Instant Analysis after Alabama's 31-20 win over Texas A&M

For BaylorCentral.com, I'm Katie Windham here with Theo Fernandez and Hunter DeSiver after Alabama's 31-20 victory over Texas A&M, a game that for three quarters was not looking great for the Crimson Tide, kind of more of the same of what we've seen the last two weeks, and then had a really strong fourth quarter to kind of pull away with the victory. And then, Theo, kind of what's your biggest takeaway from today's game? My biggest takeaway starts with the fact that the defense, down the stretch of that game, actually played like a nationally elite defense. You've heard Kane Wama come out and compare the defense to 2015, and that's a statement that, frankly, seems pretty ridiculous when you look at some of the lapses this defense has had. But then you look at, you get an unforced error on a fourth down, right, Marcel Reed, you know, just fumbling the ball. You capitalize, you recover, you get the stop. from there to end the game three straight three and outs we have a player in Henry who I know I'm honored you're going to talk about momentarily about his impact but you had players stepping up everywhere right you had I don't know what the missed tackle number was I know it wasn't anywhere near the 23 you had a week ago so I really just yes it's three drives you need a lot of faith in that defense for what they did down the stretch in a very losable football game for Sure, and it's after what's happened, I think, with the way the game started, if it continues that way and they somehow just kind of pull out a victory, the mood's a lot different. But I think it gave you some positive things to take into the bye week you talked about. They took advantage of the fumble. That's also something they haven't been doing lately. They jumped on it, then the offense scored, which we haven't been seeing a ton of complementary football lately, and they were able to do that. Hunter, there's two guys on each – one guy on each side of the ball that kind of stepped up that maybe you – definitely on defense It's probably when it's predicted before the game, maybe on offense. But just who are some of the guys you saw step up in this victory? Yeah, I mean, I think it starts with Fatu Toa Henry. I mean, when you're thinking of guys who could step up, he is not one of them. I'll be honest, when we saw in the availability report that, like, he would be, like, questionable or probable, I didn't think too much into it just because, I mean, we haven't really seen him much this year. We didn't really see him much last year as a JUCO transfer. But he stepped up today. There were some injuries on the defensive line. London Simmons went out. but he's also the reserve for Devin Tompkins, and when he came in, I mean, he had two sacks today, I think one of which was in the fourth quarter, and he also made a couple other plays during that period as well. So really, really surprised by him. He kind of led that defensive charge in the end. I mean, Texas A&M only had three points in the second half after getting 17 in the first. So it starts with him, and then offensively, I mean, yes, you could have predicted maybe like Rico Scott would be someone who steps up, but my thing earlier in the week was that Lazier Brooks would be that guy, and we didn't really see that last week against Tennessee Rico still had around 50 he had 56 yards or something like that last week and he had 156 today so he was clearly the weapon today this is in place of Ryan Coleman Williams who was injured and it was really good to see it was really good to see Rico kind of step up in this role yeah you needed somebody to do that for Keelan Russell after some of the struggles they've had on offensive like you said not having Ryan Williams available to play and then defensively the pass rushers basically disappeared the last two games and then tied it to what Henry kind of stepped up and delivered in that area for the Crimson Tide tonight. Alabama gets the win like we said heading into the bye week before a very important month of November. Just look at the chaos around the rest of college football and everything is still on the table for the Crimson Tide and we will be there to cover it all. That wraps up tonight from Bryant-Denny Stadium. Thank you so much for watching.