Here’s the bottom line on the evaluation of Alabama football five games through the 2019 season: The Crimson Tide is 5-0 following Bama’s 59-31 win over Ole Miss in Bryant-Denny Stadium Saturday.

There is much more to it, of course, for Alabama Coach Nick Saban. And with the Crimson Tide having surrendered 279 rushing yards, 476 total yards to the Rebels just moments before Saban spoke Saturday afternoon, it’s understandable that his evaluation (and expectations for improvement) centered in great part on the defense.

“We didn’t get off the field on defense when we had opportunities, and that allowed them to extend drives and keep the ball,” he said. “We didn’t stop the run very well on defense.”

That doesn’t mean special teams, which had some explosive punt returns by Jalen Waddle and a blocked punt/touchdown recovery by Ale Kaho, and the offense, which put up 59 points and 573 yards of offense, won’t address some issues. But Saban clearly was not happy with Alabama defense on Saturday.

Xavier McKinney was leading tackler for Alabama vs. Ole Miss

Neither were Crimson Tide defensive players. Safety Xavier McKinney, one of the leaders of the defense, was almost despondent.

He said he laid the blame for Mississippi’s offensive success on Alabama’s defense. “I think it was mental errors we made, mistakes we made, and they capitalized on them.”

As for Alabama after five games, Saban said, “We’ve had some adversity to overcome. Obviously, we’re playing some young guys on defense. We’re not really satisfied with the way we’re playing defense right now, especially today, especially not being able to stop the run effectively, which is something we have always been able to do pretty well around here.

“It’s not just the defensive line, it’s not just about the linebackers. It’s how you play on the perimeter, how you tackle on the perimeter, how you contain the ball, how you run to the ball.

“We need to improve.”

He said, “Offensively, we’ve been very, very productive. But we need to be able to control not only the tempo of the game with offense, we have to control the clock and plays with the offense.

“Today we played 67 plays of offense and 88 plays of defense. We win 59 to whatever and score 59 points. And same as at South Carolina. We scored 47 points and played [86] plays of defense. If you’re really in control of the game, that really shouldn’t happen. We’ve been productive on offense, but if we play 20 more plays of defense every game, the cumulative effect of that is times 12 and that’s a lot of plays and it’s a lot of wear and tear on a lot of players.

“We’ve already lost some players and hopefully we’ll get some of those guys back sometime. We were able to get Terrell Lewis back to play a little bit today. We were happy about that, but it’s always going to be a little bit day-to-day with how much he can do.”

He noted, “We gave up a couple explosive plays at the end of the game. We’re really giving other [inexperienced] people opportunities to play, but those people need to play. We probably ought to protect them a little bit in those situations as well.”

McKinney took responsibility for giving up a touchdown pass (“I didn’t play through his hands”), but said, “I didn’t play very well, It is what it is. DBs get beat. It happens. But I’m going to get back up to my play and make sure it doesn’t happen again.

“I didn’t play well today.”

As for the defense as a whole, McKinney said, “It wasn’t good. We gave up a lot of points. I think our focus…a lot of mental errors when they made big plays. Once we eliminate those, we’ll play better.”

He said, “We’ve got an offense that’s so good and plays so well every game, and we want to match them, and right now I don’t think we’re doing that. It’s frustrating.

“I need to do a better job, which I will do.”

Linebacker Anfernee Jennings cited a lack of focus. “You have to pay attention to details,” he said. “I feel like a lot of what [Ole Miss] got was us not paying attention to details.

“We knew about him [Ole Miss quarterback John Rhys Plumlee],” he said. “We had to make some adjustments, but for the most part we stuck to our game plan.

“The season doesn’t stop right here. We’ve got a lot of room to improve. We’re going to attack out weaknesses and fix these things.”

McKinney was Alabama’s leading tackler with 10 primary stops and 3 assists and had a quarterback pressure. Jennings had 2 primaries and 7 assists and 1 tackle for loss. Raekwon Davis had 2 primaries and 6 assists. Jared Mayden had an interception which he returned 36 yards. Terrell Lewis had Bama’s only sack.