Gary Danielson hasn’t worked an SEC football game in almost two years, but the longtime CBS Sports commentator and former “SEC on CBS” broadcaster still has plenty of opinions about the state of the conference — starting with the Alabama Crimson Tide.
Danielson joined SiriusXM’s Chris “Mad Dog” Russo on Monday’s edition of “Mad Dog Unleashed” for a recap of Week 5 in college football, which included the former SEC football voice’s thoughts on Alabama’s 24-21 win over the Georgia Bulldogs at Sanford Stadium.
For Danielson, the praise starts with first-year starting quarterback Ty Simpson.
“When I was doing the games two years ago, I was whispered on the sideline by two highly placed guys that I respect that he was going to be the next great one at Alabama,” Danielson said of Simpson. “And he’s turned out to be pretty darn good.”
Danielson added that after the shock of the Crimson Tide’s 31-17 loss at Florida State in the season opener, and all the subsequent criticism coach Kalen DeBoer and players received in the wake of it, Alabama is “showing their pride.”
“One of the things that I’ve always talked about when Alabama won all those games back when I was doing them when Nick Saban was there, is that Alabama made clutch plays at the end of games to win games they could have and should have lost, but they found a way to win them anyway. Whether it was a fumble late against LSU (in 2014), when they held LSU to a field goal and took three straight timeouts and they went all the way down the field to score, there’s always been clutch plays. And it looks like this team is getting clutch for Kalen DeBoer.”
“When he has a quarterback, he’s a pretty darn good coach,” Danielson added of DeBoer, who went 25-3 at Washington before being named Alabama’s coach in January 2024.
Alabama certainly had a quarterback against Georgia. Simpson was 24-of-38 for 276 yards and two touchdowns. He led the Crimson Tide on two long touchdown drives to open the game as Alabama took an early 14-0 lead.
Later, Simpson put the game out of reach with a third-down pass to Jam Miller for a seven-yard pickup and a first down to midfield with less than 1:30 to play.
Chris ‘Mad Dog’ Russo reacts to Alabama football win over Georgia
For his part, Russo is already willing to go ahead and declare Alabama a College Football Playoff team — or in his uniquely ‘Doggy vocabulary,’ a “tournament” team.
“That was a great win for Alabama. That’s going to get them into the (playoff) field. You win at Georgia, you’re going to make the tournament at the end of the year. That’s all there is to it.” –Chris Russo on Alabama’s win over Georgia.
Alabama’s eight remaining opponents will have something to say about that, starting with the Crimson Tide’s Week 6 opponent in Vanderbilt this Saturday. Alabama (3-1 overall, 1-0 SEC) is ranked No. 10 in this week’s AP Top 25 poll. Vanderbilt (5-0, 1-0) is No. 16.
Kickoff for Alabama vs. Vanderbilt is set for 2:30 p.m. CT. The game will be televised on ABC.
Alabama football schedule 2025
All start times Central.
- Aug. 30: at Florida State (L, 31-17)
- Sept. 6: vs. UL Monroe (W, 73-0)
- Sept. 13: vs. Wisconsin (W, 38-14)
- Sept. 27: at Georgia (W, 24-21)
- Oct. 4: vs. Vanderbilt, 2:30 p.m. ABC
- Oct. 11: at Missouri, 11 a.m., ABC or ESPN
- Oct. 18: vs. Tennessee, TBA
- Oct. 25: at South Carolina, TBA
- Nov. 8: vs. LSU, prime time
- Nov. 15: vs. Oklahoma, TBA
- Nov. 22 vs. Eastern Illinois, 1 p.m., ESPN+
- Nov. 29: at Auburn, TBA
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