Alabama attempted to answer several questions about their team in their season opener against Wisconsin. The Crimson Tide moved up to No.2 in the polls after beating the Badgers in convincing fashion, but the work is only beginning for the SEC team who faces mostly ranked opponents for the remainder of their schedule. Before getting into SEC play, the Tide will take on Middle Tennessee who presents a similar offense to several other divisional opponents.
For the time being, Jake Coker has the starting job for Alabama after he did enough to show he could start the second game. Coker looked calm in his first start for Alabama, taking the most snaps of any other quarterback on the roster. The quarterback took two bad sacks and failed to connect on the deep ball, but overall he made good decisions before eventually handing the ball off to Cooper Bateman and then Alec Morris.
The biggest threat for the Tide appears to be their run game. After TJ Yeldon departed for the NFL, Derrick Henry stepped in as the starter and made the most of it by running for 147 yards while Kenyan Drake added 77 yards and another 48 receiving yards. They looked every bit the dynamic duo for the Crimson Tide as Henry cemented himself as an early playmaker for the Tide. The task to replace Amari Cooper was given to ArDarius Stewart and Robert Foster who each had four catches a piece. OJ Howard also finally looked like the playmaker the Tide was hoping he would become.
Alabama has no plans of overlooking Middle Tennessee. The team came off a strong showing against Jackson State by putting up 70 points in their spread offense. They run a similar offense to that of Auburn or Texas A&M and could pose as a threat to the Tide. The Alabama defense will be tested by quarterback Brent Stockstill who threw for 336 yards and four touchdowns.
The Tide defense looked strong against the Badgers. They limited the team to just 40 rushing yards after the Badgers averaged 320.1 per game last season. The secondary must remain aggressive and limit penalties if they are going to contain the Middle Tennessee passing game.