BamaCentral 22 for '22: What is Alabama’s Biggest Strength for the Coming Season?

There's a lot of buzz surrounding the Crimson Tide on both offense and defense for the upcoming year.

After falling one win short of adding a 19th national title last season, Alabama will look to rebound and take the next step this year. The Crimson Tide returns a loaded roster, including reigning Heisman winner Bryce Young and a rebuilt offense as well as one of the most talented defenses in the Nick Saban era.

Alabama will open its season on Sept. 3 when it hosts Utah State inside Bryant-Denny Stadium. To help pass the time, BamaCentral’s Joey Blackwell, Tony Tsoukalas and Katie Windham will discuss 22 topics and questions concerning the 2022 season.

We continue our ongoing series with today's question: What is Alabama’s biggest strength for the coming season?

Blackwell's take

When taking a broad look at what could be Alabama’s biggest strength in 2022, it was difficult for this writer to find one specific item that could be its bread and butter.

That is, until I remembered the A-Day Game.

In the lopsided spring scrimmage that saw the first-team defense decimate the first-team offense, one particular aspect rose to the top: Alabama’s pass rush.

At A-Day, both the Crimson team and the White combined for 15 total sacks and 10 additional quarterback hurries. Outside linebacker Will Anderson Jr. picked up two sacks despite not playing in the second half, Dallas Turner led the first-team defense with three sacks and defensive tackle Jamil Burroughs recorded his own pair of sacks.

After the scrimmage, Anderson was quick to talk up his comrades and their abilities as pass rushers.

“I think this year is going to be something special,” Anderson said. “I think you guys talk about the 2016 defense pass rush, I feel like you guys are definitely are getting ready to see that again.”

Alabama returns a plethora of experience to its pass rush this season, with junior defensive ends Burroughs and Byron Young joining senior end Justin Eboigbe. At nose guard, senior D.J. Dale and junior Tim Smith also come back for 2022.

Combine the Crimson Tide’s talented defensive line with the likes of Anderson and Turner — and let’s not forget talented linebackers Chris Braswell and Henry To’oTo’o — and this could be the best pass rush that we’ve seen in Tuscaloosa in quite some time.

Tsoukalas' take

Alabama returns the reigning Heisman Trophy winner, college football’s top pass-rushing duo and one of the deepest stables of running backs in the nation. There’s an argument to be made that each one of those areas could be classified as the Crimson Tide’s biggest strength this year. However, I’m going with none of the above. 

Talent hasn’t been the best indicator of success when it comes to determining Alabama’s title-winning teams. The 2010 and 2019 teams were two of the most stacked units the Crimson Tide has assembled. They combined for five losses — a fifth of Nick Saban’s total defeats during his 15 seasons at Alabama. 

Instead, the common bond among the Crimson Tide’s championship teams has been their drive off the field. 

The 2009 team earned Saban’s first title at Alabama after coming off crushing back-to-back losses to Florida and Utah the season before. Similarly, the 2011 unit bounced back from a disappointing 2010 campaign while also rallying behind the city following the April 27 storms that year. 

While Alabama was able to repeat in 2012, its next three titles came from teams fueled by a bit of built-up motivation. The 2015 unit was written off early in the year after losing to Ole Miss while the 2017 team avenged a last-second defeat to Clemson in the national championship game the season before. The 2020 team is arguably the best college football has ever seen. It was led by a group of returning leaders looking to erase the taste of a two-loss regular season the year before. 

Fortunately for Alabama, this year’s unit carries a similar chip on its shoulder. Following a disappointing loss to Georgia in last season’s national championship game, the Crimson Tide appeared to enter the spring with an added level of focus. 

Alabama returns two team captains in Young and Will Anderson Jr. It also saw key pieces such as Henry To’o To’o and Jordan Battle return for their senior seasons looking to end their college careers on top. 

If history is any indication, that feeling of unfinished business figures to deliver positive results this fall. 

“I feel like that’s something that fuels us individually,” Battle said this spring. “That’s something that comes with the Bama Standard. Coming to Bama, that’s what’s instilled in you. You want to win, and if you don’t win, you’re still hungry for more.”

Windham's take

With all that Nick Saban has accomplished at Alabama over the last 15 seasons, there aren’t many “firsts” that happen anymore. But this season, for the first time, Alabama will have the returning Heisman trophy winner under center because Bryce Young became the Crimson Tide’s first quarterback to win the Heisman last year.

The offense lost a lot in the offseason— top three wide receivers, top running back, and two starters on the offensive line. Alabama was able to replace a lot of that loss with help from the transfer portal with the likes of Jermaine Burton, Jahmyr Gibbs, Tyler Steen and Tyler Harrell, plus has younger talent already in the program developing, but all the new faces will still have to gel together on offense. And there’s no better player to have leading them than Young.

Having this type of talent and experience returning at quarterback is huge. So while it might seem quite obvious, Young is no doubt the biggest strength for Alabama this season in my opinion. Like Tony pointed out, he’s also a returning captain, and his teammates appear to respect his leadership ability and style, even if he is on the more reserved side.

As we talked about last week, Young has the chance to further cement his name in the Crimson Tide record books this season if he can replicate his stats from a season ago. But more importantly Young can lead Alabama to a national title, which is always the ultimate goal for any Crimson Tide team.

Even in a moment of great disappointment and frustration, Saban realized how important Young would be for the future of this team and program in the moments after Alabama’s loss to Georgia in the national championship back in January. In the viral moment, Saban stopped the press conference as Young and Will Anderson Jr. were getting up to leave.

“They're not defined by one game,” Saban said. “They played great for us all year. They were great competitors, great leaders on this team, and they contributed tremendously to the success of this team. And we would not be here without them. And both of them take responsibility for the loss, but both of them contributed in a lot of ways, in a positive way, to giving us a chance to win and a chance to be here to have an opportunity to win. So, I just want to thank them for that and let everybody know how proud I am of these two guys.”

Message received. Ever since January, Saban is ready to build this 2022 team on the foundation of Anderson and Young. 

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