There was once a point in this football season, specifically Oct. 17, when Alabama treated the third quarter as an ignition switch.
The Crimson Tide trailed Georgia 24-20 at halftime but used a 90-yard touchdown strike from Mac Jones to Jaylen Waddle to open the floodgates to a 41-24 victory. Those floodgates have stayed open in every first half since, with Alabama building halftime leads of 28-10 at Tennessee, 27-0 against Mississippi State, 28-3 against Kentucky, 21-3 against Auburn and 45-14 this past Saturday night at LSU.
With these recent contests having already been decided by intermission, and this is the First World problem of all college football problems, Alabama players are battling sluggish starts to the third quarter.
“It’s just all about making adjustments at halftime and coming out and trying to execute,” Crimson Tide sophomore linebacker Christian Harris said Monday afternoon on a Zoom call. “They make adjustments as well, so we’ve got to make sure we come out stronger in the second half than we did in the first half. We’ve kind of slipped on that a little bit at the beginning of the third quarter, but we tend to pick it up pretty well.”
Alabama scored first in the second half against LSU, but an 11-yard touchdown run by Najee Harris to make it 52-14 in the eventual 55-17 rout didn’t transpire until the 3:39 mark of the third quarter. The Crimson Tide took a while to resume their pounding of Auburn the week before in the Iron Bowl, going three-and-out to open the second half before the Tigers had a seven-play, 47-yard drive that culminated with a 45-yard Anders Carlson field goal that made it 21-6.