tackles and mental errors will just absolutely kill you when it comes to playing good defense."

Marc Torrence is the Alabama lead writer for Bleacher Report. All quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted. All stats come from Alabama notes. All recruiting information comes from 247Sports.

Follow on Twitter @marctorrence.