Game Day Q&A With Roll Bama Roll

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Longtime readers of this site will know that while we here at Dawg Sports love all our fellow SB Nation sister sites, but that we have a special place in our hearts for the crew over at Roll Bama Roll, SB Nation’s home for Alabama Crimson Tide coverage. The reasons for that are numerous. For one, they have a southern fried football sensibility that meshes well with our own. Two, they take the game as seriously as we do, and have seen enough good and bad to know how special it is to root for a championship football team. And third, the writers over there are uniformly knowledgeable about Crimson Tide football in a way that only true fans can be.

So it’s a happy accident (or maybe an inevitable reality) that our two obsessive fanbases have watched our respective finely-tuned football programs face off in high stakes football games side by side almost annually for over a decade. As best I can tell the first of these opponent Q&As with RBR occurred during this site’s first full season of operations in 2007. It’s always a pleasure to participate, and always informative to read.

This time out I was joined by RBR editor and longtime friend Brent Taylor, who knows as much about Crimson Tide football as anyone who isn’t named Kalen and didn’t use to coach at the University of Washington. And to be fair, that guy could learn a thing or two if he’d just let Brent bend his ear now and then.I hope you’ll enjoy Brent’s insights as much as I did.

MD: Is it safe to say Keelon Russell has answered the questions surrounding him early in the year? Just how excited are Bama fans about his ceiling, and how can Georgia hope to contain him?

Brent: I was questioning him HARD the first 2.25 games. Even with the Tide scoring plenty and him putting up numbers, I wasn’t sold because all of his plays were scramble drill type of stuff. 

Something flipped during the FSU game, though, and since then Russell has been operating a passing game on time and navigating within a pocket like a maestro.

He was the highest ranked recruit that Alabama has ever signed for a reason: he’s got it all. Pocket presence, decision making, incredible arm and accuracy, and extremely fast. 

The ceiling is a Heisman and a #1 overall selection in two years. But he’s got to prove it with consistency. 

Biggest keys for containing him are 1) that your DL cant get selfish going for sacks or he’ll just slip right through rushing lanes, and 2) Kentucky did a good job against him, mostly by blitzing relentlessly. He’s started to beat that more against further opponents, but its still the only thing that’s worked so far.

MD: It seems like it’s been a solid two weeks since I’ve seen an Alabama fan on Twitter declare that Kalen DeBoer just isn’t the man for the job in Tuscaloosa. Is there any factual scenario under which he’s in any job jeopardy in 2026?

Brent: Unless we finish the regular season with 4+ losses (basically losing out from here), DeBoer’s job is not in jeopardy. We’re relentless critics as Alabama fans, so there’s grumbling about literally everything. And we’re also great at revisionist history and acting like Nick Saban never had a bad game. 

MD: The Crimson Tide defense is generating turnovers at an alarming, SEC-leading rate. How are they doing that, and can they keep it up?

Brent: As always, turnovers are somewhat luck. Two of MSUs turnovers were ones where Kamarion Taylor just inexplicably dropped the ball ans one where he got a little pressure in his face but missed his man terribly. Still, the Alabama defense has been great at dropping into flat and hook zones with some deception, and they’ve racked up some picks doing that (and turning them into scores). So I think the Tide will continue to be one of the better teams in the country at forcing turnovers, but it will probably regress a bit from the pace we’ve been on.

MD: It seems like only ten months ago that these teams were meeting in the Benz and the Georgia defense was making Ty Simpson revisit his every life choice. What are the biggest differences between that team and the one that will take the field in Tuscaloosa on Saturday playing as well as anyone in the country?

Brent: The offensive line is night and day from the disaster we had on the field a year ago. Its been totally overhauled (4/5 new players and a new coach), and that change had been the catalyst for Alabama looking like a legitimate contender. The coaching effort, and attention to detail are just leagues above a year ago, and its pretty much that simple.

On the other side of the ball, the defensive line also got overhauled, and they’re playing with a lot more consistency than last year as well. 

MD: I would argue that there are no “under the radar” players at a program followed as closely as Bama’s. But to the extent you can, tell me one player on the Tide roster Bulldog fans haven’t heard of yet but who could make a huge impact on Saturday.

Brent: TE Josh Ford is my pick. He transferred in from Oklahoma State, and, in my opinion, epitomizes and has maybe even led the identity change in the Alabama offense to a physical blocking team. Ford isn’t much of a pass catcher, but holy moly is he a powerful and aggressive blocker. 

MD: Fill in the blanks: Georgia is in trouble in this game if they _____. Alabama is in danger if they ____.

Brent: I think this hinges on the same answer: Georgia passing the ball downfield. 

If the Bulldogs cant get a medium-to-deep passing game going, then the Alabama defense has been excellent at run stuffing and defending the short passing game. Plus Keelon Russell and the Tide rushing attack has just felt inevitable.

However, Alabama has struggled with downfield coverage issues intermittently all season, so if Gunner Stockton can take advantage of that, get the lead, and get the Tide out of boa constrictor mode, then we don’t know how the offense might respond.

MD: Because we must: what’s your score prediction?

Brent: My optimism for the Tide the last two weeks has really increased, but that SEC Championship performance (or lack thereof) still lingers in my psyche. Georgia is tough for me because they’ve looked like the best team in the country to this point, but have done so with a faily weak early schedule and are relatively untested. 

My head says Alabama has a good chance of winning (like 55%), but my heart isn’t ready for that. Let’s go 35-31 UGA.

thanks as always to Brent for his insightful responses. If you’d like, you can take a look at my responses to questions Brent posed over at Bama roll. Until later… thanks as always to Brent for his insightful responses. If you’d like, you can take a look at my responses to questions Brent posed over at Roll Bama Roll. Until later…

Go Dawgs!!!

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