Alabama did the punching this time, while ending Georgia's home winning streak

ATHENS, Ga. – A month ago, Alabama was college football’s proverbial punching bag coming off an uninspiring two-touchdown loss to Florida State in the season opener.

The Crimson Tide did the punching on Saturday night at a place where few teams have had the fortitude, poise or talent to even have a chance to counter punch, much less come in and win the game.

There’s a reason Georgia had won 33 straight games at Sanford Stadium, the longest active streak in college football. Heck, the Bulldogs hadn’t lost a home game at night since 2009, way back before Kirby Smart was even coaching his alma mater.

So let that sink in when processing Alabama’s 24-21 win over Georgia in the kind of hostile environment that typically chews up and spits out opposing teams.

But not this Alabama team, a team that looked nothing like the one that bowed meekly to FSU back on Aug. 30. This Alabama team jumped out to a 14-0 lead, played clean football, was a step ahead of Georgia the whole night, made clutch fourth-down stops on defense, tossed a lateral to its 366-pound offensive tackle and put the game away with a perfectly designed (and executed) swing pass to running back Jam Miller on a third-and-5 play.

But here’s the real catch: In a venue where Georgia had long been the bully, it was Alabama that was the bully in quieting some of the noise that engulfed Kalen DeBoer and the Crimson Tide’s proud program to open the season.

“It’s a mindset going in, especially against a team like this, that you’re going to get punches thrown at you,” DeBoer said. “You’re going to take some. You’re going to get some, and we got some tonight, and it’s, ‘What is your response going to be?’ And our response was to punch back and punch back harder.”

That was the rub with many Alabama fans coming out of the FSU loss, and not only that loss, but all four of the Crimson Tide’s losses away from home last season in Year 1 under DeBoer.

They didn’t always punch back.

“I think fans take it to heart,” said junior offensive tackle Kadyn Proctor, who split out wide and bulled his way 11 yards with a lateral to set up Alabama’s third touchdown just before halftime, a 2-yard run by quarterback Ty Simpson.

“I mean, they go crazy after one loss. They’re used to us winning, so I get that, and we just didn’t play like ourselves (against FSU). I see why the fans get mad. We were mad at ourselves.”

Of course, it’s one thing to get mad. It’s another to do something about it, and DeBoer said the Crimson Tide needed to sharpen their edge. They needed to be more intentional in everything they did, on the practice field and in games.

That’s been painfully obvious to their last three opponents, and DeBoer is eager to see where it goes from here in what’s shaping up to be a wild season in the SEC and all across college football. This weekend was the first time since 2016 that three top-10 teams lost in the same week.

“I think there’s a toughness that’s being built,” said DeBoer, who’s now 7-1 against top-10 opponents in his career, the best mark among active coaches (minimum five games).

“I don’t think we’re there yet. I think there’s things that we can do better, but we talked about the mental, physical and emotional toughness that it was going to take. That was one of the first things we put on the keys to victory at the beginning of the week. … There’s a toughness that our guys are building on, and we’ve still got a long ways to go.”

As the calendar flips to October, good luck in figuring out what we’ve seen to this point.

Alabama looked listless to open the season against Florida State, which lost on Friday to Virginia. Georgia won at Tennessee two weeks ago in overtime. Tennessee survived in overtime against a vastly improved Mississippi State team that was 2-10 a year ago. Ole Miss is unbeaten with its backup quarterback after taking down LSU. Auburn is 0-2 in the SEC. Oklahoma is 4-0 overall, but quarterback John Mateer is out for a few weeks.

And Vanderbilt, which plays at Alabama next week, is 5-0 for the first time since 2008 and has outscored its last four opponents by a 103-26 margin in the second half.

In short, as two different coaches told On3 even before Saturday, it’s the closest the SEC has been to the NFL, in terms of parity, maybe ever.

“It’s going to be like this every week, and if you’re not prepared to play your best game every week, you’re probably going to lose,” said Miller, who played for the first time all season after injuring his collarbone in the preseason.

He was the workhorse for Alabama in its game-sealing drive after the Crimson Tide were pinned back at their own 12 and never gave the ball back to the Bulldogs.

Defensive tackle Tim Keenan III was also playing for the first time this season after suffering a high ankle sprain in the preseason and undergoing tightrope surgery.

So this was the healthiest team Alabama had put on the field all season, and staying healthy will be as important as anything as different teams get hot over what will be a 16-game grind for the two teams that make the national title game.

For DeBoer, he mentioned several times Saturday night the importance of sustaining the growth and bite-back personality Alabama has shown since its disappointing opener.

While nobody on Alabama’s team was spared, DeBoer was the most frequent target, and much of that comes with the territory when you’re replacing a legend like Nick Saban.

“We took everything that was out there and channeled the energy into us being better and getting better,” said DeBoer, explaining the main difference in his team to start the season and the team that punched its way to his biggest win yet at Alabama on Saturday night.

“There are two things you can do when things are coming down on you a little bit. You can go back yourself in a corner or you can fight. And these guys have made up their minds that they’re going to fight, and the staff is doing the same thing,”

Equally important, DeBoer said, is that neither he nor the players “forget that chip on the shoulder that kind of got this momentum going. We’ve got to understand what it took mentally, physically and emotionally to be able to sustain from start to finish and not just 30 minutes. It’s 60 minutes.”

The question(s) now: Can Alabama sustain that energy? Can it sustain the passion, and not just for the season or the game, but for each play, the way it did there at the end of the game against Georgia when it was churning out those first downs to end the game?

“That’s something we weren’t doing in fall camp, that’s not something we were doing at the beginning of the season, at the end of the game, maybe we did at the beginning of the game, the first drive against Florida State,” DeBoer said. “But we weren’t doing that in the second half like we did today.”

The best part for Alabama, according to junior safety Keon Sabb, is that the Tide’s best is still out there.

“You could it see it coming, that we were getting better and better,” Sabb said. “We’re not close to where we will be.”

For starters, the Tide gave up 227 rushing yards. They allowed 230 yards on the ground in the loss to Florida State. But when Alabama needed a play on defense, LT Overton and Deontae Lawson were there to make it when Georgia, inside the Alabama 10, decided to go for it on fourth-and-1 at the Alabama 8. Georgia’s Cash Jones was tripped up trying to run wide right, and Alabama held on to its 24-21 lead and quieted the crowd.

“It takes complementary football, and I can’t say enough about our defense,” Simpson said. “I can’t say enough about our whole team. It’s us against the world.”

Simpson received way too much blame in the loss to FSU. But he never panicked, took a look inward and came out and played like a champ against Georgia in his first SEC road start. He finished 24-of-38 for 276 yards and two touchdowns. He didn’t throw an interception, wasn’t sacked and also rushed for a touchdown.

“That chip on our shoulder isn’t going anywhere,” Simpson said.