Alabama’s season begins now. For the past three weeks, we’ve pretended as though the Crimson Tide had a risk of slipping up in the opening period of its regular-season slate.

The Tide kicked off the Kalen DeBoer era with a 63-0 beatdown of Western Kentucky. It stumbled early during a Week 2 matchup against South Florida but eventually powered past its overmatched competition en route to a 42-16 victory. Some tried to hype Saturday’s matchup against Wisconsin as an early-season banana skin. However, it’s going to take more than a road game against a mid-tier Big Ten team to rattle the Tide. Alabama proved that by easily covering the spread in a 42-10 blowout win over the Badgers.

Cue the fake surprise.

Barring a catastrophe, Alabama was always going to head into its first open week with a 3-0 record. Everyone knew the season actually started with the Sept. 28 meeting against Georgia inside Bryant-Denny Stadium.

That’s how we’ve been measuring Alabama anyway.

The Tide scored quickly against Western Kentucky, but would its fast-strike offense be able to move the ball against an elite Georgia defense? Alabama overcame three turnovers and 13 penalties against USF, but would the Bulldogs have made the Tide pay for its mistakes had the two teams squared up in Week 2?

Give Alabama some credit for easily putting away a Power Four opponent on the road this week, but I be shocked if the Badgers are mentioned in the same breath as the Bulldogs at the end of the season.

So is Alabama ready for its real season opener against Georgia in two weeks? Maybe. Maybe not. While Saturday’s blowout win at Wisconsin was impressive, it didn’t show us much about the Tide that we didn’t already know.

We’ll have to wait and see how Alabama stacks up against a true title contender at the end of the month. For now, we can only judge the Tide on what we’ve seen so far. With that in mind, here are my takeaways from a promising Week 3 blowout over Wisconsin. Pour yourself a drink, and let’s dive in.

Pour one out for the naysayers right now. Those hoping for an early stumble from DeBoer’s Alabama have been sorely disappointed. There have been times when the Tide appeared stuck in third gear throughout the first three weeks, and even then it’s had no problem cruising past its competition.

Maybe you wanted to see Alabama in action before jumping on the DeBoer bandwagon in Week 1. Maybe the Tide’s sloppy Week 2 win over South Florida gave you second thoughts about the first-year head coach. However, even Deboer’s biggest doubters are starting to sip the Kool-Aid as the Tide danced its way past its first road test of the season.

For this week’s drink we’re totally buying into the DeBoer era with the new Kalenade cocktail from our friends at Session Cocktails. Like the Tide’s first-year head coach, the concoction comes across sweet but packs a serious punch. Here’s how to stir it up yourself.

Add 2 ounces of vodka, 1 ounce of lemon cordial, ¾ ounce of grenadine and ½ ounce of lemon juice into a shaker and shake over ice. From there, pour into a glass full of pebble ice. This is an easy one to make at home, but if you get the drink at Session, it comes in a souvenir cup with a toy elephant mascot.

Cheers!

(Commercial break: My drink of the week section is now sponsored by my friends at Session Cocktails in Tuscaloosa. Session has been a mainstay in Tuscaloosa’s cocktail scene since 2019 and offers some of the tastiest drinks in town. Stop by and tell them I said hi!)

I was ready to be a naysayer. Following Alabama’s first handful of drives against Wisconsin, I was convinced I’d spend this column slating Jalen Milroe for his inability to move the offense consistently.

After the starting quarterback pulled off back-to-back bombs during a 17-second touchdown drive in the final minute of the first half, I was ready to call him an enigma. Now that he’s logged his second five-touchdown performance in three weeks, I’m willing to label him as the new Heisman Trophy frontrunner.

Milroe was electric against Wisconsin, completing 12 of 17 passes for 196 yards and three touchdowns without an interception while adding 75 yards and a pair of scores with his feet. Those are Heisman-caliber numbers, but Saturday’s performance didn’t really teach us anything new about Alabama’s QB1.

Once again, Milroe thrived on the deep ball, as all three of his touchdown passes came on throws that traveled 20 or more yards past the line of scrimmage. On the flip side, the intermediate part of his passing game is still missing. According to Pro Football Focus, Milroe attempted just two passes that traveled between 10-19 yards past the line of scrimmage. He completed one of them for a 23-yard gain.

That resulted in six touchdown drives, all coming in seven plays or less. However, it also came with a trio of three-and-outs. That’s been the story for Alabama’s offense so far this season. The Tide leads the nation with 13 touchdowns of 20 or more yards through three games. On the flip side, it has racked up a frustrating 12 three-and-outs over that span.

Will that boom-or-bust approach work against a Georgia defense that ranks seventh nationally, holding its opponents to 3.5 yards per play? We’ll have to wait a couple of weeks to find out. In the meantime, Milroe doesn’t seem fazed about his upcoming matchup against the Bulldogs.

“Respect all, fear none,” he said when asked about Georgia after Saturday’s game.

Milroe has every reason to be confident. After all, he got the best of the Bulldogs in last year’s SEC Championship Game, leading Alabama to a 27-24 victory with 221 total yards and a pair of passing touchdowns. It’s unclear how much the redshirt junior has improved since then or whether his gaudy numbers this season will translate to success over a true contender.

Three games and 14 total touchdowns in, it’s becoming difficult to doubt Milroe’s playmaking ability. It’ll be even tougher if he keeps up his heroics in a couple of weeks.

Outside of Alabama’s SEC Championship Game win last season, the Athens Police Department is the only thing slowing down Georgia lately. The Bulldogs ran into a slight speed bump this weekend in a 13-12 victory at Kentucky. However, they were still able to win for the 33rd time in 34 tries.

Georgia’s stifling defense hasn’t allowed a touchdown through three games and ranks fourth nationally, holding its opponents to 6.0 points per outing. The Dawgs have allowed just two plays of 20 or more yards from scrimmage and none from 40-plus yards. As mentioned earlier, that could snuff out some of Alabama’s offensive fireworks.

So where will the Tide turn if the big play isn’t there? Don’t be surprised if DeBoer reaches into his arsenal and unveils a new weapon at the end of the month.

After receiving plenty of offseason hype, Kendrick Law has yet to make much noise this season. Despite starting all three games, the junior has recorded just one catch for 22 yards and a touchdown. He wasn’t even targeted during this weekend’s win at Wisconsin. Perhaps that lack of production is partly by design.

Alabama has yet to utilize Law’s mix of agility and strength, but those attributes could be key in finally unlocking the intermediate passing game. According to DeBoer, Law was clocked at 23.6 miles per hour during the Tide’s summer workouts. The 5-foot-11, 209-pound receiver also lifts more than 450 pounds in the weight room and can break through tackles following short passes. While Ryan Williams and Germie Bernard have delivered the home runs for Alabama’s receiving corps, Law could provide the singles and doubles Alabama needs to break down Georgia’s defense on underneath routes.

Could DeBoer and company add a few new wrinkles to the offense later this month? Law serving as Georgia’s undoing seems rather fitting at this point.

Ryan Williams has yet to find a stage too big for him at the college level. Alabama’s 17-year-old freshman phenom passes the first road test of his career, leading the Tide with four catches for 78 yards and a touchdown against Wisconsin.

Williams silenced a rowdy crowd inside Camp Randall Stadium by pulling in a 34-yard strike from Milroe in the first quarter for Alabama's first touchdown of the game. He also got on the other end of a 47-yard bomb from the quarterback to set up the Tide’s back-breaking touchdown drive right before the half.

Through three games Williams leads the Tide with 10 receptions for 285 yards and four touchdowns. If he keeps up this torrid pace, he’ll finish the regular season with, 1,140 yards through the air, topping Calvin Ridley’s Alabama freshman record of 1,045 receiving yards in 2015. SEC play could slow Williams down a little. Then again, the lights haven’t been too bright for Alabama’s young star so far.

"This isn't even half of what y'all will see,” Alabama safety Keon Sabb said following Saturday’s game. “He can do more, and he will. It's special. I'm just sitting back and taking it all in like everybody else."

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