The wonderment about whether there would be a dropoff for the Alabama Crimson Tide after Nick Saban’s retirement is now a reality.
The Tide hadn’t lost to Vanderbilt since 1984 and were the nation’s No. 1 team entering Saturday’s game. And the Commodores won 40-35 in Nashville to post the upset of the season. Two SEC games into coach Kalen DeBoer’s tenure as Saban’s replacement, and he already has the worst possible loss on his coaching resume.
The Alabama Crimson Tide dropped to No. 7 in the rankings but the season certainly isn’t lost. DeBoer, as coaches tend to do, just wants to look forward.
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“I had my part in there, too, where we understood what happened and that it’s not up to our standard and how we had to proceed forward,” DeBoer said Monday. “And so yeah, we were all extremely frustrated. But we aren’t gonna sit and lose our cool because I don’t think that’s the right way to go about it. There’s a time and place for everything.”
The Crimson Tide host South Carolina this Saturday and DeBoer sees the game as a time to get back on the track. With a 12-team playoff, Alabama is in good shape with just one bad loss. But he doesn’t want there to be another.
“We left ourselves a little less wiggle room to achieve some of the goals we have, but those goals are still out there. And we need to just focus on what our whole mindset is, is to always improve every single day.”
Texas back to No. 1, could get Quinn Ewers back for showdown versus Oklahoma
Quinn Ewers has missed the past two games with an oblique injury. He did return to practice last week during the team’s bye but coach Steve Sarkisian is in wait-and-see mode before proclaiming whether or not Ewers will start.
“I thought he looked good coming off the bye,” Sarkisian told reporters. “I think if anybody benefited from the time off, it was probably him. We’re going to monitor him daily just to kind of see how he continues to progress… I feel good about him going into Saturday, but that remains to be seen.”
The Longhorns can feel good even if Ewers isn’t physically ready because Arch Manning stood out in his two starts. Overall, Manning has passed for 901 yards, nine touchdowns, and two interceptions this season.
Navy and Army among the list of undefeated teams entering mid-October
The two service academies are thriving this season with 5-0 starts, something that could make their Dec. 14 matchup into a must-watch game. It is the first time since 1945 that both teams sport 5-0 marks in the same season.
Army’s 49-7 beatdown of Tulsa last weekend gives it the longest winning streak (nine games) in the FBS. Army is a stunning 19-of-20 in the red zone this season with 18 touchdowns and one field goal. The lone miss is when they took kneel-downs to end a win over Temple.
Navy knocked off Air Force 34-7 in a contest in which Eli Heidenreich rushed for 100 yards on six carries and had five receptions for 101 yards. The Midshipmen have a bye this weekend.
Spectacular season of Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty continues to get better
Jeanty rushed for 186 yards and three touchdowns on just 13 carries in one half of play during Saturday’s 62-30 rout of Utah State. It marked the second time Jeanty played just half a game en route to having a nation-best 1,031 yards and 16 rushing scores in just five games.
Jeanty has only carried the ball 95 times for a sparkling 10.9 yards per carry. Jeanty has seven scoring runs of 59 or more yards and has a non-scoring run of 68 yards.
The spectacular season has thrust Jeanty into the role of Heisman Trophy favorite. It also has people wondering if he might approach the best season by a college running back — Oklahoma State’s Barry Sanders gaining a record 2,628 yards and 37 rushing touchdowns in 1988.
Sanders’ bowl game performance isn’t part of his record total. He had 222 against Wyoming in the Holiday Bowl to make it 2,850 in 12 games.