TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – No. 4 Alabama defeated South Florida by a score of 42-16 at home after formally dedicating Saban Field at Bryant-Denny Stadium.
A defensive slug fest to start, Alabama tacked on 4 fourth quarter touchdowns to be able to pull away from a Bulls team that stuck around by virtue of 3 takeaways.
Once again, Ryan Williams was the standout receiver for the Tide, as he was targeted throughout the night a total of seven times, drew pass interference calls, and hauled in a touchdown to kick off the rout. Despite a slow start, Jam Miller ran wild in the fourth quarter, finishing with 140 yards on the night with only 15 rushing attempts. On the other side, South Florida struggled in the passing game all night, as Byrum Brown only threw for 103 total yards at a 43 percent completion rate. However, he kept the Bulls in the game with his legs, running for 108 yards on 23 attempts.
Despite giving credit to USF for hanging around most of the game, Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer emphasized that “if we just keep fighting, good things can happen.” Additionally, Coach DeBoer placed a premium on making sure that “everyone’s held accountable.”
Most of the Tide’s woes came from an early inability to run the ball, coupled with a fistful of penalties that ended in a final stat line of 13 penalties for 120 yards. Two touchdowns were taken off the board due to offensive holding calls, and many drives stalled on third down due to the lengthy distance that was consistently needed to move the chains. To Alabama’s credit, they managed to clean up the penalties in the fourth quarter, allowing for the explosive scoring nature that was seen in the previous game against Western Kentucky.
For linebacker Jihaad Campbell, the defense’s success came from being able to “take it back to fundamentals and techniques.”
Even though South Florida was handed a short field a couple of times because of untimely fumbles, the Crimson Tide defense never fully broke and was incredibly stingy – forcing multiple field goal attempts and only surrendering one touchdown. The Bulls were also unable to extend drives due to the Alabama defense not allowing third and fourth down conversions, ending in lockdown lines of 2-18 and 0-2, respectively.
“There’s so much more we can grow and become as an offense,” said quarterback Jalen Milroe.
Even though it might not have been pretty from start to finish, the Alabama offense was still able to put up 42 points on a team that had held them to only 150 yards through about 2.5 quarters of play. However, the offensive resilience seen against USF will be more important than ever next week for when they will need to go blow for blow on the road against Tyler Van Dyke and the Wisconsin Badgers. There, the Tide will look to exploit a Big Ten Badger defense that has allowed less than 150 passing yards a game and allows less than 25 percent of third downs to be converted so far this season.
Alabama will square-off against Wisconsin on Saturday, September 14 on FOX in the Crimson Tide’s first road game of the season.
