Grading Alabama's First Quarter of Season: Just a Minute

Welcome to BamaCentral’s "Just a Minute," a daily video series featuring BamaCentral's Alabama beat writers. Multiple times a week, the writers will group up or film solo to provide their take on a topic concerning the Crimson Tide or the landscape of college sports.

Watch the above video as Alabama Crimson Tide on SI assistant editor Katie Windham hands out a grade for the first three games of the Crimson Tide's season.

Alabama was back on the practice fields on Thursday for its first practice of the bye week ahead of next week's SEC opener at No. 5 Georgia. The Crimson Tide players we talked to after practice seemed really locked in on improvement rather than looking ahead to the Bulldogs.

The team uses the bye week to rest and recover physically, but the week is also a good time for reflection. When I was in grade school, we used to get report cards every quarter, and Alabama has reached the quarter mark of its regular season, so it seemed like a good time to give the Crimson Tide a grade for its performance in the first three games.

Most probably expected Alabama to be 3-0 at this point, but the Tide is 2-1 after a season-opening, 31-17 loss at Florida State. Alabama bounced back with two dominant wins over inferior opponents in Louisiana Monroe and Wisconsin, which creates quite a conundrum in grading.

The first game against Florida State would get an F. Outside of Germie Bernard's individual performance, it was pretty much a failure on all levels. The offense was bad. The defense gave up 230 rushing yards, and the special teams made costly mistakes, including a missed field goal.

But the last two performances against ULM and Wisconsin were good enough to earn As. This leaves Alabama with an average of C and lots of room for improvement.

By the midterms, that grade needs to be up to at least a B if the Crimson Tide wants to remain in the College Football Playoff hunt. In order to impress the committee and earn a spot in the CFP, Alabama better be up to an A by the end of the regular season.

There are many tough tests ahead throughout SEC play, starting with Georgia next week. The most important grade will be the one Alabama receives at the end of the season.

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