An early Monday afternoon Zoom call with reporters was the last stop for Alabama linebacker Christian Harris before hitting the meeting room.
He knew what to expect having already watched the film from the Ole Miss mess. Over and over, the sophomore from Baton Rouge identified the biggest issue from the school-record 647-yard allowance.
“I feel like no question we got to get better working on tackling,” Harris said.
Ole Miss did a good job of complicating that in Alabama’s 63-48 win on a soggy Saturday night. Lane Kiffin’s up-tempo offense will stand in stark contrast to the scheme Alabama will see at 7 p.m. CT Saturday when No. 3 Georgia comes to town but it left this defense at a crossroad.
This was a unit that spoke about restoring pride in what became the foundation of Nick Saban’s dynasty years in Tuscaloosa. There have been a few duds since the 2009 and 2011 national title teams staked claims to the modern era’s most dominant defense but the Ole Miss game was on another level.
RELATED: Nick Saban: Defensive execution, not play calls, have been issue
And lessons came come from the last time an opposing offense did something similar to a Nick Saban defense. Current Georgia coach Kirby Smart was actually the Tide defensive coordinator when Auburn had 630 yards in the 2014 Iron Bowl won by the Tide after bucking down after halftime. It held the Tigers to one second-half touchdown until the closing seconds when the Tide led by 19.
“It was a dog fight,” defensive lineman A’Shawn Robinson said after the 55-44 win over Auburn in 2014. “Coach came in and told us we weren’t doing our job quite well. So we took that really personally and decided we needed to step up and do what we needed to do to get the win.”
The 2020 Alabama defense allowed points on the final six Ole Miss drives — the first four of which were touchdowns. There was a sense of inevitable points every time the home team got the ball on a night only three punts were booted.
Auburn scored on eight of 14 possessions (with four touchdowns) six years ago while Ole Miss was 8-for-10 Saturday with six touchdowns. Kiffin’s group sustained long drives — passing for 379 yards while and running for 268. Auburn did most of its 2014 damage through the air with 456 of the 630 coming via Nick Marshall’s right arm.
There were some egos bruised in both defensive debacles.
“As a defense, of course you never want to see an offense put up those types of numbers, especially when we prepare all throughout the week,” Harris said. “But like I said, we missed tackles, of course that bothers us. They ran on us like crazy — that’s something we really harp on, stopping the run, so of course we want to go out with an edge. We’re going to fix all that this week and prepare for Saturday.”
Linebacker Dylan Moses pointed to mental errors leading to breakdowns.
“We have all the pieces and it shows,” he said. “We just have to communicate better.”
The style with which Ole Miss plays was also a factor, the senior said.
“I know a lot of the guys weren’t used to going fast tempo,” Moses said. “We have a lot of young guys on our defense, for them to get to experience this at the beginning of the season, I feel like this is a great opportunity to learn from it and just get better.”
Saban on Monday pointed more to the execution of the defensive game plan than the plan itself.
It only takes one of the 11 to bust something for the whole house of cards to crumble.
“And when everybody gives ‘my bad’ one time, that’s 11 mistakes,” Saban said, patting his chest. “Well, that can be a lot of yards. And we’ve had some guys that have made multiple mistakes, either have to get fixed or replace them.”
And that hearkens back to Harris’ thoughts about tackling.
It was bad.
“A lot of the tackles we would’ve made, they probably would’ve ended up punting the ball and stopping the drive, helping us get off the field,” Harris said. “If we focus on making tackles and not missing as many as we did, we’ll get off the field. We’ll be better as a defense.”
This isn’t something new or profound.
In fact, defensive coordinator Pete Golding talked about it when asked in August about the criticism he received for Alabama’s play last fall. He said he took this job because of the high expectations, not in spite of them.
Golding said they studied the consistent issues from 2019 and looked for solutions.
“Why and how do we fix it?” Golding said Aug. 20 in his annual preseason news conference. “It’s one thing to understand OK what was it, but how do you fix it? I think that was the biggest thing this offseason in all the studies that we did is make sure we’re going back, ‘Alright, did we have that drill set up? All these missed tackles, a lot of them are in similar situations. Well, did we drill it? Did we put them in the situation? How can we do a better job of coaching and preparing the kids to where we get the product that we want on Saturday?’
“Bottom line, it’s on me. It’s not on anybody else. I’m the defensive coordinator. I’m responsible for the defense. So I’ve got to do a better job of getting them prepared, getting those guys knowing what to do and playing fast.”
The 2014 defense responded by routing a mediocre Missouri offense in a 42-13 SEC championship rout. The No. 16 Tigers never got closer than 14-3 while managing 313 total yards — 54 below its average that ranked 98th nationally.
This Alabama defense will see a more traditional Georgia attack that ranks in the middle of the SEC pack in terms of yardage. First-year starting quarterback Stetson Bennett is exceeding expectations with a Bulldog offense that got stagnant in the Jake Fromm era. Saban noted the Bulldogs’ ability to control a game since it leads the nation in time of possession.
It’s not the chaos machine that Kiffin created but the Bulldogs also bring one of the nation’s best defenses to counter the Tide’s explosive bunch.
Regardless, it’ll be a gut check for an Alabama defense that took more than a few body blows a week earlier. How they respond to the disaster will say a lot more than what put them in timeout originally.
Michael Casagrande is a reporter for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @ByCasagrande or on Facebook.
