COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Alabama’s goal at South Carolina was to play for 60 minutes.

Head coach Nick Saban was very pleased with the Crimson Tide’s offense. But...

“We ran out of gas a little bit on defense,” Saban said after the 47-23 win over the Gamecocks. “But we played 86 plays on defense, which is a lot, especially in conditions like this.”

It’s true. The Gamecocks ran 86 plays, which was 22 more than Alabama on Saturday, and was able to produce 459 yards of offense, primarily from quarterback Ryan Hilinski (324 yards).

Although Alabama won the first game of SEC play by 24 points, the amount of time the defense spent on the field can’t continue if the Tide wants to achieve its ultimate goal, Saban said.

“We don’t have enough players to get through the season if we play 86 plays of defense every week,” Saban said. “But the defense has to get off the field. We had opportunities to get off the field on third down. There were way too many penalties in the game. We stopped ourselves with penalties, and we helped them with penalties on defense by jumping offsides on 3rd and 10, and then on 3rd and 5, they scored a touchdown. Third and 10 is a lot different to play defense than 3rd and 5.

“So, there’s a lot of fixing to do, there’s a lot of things that we can improve. I like the chemistry of our team, I like the character of our guys. I just hope we can stay healthy enough to persevere.”

Leading the team in tackles once again, safety Xavier McKinney added: “It was tough. It was tough, I’m not going to lie. But the way we practice, we’re used to it. Even after practice, we condition. It was tough today, though. But I feel like we’ll get better with being more conditioned.”

South Carolina picked up 31 first downs and was 8-of-18 on third-down attempts. The hosting Gamecocks were also 2-of-3 in red-zone scoring with an 11-yard touchdown and 28-yard field goal.

But that area of the field was actually were Saban was most pleased with his defense.

“They did a great job of stopping them in the red zone when they needed to,” Saban said. “But it was a little disappointing that we didn’t execute better between what after they got there to get them there.

“There was a lot of adjusting to do. The young players had a lot of problems adjusting to the quads and to the empty formation in the boundary, which we had worked on, but it was a lot for the linebackers. So, we had to stay pretty simple in terms of what we were doing, afraid that we would not do things correctly. So, when the field shrunk, we were able to get them stopped, and I think the players showed a lot of resiliency in doing that.”

One young player that Saban chose to give a breather in order for him to play under control was freshman inside linebacker Christian Harris. The three-game starter was replaced by Ale Kaho, a sophomore, at weakside linebacker, and Saban explained why he made that substitution.

“There was a lot of confusion with the young guys, with the formations and the motions and some of the things that they were doing,” Saban said. “We tried to get (Harris) settled down by taking him out of the game and put Kaho in for a series. And then we put him back in the game, and then we decided to play Kaho a little bit because he’s a good football player and he needs to get some experience, himself.”

Alabama’s defense wasn’t at its best Saturday night.

It was evident that two true freshmen were manning the middle of the field and a veteran player like Dylan Moses was not. The amount of plays and how many of them were explosive -- 20 plays of 10 yards or more -- were a “wake-up call for us,” said outside linebacker Terrell Lewis.

But in its first true test of the 2019 season, the defense bent but didn’t break against what looks to be a Carolina offense that won’t miss a beat with Hilinski behind center the rest of the way.

“They played the same plays (as last week), for the most part,” Lewis said. “Just had a faster tempo, trying to make sure that we were kind of was on our toes and couldn’t align right and trying to basically keep up frantic. Then also, adding in the hand clap so they could throw us off-balance with jumping offsides and jumping off the ball.

“But I think, really, everything that we did, we gave them as far as a defense. We’ve just got to take practice more seriously and kind of attack it.”

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