Texas Executed in the Fourth Quarter, While Alabama Unraveled

The part of the game that used to be Alabama's sharpest was where it all fell apart against the Longhorns.

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Four's in the air. Cheers echoing throughout Bryant-Denny Stadium after Alabama had just taken the lead for the first time in the game. 

The fourth quarter was ahead, the quarter that Alabama football named its strength and conditioning program after, the quarter that Nick Saban-coached teams pride themselves on not only winning, but owning.

Tonight, the fourth quarter belonged to the Texas Longhorns.

Texas scored on an unbelievably easy touchdown drive to open the quarter, regaining the lead. On the ensuing possession, Alabama had a chance to answer, but instead, turned the ball over. The next play, Texas walked into the end zone.

All of a sudden, a lead had turned into a seemingly insurmountable deficit. The once-rowdy Alabama faithful turned silent, and the burnt orange scattered throughout the stadium saw light at the end of the tunnel.

Texas got the ball four times in the fourth quarter. It scored touchdowns on the first three, and the final drive ended in a kneel from quarterback Quinn Ewers to seal the game. 

Alabama got the ball three times in the fourth quarter. The first was an interception, the second was a touchdown, and the final resulted in -8 yards and a punt.

The score over the course of the quarter went from a 3-point Alabama lead to a 10-point Texas lead. A 21-8 score in the period in favor of the Longhorns, and a 34-24 final.

"It's great to have emotion and play with emotion, everybody should have that. But that emotion has to be channeled into tangible, functional execution," Saban said. "So you've got to focus on the task at hand one play at a time. It's got to be very intentional.

"If you get emotional, then you make bad choices and decisions. Your brain doesn't work like it needs to and bad things happen. Whether it be mistakes on defense, you snap the ball poorly, whether you jump offsides. We had a chance to stop them at the end of the game a couple times, and couldn't get off the field."

Alabama was outgained in the fourth quarter by over 100 yards, with the Longhorns amassing 176 in the period. 

Ewers threw two touchdowns, both to wide receiver Adonai Mitchell, while the other touchdown was scored by running bacl Jonathan Brooks.

"[Texas] hit big plays," Saban said. "All the plays that they made, they were all explosive plays. And that was the difference. They didn't make explosive plays in the third quarter. We played better, we got off the field on third down. They took a lot of shots in the game, and they made them."

Not only did Texas control the yardage, but it controlled the clock throughout the period as well. Texas held the ball for nearly 11 of the final 15 minutes, dictating every aspect of the game it wanted when it mattered most.

"We were making mental errors, we weren't on the same page," Alabama linebacker Deontae Lawson said. "That's something we've been trying to emphasize, so we'll get back Monday and fix this and get right."

"We've just got to execute better on both sides of the ball," defensive back Malachi Moore said. "Finish the game, finish the game and make the plays when the plays are there to be made."

After the game, the team was adamant about the chance that it has to grow from the loss.

"It's the midterm, it's not the final," Saban said. "So if we can learn from some of the mistakes that we made, coaches and players alike, we can all get better and have a lot better opportunity to be successful in the future."

The players echoed Saban's sentiment, and don't want to waste the failure they experienced.

"Failure is a privilege," offensive tackle JC Latham said. "When you fail and you mess up, you get the opportunity to really just gauge how you can get better. And how you get better is the goal."

It's well known that one loss doesn't kill a season in college football, but it gives zero margin for error the rest of the way. The question now is will Alabama respond like it has so many times in the past, or will it spiral?

See also:

No. 3 Alabama Upset By No. 11 Texas, Drops First Home Game Since 2019