Alabama football coaches believe a fast start will be key at LSU

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Alabama passed its first road test of the season with flying colors in September in Wisconsin. But the Crimson Tide's next two road games, both in SEC play, resulted in losses at Vanderbilt and Tennessee.

Now No. 11 Alabama faces a must-win game at No. 14 LSU on Saturday if the Crimson Tide wants to keep its College Football Playoff hopes alive. Traditionally, Tiger Stadium is one of the most difficult places to be in college football at night, but Alabama has a 29-10-3 record in Baton Rouge and has won six of its last eight games at LSU.

Alabama's best half of the season on offense came in the first half against Georgia, when the Crimson Tide were fresh off their first bye week and had a 30-7 halftime lead over the Bulldogs. The Crimson Tide scored touchdowns on their first four offensive possessions of the game, the only time they did so in eight games this season. In fact, the Georgia and South Carolina games are the only two games this season in which Alabama's offensive offense has even scored.

Crimson Tide offensive coordinator Nick Sheridan believes a fast start will be crucial for Alabama this weekend in a hostile road environment at LSU if the Crimson Tide wants to have more success on the road.

“Especially when you're on the road and dealing with crowds and things like that, I think it's always beneficial to be able to get off to a good start, but definitely when you're on the road,” Sheridan said Monday.

In the Vanderbilt loss, Alabama fell behind 13-0 after the Commodores opened the game with a game-changing 10-play, 75-yard drive, immediately followed by a deflected ball that Vanderbilt returned 29 yards for a touchdown. Alabama found a rhythm on offense, but the opening period deficit proved too great to overcome.

Against Tennessee, Alabama decided to take the ball first after winning the first coin toss in hopes of avoiding what happened at Vanderbilt. Instead, the offense simply went backwards on the first possession with two negative plays and a penalty, leading to a three-and-out. Although the Crimson Tide led 7-0 at halftime, they missed several opportunities to build a larger lead in the first half and ultimately failed to open the game with a bang that helped silence the opposing crowd.

“In an environment like we're going to see at LSU, you just can't dig yourself into a hole, especially to give your opponent momentum,” Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer said Monday. “So it’s critically important. We preach it every day. We even try to set up our training so that we start quickly, whether on offense or defense. And we haven't been able to do that in the last two away games, as you mentioned.” So the focus is always on that, but basically what it comes down to is that for the boys it's just about doing things that you're good at, and then implement them.”

Alabama had four pre-snap penalties on offense in the first half alone against Tennessee, which continually put the Crimson Tide in an awkward position. Sheridan said the offense has learned from dealing with the crowd noise at Neyland Stadium as it prepares for another loud game in Death Valley this weekend.

“If you look at the opportunities we had away from home, we need to play better and I think it comes down to just execution,” Sheridan said. “I think by making sure that as a team we enable them to play quickly and confidently because you have to deal with other factors in the game, the noise of the crowd, etc., so we make sure that we keep it simple enough.” I think that's going to be important for our guys to be able to execute and get their jobs done.

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