TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- Alabama won’t play again for 13 days.

The Crimson Tide is now in its first of two bye weeks and will have today and Monday, Oct. 30, off before holding another practice. In the coming days, before Alabama begins preparing for a road game at Texas A&M, the nation’s No. 2 team will attempt to focus on improving its flaws.

“I think you can look at the bye week a couple of different ways,” head coach Nick Saban said. “You can say it’s a week off, or you can look at a bye week and say, ‘There’s a lot of things we need to improve on.’ That’s certainly the approach that we want to take with our team.”

Alabama (5-0, 2-0 SEC) is coming off a 59-31 win over Ole Miss in a game where its offense was successful but could have inflicted even more damage and its defense could not get off the field and was forced to endure 85-plus snaps for the second conference game in three weeks.

Following the 28-point win, several players sported slings and walking boots for precautionary reasons, including wide receivers DeVonta Smith and Jaylen Waddle. So, the first open week comes at a perfect time after a game that featured 155 combined plays and 89 total points.

“I think a bye week is really good, especially against a team like this,” quarterback Tua Tagovailoa said. “This is our SEC opener at home. I think rest and things like that for our guys, defensively and offensively, will be good.”

For the Crimson Tide offense, it’s all about tempo.

Saban wants to see that side of the football control the clock a little more, which will also help the defense. Tagovailoa would like for UA’s offense to take advantage of scrambling defenses.

Alabama quarterback Tua Tagovailoa

“I think our tempo needs to pick up,” Tagovailoa said. “Every time we’re going, when we stay what we’re in, the defense is kind of always looking to the sideline, so kind of snapping the ball while they’re not set and kind of going about that. And I guess just the execution of our plays, as well.”

On defense, it’s simple. Get off the field. Ole Miss ran 88 plays Saturday, which was two more than South Carolina ran two weeks ago. But the Rebels were able to score eight more points thanks to 476 yards of offense and 279 yards on the ground, which was the most an Alabama defense has surrendered since giving up 281 rushing yards to Ohio State in the 2014 Sugar Bowl.

“We definitely need to get better,” safety Xavier McKinney said. “We’re giving up too many points. We’ve got to do something. We’re not doing a good enough job on defense. We’re definitely going to work on that and try to get better this bye week.”

The Tide advanced to 5-0 with its latest win, but the atmosphere of postgame interviews felt more like a loss than a four-score win in SEC play. There were a lot of positives in Saturday’s game, but Saban and company will spend the next week trying to clean up the negatives.

“I always say that if you win and don’t play well, that’s not really a good thing,” Saban said. “That’s something our team needs to understand and our team needs to know so that we can improve. I think that people have to have the disposition that they want to go out and try to improve this week.

“We didn’t obviously play a complete game, we got exposed in some areas where we didn’t play very well and we’ve got to get those things fixed and play better. The players we have are the players that we have. They’re all capable of playing better, so we want to work with them, and we’re excited to work with them so we can get better.

“We’re looking forward to what we need to do to try to improve as a team.”

Contact Charlie Potter by 247Sports' personal messaging or on Twitter (@Charlie_Potter).