BATON ROUGE, La. | Jalen Hurts was the difference between a win and a loss Saturday night inside Death Valley, where it’s difficult to come out victorious and deafening for an opposing quarterback.
That may be an oversimplification of what occurred in a 60-minute slugfest between two of the better defenses in the country. But near the end of what players aptly described a “street fight,” it was the true freshman quarterback wearing crimson that made the play that made the difference.
He didn’t do it by himself — Bo Scarbrough and Damien Harris and the entire offensive line pitched in too — but without Hurts it’s easy to envision Alabama losing this game, one that bore striking similarities to the 2011 Game of the Century.
Simply put, Alabama having a running quarterback was the difference in 9-0 and 8-1.
“I don’t know,” UA head coach Nick Saban said when posed that question. “We made some errors early in the game that were costly, and we some plays in the end that his athleticism allowed him to make. “I think as we grow with him, we’re going to have to live with both. I like the second part better than the first.”
The second part involved an improvisation from Hurts, a 21-yard touchdown scramble on a called sprint-out pass to the right. Hurts, who threw for just 107 yards on 10 of 19 passing, kept it all the way and dodged a couple of would-be LSU tacklers on his way to the game’s only touchdown.
The scramble put the bow on a 12-play, 90-yard, 5:57-minute drive.
“He just saw a lane and went for it,” left guard Ross Pierschbacher said. “He’s able to make those plays because he’s so athletic. That adds a huge dimension to our offense.”
“I think he’s a spark plug.”
It was an element not present in the 2011 Game of the Century. That’s no knock on AJ McCarron, rather a testament to the change in Alabama’s offense this season.
When the play broke down, rather than throwing the ball out of bounds, Hurts kept it and ran for the win.
It wasn’t all pretty for Hurts. For much of the game, the offense sputtered. There was the interception he threw on the second attempt of the game, and there was a caused fumble after being sacked by Frank Herron in the third quarter.
The lack of a consistent intermediate and down-field passing game continues to hamper the offense, too.
Oddly enough, the key play of the game, other than his touchdown run, probably came on UA’s opening drive of the second half when he did connect on a deep ball, one to ArDarius Stewart on a 52-yard gain. Alabama didn’t score on the drive after getting stuffed on fourth-and-goal, but it loosened the LSU defense up just enough to allow UA’s running game to gain traction.
“I think it’s day by day,” Saban said. “We have some really good skill guys outside that we need to have more involved in the game to make plays down the field like ArDarius Stewart did today. Calvin Ridley needs to make plays like that. We really need to do a bette job of taking advantage of those opportunities for our team.
“Jalen’s a great competitor. He never loses his poise, but we need to do a better job of executing.”
Reach Aaron Suttles at aaron@tidesports.com or at 205-722-0229.
