No. 1 Alabama shows mettle in comeback
Trailing by 21 vs. Mississippi, team rebounds
Top-ranked Alabama had to rally from a 21-point deficit and sweat out the final three minutes of a four-hour game to outlast then-No. 17 Mississippi 48-43 Saturday before a sellout crowd of 66,176 fans at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium.
“I was telling some players that I lost about five years off my life,” Alabama junior linebacker Shaun Hamilton said.
Eddie Jackson’s 85-yard puntreturn touchdown right before halftime gave the Crimson Tide (3-0, 1-0 Southeastern Conference) a necessary emotional jolt. Add two defensive scores — by Da’Ron Payne of the short variety (3-yard fumble return) and Jonathan Allen (75-yard interception return) of the long variety — and 100-yard rushing efforts by Jalen Hurts and Damien Harris, and Alabama survived its SEC opener.
“We’re going to fight,” Jackson said. “We knew it was going to be tough. We allowed some big plays and made so many errors. Things we need to work on, but it was a good win. We came out and fought.”
In avenging losses to the Rebels (1-2, 0-1) the previous two years, Alabama showed the perseverance and fortitude championship teams exhibit.
Alabama knows it has many more SEC road challenges ahead but proved in a game that clearly wasn’t going its way the character it can build upon.
“People who quit can’t overcome burdens,” coach Nick Saban said. “We’ll have burdens in this game, and we’ll have to overcome them. That was the message coming here. I said, ‘If you really love each other, you’ll be able to overcome whatever we have to.’ I never dreamed it would be like this, but it turned out to be a pretty timely message, and the players really responded to it.”
After the game, Saban bragged about not needing an IV like some coaches and players did, saying, “They don’t make them like they used to.”
Saban would have needed more than an IV had Alabama lost.
Instead, Saban left Oxford smiling as Alabama tied a school record for largest comeback, matching the 1989 team, which came back for a 62-27 win against — who else — Mississippi.
Alabama erased a 21-point deficit and built an 18-point lead but found itself only up five with 2 minutes, 59 seconds left in the game.
Mississippi’s Chad Kelly threw two touchdown passes in a span of eight seconds that sandwiched a successful onside kick to put the Tide in an uncomfortable situation.
A lesser team would fold in those conditions, but Alabama knew Mississippi failed to close out Florida State in the season opener. Up by 22, the Rebels lost to the Seminoles 45-34 in Orlando.
So even though things looked bleak for Alabama after John Youngblood returned Hurts’ fumble 44 yards for a touchdown to put Mississippi up by three touchdowns in the first half, after second thought, you knew the Rebels would let the Tide back in the game.
It’s safe to say Alabama has something to do with that scenario. Down 24-3, Alabama scored 45 of the game’s next 51 points to take a 48-30 lead with 5:28 left in the game.
Hurts is a work in progress, but Alabama will always be in a game with him under center because he can run when nothing is there and shake off bad plays.
Not too many quarterbacks bounce back from that turnover, let alone a freshman, but he did and finished with a team-high 146 yards rushing.
“He was saying, ‘Hey, guys, we’re still in it,’ ” Hamilton said. “I like how he was looking when we were down 24-3.”
Saban sure wouldn’t want to trail by 21 points again.
Rankin is a columnist for The Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser, part of the USA TODAY Network.