Oct. 12 COLUMN: Top priority for Tide — a complete game

Did anyone else notice the University of Alabama football team became bowl-eligible this past Saturday?

That observation isn’t meant as a back-handed slap against any previous Crimson Tide regimes or coaches, who had different issues — including some thorny NCAA scholarship limitations — to navigate. It is, however, meant to indicate just how quickly times have changed.

Bowl eligibility isn’t ever a consideration for this Alabama team, which has an entirely different set of priorities, all of which are still intact at the midpoint of the season.

With six regular-season games down and six to go, it is as good a time as any to evaluate just what Alabama has done — and what it still needs to do to reach its goals.

The Crimson Tide will be favored, perhaps prohibitively so, in each of its final six games. South Carolina comes to town on Saturday with a Top 25 team and one of the game’s great coaches — and is a 17-point underdog.

Tennessee, which blew Georgia off the field last Saturday, will probably be viewed in a similar light by the odds-makers. LSU, which most people feel will give Alabama its sternest test, has a lot of work to do offensively before it comes to Tuscaloosa.

But, as Nick Saban pointed out in Oxford on Saturday — and has pointed out all season long — it really isn’t about the opposition. It’s about Alabama challenging itself. I had a whole repository of William Faulkner quotes in mind for the Ole Miss game and will now bring a merciful end to the Faulkner-fest with one more: “Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.”

That’s what Alabama has to do in the second half of the season, because that’s what it has to do in the postseason, where the 2009 team can separate itself from the 2008 Crimson Tide and, very possibly, claim a BCS Championship at the end. It can’t simply bask in the glow of the outpouring of national adulation, reflected in today’s No. 2 ranking in the AP poll. It has to try to be better than it has been.

What does that mean, specifically? First, it means consistency. Alabama has been consistently good in many areas, and consistently poor in only one — kickoff coverage (A maddening task that seems to yield at least one big play per week, although the touchdowns aren’t coming as fast as they did in the early season).

But it hasn’t put together a complete game yet. Against Kentucky, the defense wasn’t dominant. It was more than good enough but, as Saban said, shuffling three linebackers around to try to replace the injured Dont’a Hightower lessened the Crimson Tide in all three spots.

That was adjusted, with stellar results, against Ole Miss. On top of that, Alabama gets the rare mid-season roster addition this week when linebacker Jerrell Harris becomes eligible after a stiff NCAA suspension.

But Alabama’s best defensive effort of the season came at the same time as it struggled in at least one important area of offense: Production in the red zone. The Crimson Tide was never really threatened by Ole Miss, but could have put the Rebels away far earlier with a couple of additional touchdowns. Instead, it settled for five field goals.

On listening to Saban’s comments, and watching the game for a second time, I think some of the credit has to go to the Ole Miss defense. It was the first time this year Alabama has faced a team with a real top-shelf SEC front seven. (I admire the Virginia Tech defense as much as the next person, but the Hokies were average-sized, at most, across the front.) Kentucky and Arkansas aren’t at that level defensively. South Carolina will be — linebacker Eric Norwood and defensive end Clint Matthews are particularly good.

Alabama did run the ball well at times — see Mark Ingram’s personal record in rushing for proof — but it didn’t protect Greg McElroy, a paramount assignment, as well as it had in the previous five games.

So, as Saban said, the second half of the season isn’t about replicating the first half. It’s about getting better. If that happens, then the already-bowl-eligible Crimson Tide can go to the bowl, or mega-bowl, to be precise, that it really wants.