By Michael Casagrande
Correspondent
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - Missed tackles. Blown assignments. Costly offside penalties.
The fundamentals have broken down on large scale for the Alabama defense. So they have been a big part of the preparation for Saturday night's Southeastern Conference home game against Mississippi after last week's 35-21 loss at South Carolina.
"There are some fundamental things that you can never get away from," coach Nick Saban said. "Even though we don't tackle everybody and take them to the ground [in practice], you have to get in the right position to thud the guy and roll your hips and do all those things. Well, we have harped and harped and harped and harped on our guys all year long to finish, you know, finish. Thud the runner. Finish. Do what you're supposed to do. Well, we haven't done that great as a team, so what happens in the game? We start missing tackles."
Saban noted the fourth-and-2 situation in the first quarter when a host of Alabama tacklers appeared to have Gamecocks quarterback Stephen Garcia corralled in the backfield. But Garcia squirted out the left side of the scrum for a first down kept the drive in business. One snap later, his touchdown pass gave South Carolina a 14-3 lead.
More important than any other contributing factor in a tackle is body positioning.
"I mean, we get in front of them, square the runner and just thud them up instead of just taking them to the ground," noseguard Josh Chapman said. "It's good position, really."
Because they learned the hard way with the Crimson Tide's first loss in 19 games, Saban said the players now are willing to correct the issues that existed long before they traveled to Columbia last week.
Another matter needing attention was overaggressive anticipation of snap counts. In six games this season, Alabama has been flagged 11 times for jumping offside. Tide defenders had just one offside flag at this point last year and finished the season with just five total.
Though a few of this year's flags were charged to special teams, the bulk belong to the defensive line, including three of the four racked up at South Carolina. Also, two of the four came on touchdown drives and the first was declined since it was came on the Gamecocks' first touchdown play.
"It's being disciplined," said defensive end Marcell Dareus, who jumped over the line of scrimmage twice the previous Saturday against Florida. "We have to work on that. It's just something that doesn't need to be happening. We work on that in practice with [defensive line] Coach [Bo] Davis. It's just discipline. We've got to work on that."
Now with an Ole Miss team that likes to run the option coming to Bryant-Denny Stadium on Saturday, discipline will be needed more than ever for the Tide defense. And since Alabama hasn't seen an offense anything like the Rebels', radical adjustments compete with fundamental reminders in practice.
Ole Miss quarterback Jeremiah Masoli is a shifty transfer from Oregon who can be a tackler's worst nightmare.
"The guy has a great feel for running the offense that they're running now, which is more of an Oregon-style offense," Saban said. "It still has a lot of the typical Houston Nutt things that they've done - downhill, run the power - but the option part of it, the guy is extremely quick. He's physical as a runner. He's a good thrower. He's a good scrambler and he makes plays throwing it as a scrambler, so he probably is the best combination guy that we've seen for a while."