It was a lot closer than Alabama fans wanted, and it took the offense far too long to find its footing. Still, the Alabama Crimson Tide went to Nashville and left with a victory. With Chattanooga and the Iron Bowl left on the regular season schedule, that matters.

The biggest reason the Crimson Tide escaped was a defense that never blinked. Kane Wommack’s unit held its opponent to just six points. Here are this week’s winners and losers.

Alabama winners

RB Daniel Hill

Running back Daniel Hill led Alabama in rushing and averaged nearly seven yards per carry. The run game was up and down again, and that inconsistency continues to be a problem for the Tide at times. They need to figure it out against Chattanooga and in the Iron Bowl.

Give credit where it’s due, though. Hill ripped off multiple big runs, and those runs helped swing the momentum back in Alabama’s favor.

WR Lotzeir Brooks

Wide receiver Lotzeir Brooks hauled in two touchdown catches. The first came on a big play up the boundary. The second was a back-shoulder fade, thrown low, in the high red zone. Brooks did what he does best, which is make explosive plays, and he delivered a tremendous game.

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LB QB Reese

On the defensive side of the ball, linebacker QB Reese led the Crimson Tide in tackles, was all over the field, and added a sack. His performance shows the depth Alabama has at inside linebacker, a group that also includes Caleb Woodson and Luke Metz.

DL Fatutoa Henry

Tatuatoa Henry turned in another big game. He wasn’t supposed to play this much, yet Alabama has inserted him as an interior defensive lineman, and he keeps producing. Henry had another big sack this week, on the same play where Davon Tompkins went down. Everyone held their breath, but Tompkins returned to the game.

Edge Justin Hill

Justin Hill rounds out the player portion of the list with multiple sacks again. Yhonzae Pierre was in and out of the lineup with an injury, and Tompkins went down for a stretch. Neither absence was a problem because Hill set a hard edge all afternoon.

DC Kane Wommack

When a defense produces this many winners, the coordinator has earned his flowers. The Tide allowed just two field goals all day. Opposing quarterback Jared Curtis was running for his life at times. He did miss some open receivers, but the pressure had plenty to do with that.

Wommack is in a groove. For two straight weeks, his defense has been suffocating, and it carried Alabama in Nashville.

Alabama losers

I only have two areas that I think have to be cleaned up, but both are significant.

Clock management

Too many times during the game, fans were left wondering what Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer was doing with his timeouts. In some situations he burned one when he didn’t need to. In others, a timeout seemed obvious and never came. It wasn’t good enough during certain stretches of the game.

Overall efficiency

This was not a clean football game from the Crimson Tide. The special teams mishap stands out most. DeBoer was lighting into a coach because Ryan Coleman-Williams was back there, and Alabama was headed for a penalty. The offensive execution also fell well short of the standard for most of the day.

These are the kinds of mistakes a team has to clean up when its goal is getting back to Atlanta and competing for a national championship.

Credit where it’s due

Even with all of that, I’m not going to overreact to the result. Alabama played an early kickoff, took a bus ride to Nashville, and got the job done. The defense looks like a unit that can win games on its own right now.

If the offense starts faster and the sideline operation sharpens up, the Tide will be in a much better spot heading into the Iron Bowl.