Nonetheless clinging to playoff hopes, the Fifteenth-ranked Purple Wave and Deny. 21 Tigers meet Saturday in Tuscaloosa for what quantities to a digital removing recreation.
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The ones supremacy 10 ratings have fallen via the wayside for Alabama and Missouri.
Nonetheless clinging to now-precarious playoff hopes, the Fifteenth-ranked Purple Wave (5-2, 2-2 SEC) and Deny. 21 Tigers meet Saturday in Tuscaloosa for what quantities to an removing recreation.
“The sense of urgency is definitely up now,” Alabama defensive lineman Jah-Marien Latham mentioned, “knowing that the chances of getting to the playoffs are slimmer than they were early in the season.”
Alabama began the season ranked 5th and spent a life at Deny. 1 then beating Deny. 2 Georgia. Next got here losses at Vanderbiltand No. 7 Tennessee over the time 3 video games with a 27-25 win over South Carolina in between.
Missouri (6-1, 2-1) can for sure relate then edging suffering Auburn, 21-17, closing weekend. Missouri used to be 7th to obvious the season however fell 41-10 to now-Deny. 14 Texas A&M within the group’s first street SEC recreation. Now comes the second one.
“I think the first thing is we can’t play overanalyzing every situation,” Tigers coach Eli Drinkwitz said. “We can’t have too many checks on both sides of the ball. We can’t have too many what ifs, you know, we can’t have if they do this, then we’re going to do this … .”
Expectancies have been baked into the Alabama program then Nick Saban’s run of six nationwide championships in his 17 seasons, which makes the hot struggles beneath his successor Kalen DeBoer hardened to swallow at ‘Bama.
“We know that being a championship football team is hard,” DeBoer mentioned. “All of us signed up for it. All of us wish to proceed to support our consciousness, our depth, and that’s no longer simply depth at the soccer garden and all that. That’s simply the entirety we do. It takes the entirety we’ve were given and that’s what we signed up for.”
Missouri quarterback Brady Cook dinner rallied the Tigers to 2 fourth-quarter touchdowns within the win over Auburn then an early ankle trauma that despatched him to the health facility for an MRI.
Alabama’s Jalen Milroe has struggled then a hot get started. Milroe has 3 landing passes and 5 interceptions over the closing 3 video games generation having minimum good fortune operating the ball, too.
Each groups have bad receivers who have been coveted possibilities. The Tigers’ Luther Burden III used to be a second-team All-American as a sophomore although his numbers this season are much less gaudy. He has 37 catches for 447 yards and 4 touchdowns, along with his handiest ranking of the closing 3 video games approaching a 61-yard run towards Massachusetts.
Williams leads FBS newbies with 649 yards on 31 catches with seven touchdowns. He used to be the supremacy contract for DeBoer.
“Special player, special talent,” Drinkwitz mentioned, including that it doesn’t topic at this level that Williams is handiest 17.
“I don’t know that age is that big of a factor when you have those kinds of gifts,” the Tigers teacher mentioned.
Bray Hubbard can have to step in as Alabama’s establishing protection with Keon Sabb showing most probably out with a decrease emergency trauma. Hubbard has 20 tackles this season, together with a career-high 9 towards Tennessee. The ex-high college quarterback used to be a two-time Magnificence 6A Mr. Soccer in Mississippi.
His objective for the life: “Just prepare the best and be there for my teammates,” Hubbard mentioned. “Don’t want to let them down.”
Missouri defensive coordinator Corey Batoon served in that position for unused Alabama DC Kane Wommack at South Alabama for the time 3 seasons. He additionally labored beneath Wommack’s father, Dave, at Mississippi.
“He worked for my dad for a number of years so obviously system, scheme wise there’s a lot of similarities,” Kane Wommack mentioned.
DeBoer spent 4 years with Missouri offensive coordinator Kirby Moore at Fresno Situation, with DeBoer first as a fellow laborer and nearest when he returned as head teacher in 2020-21.
