The Process™ never sleeps, even after passing its first significant test of the 2019 campaign with flying colors.
The first five games of the season, Alabama didn’t face a ranked team, outscoring its overmatched opponents 259-74. Their “closest” game was a 47-23 win over South Carolina in Columbia. Week 7, however, brought a trip to College Station and No. 24 Texas A&M, which easily qualified as Bama’s toughest test of the year.
Of course, the pregame toughness was measured on paper as the top-ranked Crimson Tide had little problem dispatching the Aggies on the field in a 47-28 win that wasn’t nearly as close as the final score might indicate. Late in the fourth quarter of the win, though, DeVonta Smith, one of the top wide receivers in the country and a player who was added to the Biletnikoff Award watch list earlier last week, was ejected after throwing a punch at A&M defensive back Leon O’Neal.
It appeared that both players threw “football punches,” although Smith was the only one ejected.
Even if he was six months late to getting to his player, gotta admire the form of the Alabama "get back" coach after his player threw a punch #RollTide pic.twitter.com/7rKPvz6V0G
— Joey Hayden (@_joeyhayden) October 12, 2019
In the postgame wrapup, and referring to a Smith ejection that could keep the star receiver from playing the first half of next week’s game against Tennessee, head coach Nick Saban lamented the fact that the Tide failed to finish the game with class.
Some quick hitters from Nick Saban's opening statement:
— Charlie Potter (@Charlie_Potter) October 13, 2019
-- "We certainly shot ourselves in the foot in the red zone."
-- "Defensively, we played decent at times, but at times, we gave them plays that we shouldn't have."
-- "And we didn't really finish the game with class."
Saban: We didn’t finish the game with class.
— Michael Casagrande (@ByCasagrande) October 12, 2019