The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: Alabama at Arkansas

The final word on Alabama's 52-3 victory in Fayetteville to wrap up a perfect 10-0 regular season for the Crimson Tide

Remember when the Alabama football team had a basketball score against Ole Miss, 63-48?

Yes, that was this season. The secondary was young, the tackling sloppy and the Crimson Tide's former offensive coordinator had no problem putting his inside knowledge to good use. 

Now look at the Alabama defense. 

At Arkansas on Saturday, it notched a season-high eight sacks. Coming into the game, it had just 19, and five were from the previous week at LSU. 

With the unit continuing to make strides, Alabama leads the SEC is scoring defense (16.8 points), is third in total defense, third in rushing defense, and is first passing-efficiency defense.

It's fifth in third-down conversions, second in sacks, and, here's the big one, leads the league in turnover margin at plus-nine. 

“I think early on, we had four out of five new starters in the secondary and some young guys playing up front on defense," Nick Saban said during a teleconference with reporters Sunday. "I think their confidence in knowing what the expectation was in terms of what we were supposed to do as a defensive team was not probably, from a knowledge and experience standpoint, where it needed to be. 

"Also, you face a lot of different multiples of things that you have to prepare for when you’re playing against different offenses, and that contributed too to the learning curve that these guys had to go through. I think as they gained knowledge and experience throughout the year, they improved and we made less mental errors and played better as a unit. Tackled better and played better as a unit.”

Since halftime of the 41-24 win over then-No. 3 Georgia on Oct. 17, Alabama has yielded only 53 points over 26 quarters, for an average of 2.04 points per quarter or 8.2 a game. 

The breakdown: zero in the second half to Georgia; 17 at Tennessee; zero vs. Mississippi State; three vs. Kentucky; 13 vs. Auburn; 17 at LSU; three at Arkansas.

Granted, Feleipe Franks was the only quarterback in that group currently in the SEC's top five in passing efficiency, and he attempted just 10 throws while dealing with a rib injury that forced him to miss Arkansas’ previous game, but that's still impressive.

It's also caused a lot of fans to change their tune about defensive coordinator Pete Golding. 

“Pete’s really worked hard this year, done a really good job with our players in terms of being patient and teaching, allowing them to learn and grow," Saban said. "I can’t say enough about the job he’s done.”

Players of the game: The linemen on both sides of the ball. Alabama absolutely dominated Arkansas physically en route to the 52-3 victory. 

Play of the game: Senior wide receiver DeVonta Smith's punt return for a touchdown was the first of his career and sparked the Crimson Tide. The 84-yard score marked the third way Smith has reached the end zone this season (rushing, receiving and returning), and were the first of 49 unanswered points scored by Alabama. 

Stat of the game: Alabama averaged 5.7 rushing yards per attempt, compared to 1.9 for Arkansas. The Crimson Tide defense had a season-high eight sacks, 10 tackles for a loss and three forced fumbles. On the flip side, Arkansas had no sacks, one tackle for a loss, and one forced fumble against a reserve player. 

The Good

• Alabama has scored 35 points or more in 23 straight games, but it has also scored 38 points or more in nine consecutive road games. That's tied with Ohio State team for the second-longest stretch of 38-or-more points on the road during the poll era (since 1936), trailing only Oregon's string of 11 from 2011-13. 

• Senior running back Najee Harris tied Mark Ingram II (2008-10) and Derrick Henry (2013-15) for career rushing touchdowns at 42, but he matched Henry in another way. Harris scored a rushing touchdown in every game of the regular season, for a total of 22. Henry did likewise in 2015 when he cross the goal-line 22 times in 12 regular-season games. He also scored a rushing touchdown in the SEC Championship Game and in both College Football Playoff games for a single-season total of 28. 

• Saban was concerned about the players looking ahead to playing Florida in the SEC Championship Game, as both teams had already clinched their division titles. However, Alabama took care of business. It was 10-for-14 on third-down conversions. It dominated time of possession with 10:50 of Arkansas' 26:45 coming in the fourth quarter after the Crimson Tide had subbed in reserves. At one point it scored on six straight possessions, while Arkansas had seven possessions it failed to get a first down.

The Bad 

• Alabama was called for a season-low two penalties, but one was for roughing the kicker. 

• Not to pick on a freshman, but running back Roydell Williams lost a fumble in the red zone. Really, that's about what we're down to here. 

• Arkansas's leading tackler was junior linebacker Bumper Pool with 13 tackles. There's nothing bad about it, but how many chances in life does a writer get to type a line like that?  

The Ugly 

• The interception nullified by an interception. It was a terrible decision by redshirt quarterback Mac Jones at the Arkansas 9-yard-line. He got bailed out on the play by a targeting penalty against Arkansas and senior running back Brian Robinson Jr. scored a 4-yard touchdown on the subsequent play.  

• The weather. Blah. 

• The drive. But we thank Tyler Martin and Joey Blackwell for going on the road trip as BamaCentral was the only news outlet to have two reporters at every Crimson Tide game this season.  

They do look cold, don't they?