Alabama Football Fall Practice Nov. 28, 2016

Alabama offensive line coach Brent Key works with his players during Alabama football practice, Monday, Nov. 28, 2016, at the Hank Crisp Indoor Facility in Tuscaloosa, Ala. Vasha Hunt/vhunt@al.com ORG XMIT: ALBIN401

(VASHA HUNT)

Instead of celebrating Alabama's latest conquest, Cam Robinson lamented the missed opportunities.

The junior left tackle sat at his locker inside the Georgia Dome following the Crimson Tide's 24-7 victory over Washington in the College Football Playoff semifinal round diagnosing what went wrong with the offense during an erratic performance.

"There were points in the game, I was like, 'If we execute and stop shooting ourselves in the foot, stop with the penalties and the little technical mishaps we were having, I knew we would get on track and get going a little bit,'" Robinson recalled.

But it never really happened. Bo Scarbrough's Herculean rushing display saved Alabama, helping mitigate the effect of the disjointed game plan called by Lane Kiffin in what would be his last game as coordinator. The Tide struggled to sustain drives because of penalties. Alabama had four three-and-outs, and was penalized 11 times.

Alabama was flagged for two false starts and whistled for delay of game twice. One play-clock penalty particularly infuriated Alabama coach Nick Saban, who yelled at center Bradley Bozeman to snap the ball with an expletive thrown in for good measure.

The issues, according to offensive line coach Brent Key, stemmed from the cadence, the Tide's layoff before the semifinal game, and communication. Key and the Tide are hoping to get the kinks worked out before the national championship rematch against Clemson on Monday

"It's may be the snap was late coming or maybe the rhythm of the snap count got off. There are a lot of different factors in there," Key said. "That's like anything when it comes to line play or some of those nuances...Once the season goes you start to get into a rhythm and you get into a flow and you get into a rhythm. You get into a rhythm and the center knows the quarterback and everybody knows the center and you become a rhythm within the cadence and the flow of the game and whenever you have time off and you still have those same young guys in young spots -- some of those things are going to creep back up and I think that's what happened in the game."

Alabama also ran a lot of pre-snap motion that may have affected the timing of the operation. According to Kiffin, the movement was used to disguise the Tide's intentions against a Huskies defense he said was adept at diagnosing offensive tendencies. Alabama ran only one jet sweep even though it presented a look that suggested it was going to run the play many more times.

"Those things they require not only the cadence but the timing of the cadence and the timing of the motion with the quarterback and the center and the timing of that," Key said. "So, a lot of moving parts in the puzzle."

The procedure infractions contributed to a penalty total that equaled the sum of infractions accumulated over the four previous games. Robinson was not happy and earlier this week he made sure his teammates understood why.

"I just wanted to let the offense know, as a unit, the way we played last weekend is not acceptable," said Robinson, one of Alabama's four captain. "Playing like that, that's the type of stuff that will get us beat. So we just gotta have a good, sharp week of practice. Come out and practice just to get better and make sure we're locked in on all the little small things so we're not shooting ourselves in the foot, getting the little penalties that we inflict on ourselves....It was all just like technical stuff, just false starts, holding calls, illegal formations. Those type of things are all just stuff that we control and stuff that we have to clean up."

The last chance to get back on track will be Monday in the final game of the season.