Bama takes SEC West with rout of Kentucky
LEXINGTON, Ky. — After enduring some talk early this season about its dominance waning, Alabama is back on a familiar perch in the Southeastern Conference and bound for a destination it knows well.
Credit that resurgence to a quarterback who also ignored the noise while making personal progress that showed up in the team’s success.
Jalen Milroe had a careerhigh six touchdowns, three each rushing and passing, and No. 8 Alabama cruised 49-21 at Kentucky to wrap up the SEC West, with the Crimson Tide winning that title for the 15th and final time as divisions go away next year with the addition of Oklahoma and Texas from the Big 12 for a 16-team conference.
A week after rushing for a career-best four touchdowns in a 42-28 victory over LSU, the sophomore used his arm and his feet to surpass that total and lead the Tide (9-1, 7-0 SEC) to an eighth consecutive victory this season and their third appearance in the conference championship game in four seasons.
Alabama will face Georgia, which wrapped up its sixth SEC East title in seven years later Saturday when Missouri beat Tennessee, on Dec. 2 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.
Against the Wildcats (6-4, 3-4), Milroe had four total touchdowns by halftime, three passing, including throws of 26 and 40 yards to Amari Niblack and Kobe Prentice. The first score came after he sat out the game’s sixth snap with an injured left thigh; he got hurt while being tackled on a 16-yard keeper.
“I’m not satisfied with the performance,” said Milroe, who completed 15 of 22 passes for 234 yards with one interception. “I have a lot of things I have to improve.”
Milroe extended a play for his third passing score by rolling right, pointing to Roydell Williams and hitting him in stride at the 12 on the way for another 26-yard touchdown to make it 28-7. Williams tightroped the sideline for the final yards before crossing the goal line.
Milroe was pushed into
the end zone for two 1-yard scores and spun in for another from 3 yards in the third quarter, highlights of a day in which he carried eight times for 36 yards. Jamarion Miller also ran for a 3-yard score as Alabama beat Kentucky for the eighth consecutive time and won its eighth straight this year since losing 34-24 to Texas on Sept. 9 in Tuscaloosa, when Alabama was No. 3 in the AP Top 25 and the Longhorns were 11th. Texas was one spot ahead of the Tide in the most recent AP poll as well as the latest College Football Playoff rankings.
The Tide’s streak started a week later in less than impressive fashion with a 17-3 win at South Florida in which a healthy Milroe did not play after starting the first two games.
“This team has come a long way,” said coach Nick Saban, who reached his 10th SEC title game with Alabama. “A lot of guys have made significant improvement and have listened to the coaches. It’s great we won the West and have the opportunity to play for an SEC championship.”
Saban added that after the Texas and South Florida games “there were a lot of naysayers out there that didn’t believe in these guys. But I always believed in this team that they would develop into something special.”
Ray Davis rushed for two short scores and Tayvion Robinson caught a 6-yard pass from Devin Leary for the other touchdown for the Wildcats. Leary’s pass followed Nasir Addison’s recovery of a fumbled punt on Kentucky’s sideline at the Tide’s 32-yard line, one of Alabama’s few mistakes on an otherwise dominant day.
Milroe had the team’s other turnover when he was picked off in the second quarter, but Alabama’s defense quickly offset the turnover by intercepting Leary six plays later. The Wildcats were never in it after being outgained 444-253 in total yards, but they forced two takeaways and mounted two 75-yard touchdown drives.
“We didn’t get off to a very good start, and we didn’t get much better,” coach Mark Stoops said.
Davis managed just 26 yards on 12 carries, and his second touchdown was set up by Ramon Jefferson’s 74-yard run that put the seventh-year player over 3,000 career yards.
Neither Milroe nor backup Ty Simpson were sacked, the first time this season Alabama hadn’t allowed one after yielding an SEC-worst 37 coming in. Milroe in particular had lots of time to scan the field and find receivers, and the Tide quarterbacks combined to target 10 receivers on 25 passes with 16 completions.
“We controlled the line of scrimmage against a team that plays physical,” Saban said. “We wanted to make them onedimensional. We won the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball.”
The SEC implemented divisions starting with the 1992 season, and Alabama won both the West and the league championship game that year, beating Florida 28-21 at Birmingham’s Legion Field, the site of the first two SEC title games before its move to Atlanta. Next month, the Tide will try to close the division era with similar success and add to their case for a spot in the final four-team edition of the College Football Playoff before that event expands to a 12-team bracket next season.
Before that, though, are two regular-season games for the Tide: next Saturday’s home finale against the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (7-3), which is nationally ranked in the Football Championship Subdivision, and then a trip to Auburn for the annual Iron Bowl rivalry matchup on Thanksgiving weekend.