Casagrande: What’s so confusing about two-faced Tide tale of survival

This is an opinion column.Under a fairly cloudless sky, only boos rained as both Alabama and Florida State jogged back to their locker rooms.A second lightning delay without a single bolt visible in Bryant-Denny Stadium roiled a sold-out crowd baked enough by the September sun. There wasn’t much to fuss about at that point, and the boos were directed at the Crimson Tide at times Saturday afternoon.That’s because the duality of this Alabama football team can be as maddening as it is, eventually, exhilarating. A group that can get ambushed by a punchline of a football program before flipping some magic switch for a second straight week.The 50-36 win over Florida State was confusing. One to celebrate and to wonder what’s up with these sleepy starts.Lows then highs.Lightning and thunder.Perplexing because Florida State looks like a program and an athletics department in complete disarray. Clearly, there was no belief in the Seminoles who arrived as 19.5-point underdogs.A coach condemned to an inevitable fate tied to expectations and failure.So that’s why it’s important to remember the first 20-plus minutes while reveling in the next 40.Because this Alabama team can live dangerously with Kentucky and Florida State in a way that the true elites won’t allow. Both had weaknesses that Alabama eventually exploited in comebacks that created final scores that don’t tell the full story.Spot Georgia a 21-6 lead in a few weeks like Alabama did to FSU on Saturday and there’s no guarantee that back door swings open again. Blow coverages and allow big plays like the ones Florida State used to temporarily stun Bryant-Denny and LSU has the talent to run away from the Tide.That’s the thing with Florida State.They’re just good enough to create agita but not respected enough to get full credit for running past the Seminoles once the light switched on. Looking at the 50-36 final and the 567 total yards gained by Alabama makes it easy to forget where things stood early in the second quarter. The 21-6 FSU lead came with a 216-89 yardage edge. The visiting fans and marching band were slowly taking over the soundtrack with the unmistakable war chant. A year after embarrassing Alabama by two touchdowns in the season opener, only to sputter to a 5-7 record, Florida State looked like Alabama killers once again. The Crimson Tide defense, the darling of the opening two weeks, was getting exposed. Honestly, it was troubled straight up to the final interception of the night as the Seminoles hit eight passing plays covering 20-plus yards.On the other side, Alabama’s offense went 3-and-out in each of the first two possessions. They looked like a unit going through the motions after the first lightning delay pushed back kickoff almost two hours.No disastrous turnovers like early at Kentucky -- a win that suddenly looks much better after a Wildcat win at top 10 Texas A&M. Just a step slow.Like they hit the same brick wall Florida State ran through.See, that’s just the thing about this split-personality Tide. Some imaginary hypnotist snapped his fingers and Alabama suddenly played like the death star it once was. Keelon Russell, not terrible early, found his missing cape and took another step in testing the ceiling of this Alabama offense. At one point, he completed six straight passes -- three of which for touchdowns. He finished 23-for-30 through the air with 320 yards and the three scores. The sophomore also ran for a 57-yard score as part of the offensive outburst.Just take a look at Alabama’s drive chart. Two three-and-outs followed by two possessions ending in field goals.Then five straight touchdowns. Another FG and one final touchdown.Russell took special pride in that last one. Florida State had cut the lead to seven on a touchdown and two-point conversion to give Alabama the ball back with 7:10 left.The Tide then ran it on eight of the nine plays, slowly grinding FSU into the dirt. The way Russell described it was, well, colorful.“Once you put your foot on their neck,” he began. “Once you hit them with a couple of shots, keep throwing punches at them and they’re going to wear down eventually. The last two games that you’ve seen, we’ve eventually just got these guys to take a knee and just be like ‘Hey man, we can’t battle with y’all anymore.’”Eventually is the key word there.Marry the second-half intensity with the slow-to-develop opening remarks and this team has potential. Some narratives were busted with Alabama’s third-down defense, and those breakdowns didn’t sit well in the locker room. Even after getting the Tide’s third interception of the night, Tide linebacker Yhonzae Pierre said safety Bray Hubbard had a message about the breakdowns. They can’t continue.A defense that held the first two foes to a 1-for-23 third-down success rate allowed FSU to go 8-for-15. The Seminoles averaged 20.3 yards per third-down completion and 22.2 overall per completion. Not great considering the experience in the secondary.Flip the coin and Alabama’s second-half ground game was to be lauded. The home team ran it 22 times for 220 second-half yards as the FSU mirage slowly faded.Yet the lessons remain.Alabama can celebrate a 14-point win over a team that pantsed them by the same margin in the 2025 opener.Russell looked like the future star he is after a groggy start Saturday. Lightning only threatened Bryant-Denny Stadium on Saturday.It might have delayed the inevitable.But once it struck the Alabama offense, it bailed out a suddenly unsteady defense to avoid the mortifying loss.Put it all together, and Alabama could creep up and surprise the preseason skeptics. And quiet the Bryant-Denny boo birds.