Under head coach Kalen DeBoer, Alabama has had its fair share of struggles on the road. In his brief career as the Alabama head coach, DeBoer is a perfect 9-0 at home but holds a disappointing 2-5 record away from Bryant-Denny Stadium, which includes a neutral site loss in the bowl game last year.
Things will not get any easier for the Crimson Tide next week when they travel to Georgia to face the No. 5 Bulldogs in the SEC opener. Last season, Alabama escaped with a 41-34 win in Tuscaloosa to snap Georgia’s 42-game regular-season winning streak. Facing the Bulldogs on the road will be a much more challenging task.
In the season opener, Alabama traveled to Florida State, where its road woes from last year continued. At the time, it was an embarrassing loss with a brand new quarterback to start the season. Now, the loss is viewed in a different light, as Florida State has worked its way into the top 10 while Ty Simpson has looked nearly perfect in the last two games.
During the Wednesday SEC coaches teleconference, DeBoer discussed what his team needs to do to avoid its struggles on the road.
“Our preparation just is going to lead to confidence," DeBoer said. “And you've got to know that you've got to weather the storm. The storms that come early, and that, again, you've got to play four quarters of football, and you don’t have the help from the crowd or anything. It’s got to be on you, you and your guys around you. So, take ownership in doing your job right and doing it at a high level and knowing you've got to do it over and over and over again. But there’s going to be adversity, and it’s about the response to adversity. That’s where we've got to be better.”
Over the past two weeks, the Crimson Tide have looked like a completely different team compared to the one we saw in the season opener against Florida State. A 73-0 win over Louisiana-Monroe, followed by a 38-14 dominant win over Wisconsin, has given Alabama some momentum to build on. Now that they have a week off before the marquee matchup against Georgia, the Crimson Tide have to find a way to carry that momentum throughout the bye week and into the SEC opener.
"Guys back in here today, DeBoer said. “We've got to make sure we keep our edge. We just got to continue to be deliberate, be intentional. Those have been some of the common themes that I've stressed to the guys. Whenever we do things, we've got to be moving and operating with a purpose. It's led to just really positive and good body language, effort that's kind of been contagious through our football team. We just got to keep that energy high, we got to understand that we got to keep getting better every single snap we take, whether it's in practice or in the course of a game. It's all about us being our best continuing to improve, and we've done a lot of that over the last two weeks. There's still a higher ceiling left to be had."
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