Alabama Football: 3 early storylines for Crimson Tide in 2020

2. Can the defense get back to an elite level?

Let me start off by saying that Alabama is still playing defense at a high level and with most of their front-seven returning, including stud linebacker Dylan Moses who was lost last season due to knee injury, that unit will be pretty good and it ranked third in defensive S&P+ ratings system last season.

However, this defense has seemingly given up a lot of yards and points to some of the higher level teams that Alabama such as in last years epic clash vs. LSU, where Alabama gave up 559 yards of offense and 46 points and in the national championship against Clemson in 2019, where they gave up 482 yards and 44 points to Clemson in a blowout loss.

Now obviously, Alabama is not playing teams of this caliber week in and week out, but if they want to get back to winning national championships, this defense will have to play better in the biggest games against high-powered offenses, especially if the offensive production drops without Tua Tagovailoa.