Alabama Football: 3 Things Standing in the Way of an SEC Championship

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — It's not a stretch to say that Alabama's 2014 SEC Championship was a surprise.

Between the talent it was replacing on both sides of the ball and breaking in a new quarterback, few saw Atlanta as a likely early-December destination for the Crimson Tide, let alone their bringing home the hardware they did.

But Alabama rode Blake Sims and Amari Cooper all the way there, ultimately earning a spot in the College Football Playoff.

A return trip won't be so easy, either. Here are three things standing in Alabama's way right now.

Quarterback play

At the end of the day, Alabama isn’t going to get much done with average or below-average quarterback play.

There was a time where the Crimson Tide could put up a brick wall on defense and grind teams to a fine dust in the run game on offense and go undefeated, but that time is no more.

Butch Dill/Associated Press

Alabama showed last year that you need to score points to win in the present-day SEC, and to score points, you need high-level quarterback play.

By now, the quarterback rundown is pretty well-known: Jake Coker is still the favorite, while David Cornwell separated himself during spring practice.

A big-name graduate transfer like Braxton Miller (or now, Everett Golson) would be welcome, as head coach Nick Saban himself has said, but that would only be icing on the cake.

The next couple of months will be critical for quarterback development. The players can’t go through any sort of organized on-field work with coaches but can continue to study the playbook and learn the offense inside and out so they can hit the ground running in fall camp.

There won’t be much in the way of tangible updates as far as the quarterbacks are concerned this offseason. Any sort of improvement won’t be evident until fall camp kicks off in August.

Secondary cohesion

Alabama’s Achilles' heel down the stretch of last season was its pass defense, or lack thereof.

In the Crimson Tide’s last four games against Power 5 teams, it gave up an average of 318.5 passing yards per game, including 456 in the Iron Bowl.

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The good news is that even with the departure of Landon Collins, Alabama appears to have the makings of a strong secondary.

Cyrus Jones developed into one of the better corners in the SEC last year, while Tony Brown will be better opposite him after his true freshman season.

Eddie Jackson’s move to safety gave that group more consistency and experience. He and Geno Smith could form a formidable duo on the back end. Safety Hootie Jones will also be better in Year 2, while true freshman Ronnie Harrison drew rave reviews during spring practice. Maurice Smith is also a versatile defender who can play in a lot of spots in the secondary.

Among those seven, Saban and new defensive backs coach Mel Tucker have plenty of talented options around which to mold their secondary. Even against wide-open passing teams like Texas A&M, Alabama will have the firepower necessary to counter.

Now, it’s a matter of getting that group to work as a unit to cut down on the big plays Alabama gave up last year.

Attitude

Alabama is always going to be the most talented team in the country. That’s not exactly a state secret. The Crimson Tide’s five straight No. 1 recruiting classes have stockpiled the cupboards for Saban and his staff.

Jonathan Bachman/Associated Press

But what determines Alabama’s success is what that talent does with the knowledge that it’s the best. It can become easy to feel entitled, a word Saban likes to use when talking about handling success.

He’s already been lamenting about it this offseason.

“I think we’ve got too many people worried about winning and losing and not enough about what we need to do to play our best and be our best all the time, be physical and aggressive,” Saban told reporters in Dothan, Alabama, last week, according to Ken Rogers of the Dothan Eagle. “That’s what we need to get back to. That’s what I’d like for our expectation to be.”

The difference between Alabama’s national championship teams and those of the last two years has been a lack of killer instinct. The teams with BCS rings played almost with a chip on their shoulder.

Less than half of Alabama’s current roster knows what it’s like to taste that kind of success. The Crimson Tide need to get their edge back.

Marc Torrence is the Alabama lead writer for Bleacher Report. All quotes and reporting were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.

Follow on Twitter @marctorrence.