It was homecoming for the University of Alabama, and yet the Crimson Tide couldn’t have felt more homesick.

The Oklahoma Sooners walked into Tuscaloosa and broke the hearts of 100,000 Alabama students and fans on Saban Field at Bryant-Denny Stadium, by winning 23-21.

The Sooners, who seem to be Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer’s kryptonite, had themselves a field day, especially the defense, who converted three turnovers, even after getting beaten in total yards 406-212, and on first downs 23-12.

In an ugly game that certainly will bring Alabama down in the rankings (and put the Tide’s season in the hands of the Auburn Tigers at Jordan-Hare Stadium), we have a lot of thoughts on what happened last night. 

Kicking Miscues

I’m not looking to harp on Alabama kicker Conor Talty. He’s been on the receiving end of plenty of social media backfire after last night.

He’s just a kid, so you want to be careful about what you’re saying about him before you actually say it.

At the end of the first half, Oklahoma had led the game 17-14, and the Tide marched down the field in hopes to at least tie the game. Alabama did a solid job at putting the ball in position to at least do that, but Talty went wide left with a 36-yard kick – and it wasn’t even close.

Long snapper David Bird sent the ball higher than normal, but holder Blake Doud did a solid job at recovering and giving Talty a good enough hold to make the kick.

After the miss, Talty was caught on camera pointing and chewing out Bird as Bird jogged past him, not even acknowledging it.

Rarely, if at all, do you see a kicker directly snap at a long snapper because the snap was off. 

There have been plenty of bad snaps in the history of football, and while Bird did send it higher than we’re used to seeing, it was very much salvageable.

Frustration is certainly mounting for the redshirt sophomore, but there’s no reason to target someone else for your own miscues.

Talty was one of the top kickers in the nation when he was recruited in 2023, so the talent is there, but there’s work that needs to be done.

In the meantime, what’s stopping DeBoer from turning to his true freshman kicker Peter Notaro?

Simpson’s Continued Struggles

It’s starting to seem like defenses are figuring out Ty Simpson.

Because his efficiency is at an all time low. In terms of his completion percentage, his 66% performance looked good on paper, but in five straight games now, Simpson has fumbled the ball.

Not only that, it felt inevitable, but Simpson finally threw his second interception of the season. Announcers kept touting him with only one pick of the season, leaving the door wide open for the proverbial “announcers jinx.”

But even aside from that, Simpson has looked off. We mentioned it in our “takeaways” piece from last week’s game against LSU, but whatever we saw from Weeks 2-7, a major step back was taken.

His accuracy has been off, throws that he usually makes are either incomplete or in danger of being picked off, and he’s starting to become a true victim of pressure.

Perhaps the offensive line can be better at protecting him, but Simpson has shown that pressure hardly has broken him, until recently.

All you need to do is see this throw that was way above Germie Bernard with seven minutes left in the second quarter to see that something was off schematically.

Granted, that drive resulted in a Josh Cuevas touchdown, but there was another throw pointed toward Bernard later in the game where the timing was off.

Feed Daniel Hill

The running back room is currently an anomaly.

It’s understood why DeBoer doesn’t want to leave senior running back Jam Miller out to dry, but it’s getting to the point where Miller hasn’t been what Alabama has needed him to be this season.

Perhaps you can tack it on as Miller undergoing an injury-plagued season, but Daniel Hill is a guy that the Tide need to continue to feed.

We started to see his carries dip as the game wore on, with DeBoer opting to split carries between Hill and Miller, which wasn’t ideal for the run game. 

Hill is a mammoth of a man, standing at 244 pounds, so perhaps it’s a stamina issue, and that Hill was starting to slow down. But given the issues that we’ve seen out of Miller, why not give guys like Kevin Riley an extended look, or even freshman AK Dear who we speculated could see the field last night, but ultimately didn’t.

It’s still a guessing game that we’re going to continue to play with Alabama’s run game.