For Alabama, the road to the SEC Championship looks to be getting easier.  The Tide will visit the Missouri Tigers on Saturday afternoon.  The Tigers lost to Vanderbilt Saturday night by a score of 19-15 and have a 3-3 season record.  All three losses are to conference opponents.

     Alabama would have been a heavy favorite against the Tigers regardless of what happened Saturday night.  But, Missouri didn’t just lose to the Commodores, they also lost their best playmaker.

     Quarterback James Franklin will reportedly miss the game due to a knee injury.  Franklin has completed 61.3 percent of his passes for 805 yards.  He has thrown four touchdowns and two interceptions.

     Franklin will be replaced by Corbin Berkstresser.  The redshirt freshman has completed 50 percent of his passes and has thrown three touchdowns and one interception.

     Offensively, the Tigers average 356 yards and 25.3 points per game.  Those totals both rank in the bottom half of the conference.  The Tigers will use a fast-paced, no-huddle offense similar to what Alabama faced two weeks ago against Ole Miss.

     On the defensive side of the ball, the Tigers give up 326 yards and 22.8 points per game.  The defense has good team speed, but is undersized by SEC standards.  Alabama should be able to control the line of scrimmage and get its running game back on track this week. 

     Looking ahead, the November 3^rd matchup against LSU is not shaping up as expected.  Les Miles’ team continues to struggle on offense and suffered their first loss of the season Saturday to Florida.  Next up for LSU is a South Carolina team that is playing as good as any in the country.  If the Tigers don’t get the offense on track, they could lose for the second consecutive week for the first time since the 2008 season.

     Many things could happen over the next month, but at this point LSU doesn’t appear ready to challenge Alabama.  The Tigers could manage only six points Saturday and have had a number of players go down with injuries, particularly on an offensive line that was already having issues protecting an erratic quarterback.

     Whoever represents the Western Division in Atlanta will have a tougher opponent waiting for them than previously anticipated.  The balance of power that has been so solidly rooted in the west has begun to shift eastward.  Both South Carolina and Florida are ranked in the top five and appear to be capable challengers for the conference title.

     For Alabama to continue its winning ways, the Tide will need to continue to create turnovers on defense and limit them on offense.  There’s still room for improvement in other areas, especially on offense.

     The offense is averaging 188 rushing yards per game, which is fifth best in the conference.  Ole Miss held Alabama to just 124 yards on the ground.  The Rebels loaded the box and limited the Tide running game for much of the contest.  By employing this strategy, the Ole Miss defense was daring AJ McCarron to make throws downfield, an opportunity he rarely took advantage of.

     The Alabama passing game might be really good.  The receiving corps is as deep and talented as any that has ever been assembled in Tuscaloosa.  AJ McCarron has a strong arm and has now completed 206 passes without an interception, an Alabama record.  Due to the relative ease with which Alabama has won this year, they have yet to fully showcase the passing game, attempting just 23.4 passes per contest.  That total is 12^th out of the 14 teams.

     Defensively, Alabama is giving up an average of just seven points and 191.6 yards per game.  The Tide leads the nation in both categories.

     Almost halfway through the season, this Alabama defense seems to have picked up right where the 2011 team left off.  It’s hard to imagine any team having an easy time of it against what has proven to be another very fundamentally sound and physically dominating defense.

     Alabama has given up a few long drives this season, including two to Ole Miss, but has proven to be very stingy against the big play.  Other than the occasional missed sack, Alabama has shown none of the symptoms of the poor tackling trend that seems to be plaguing much of the country.

     The special teams have improved quite a bit from last year.  Cade Foster has done an excellent job of kicking the ball into the end zone and he and Jeremy Shelley have done of excellent job of converting field goal attempts.  The pair has made 84.6 percent of attempts as compared to just 63.9 percent last year.

     Christion Jones returned a kickoff for a touchdown against Ole Miss, the first for the Tide since September of 2010.  The loss of DeAndrew White and Dee Hart will be felt on both special teams and offense.  As Jones showed, though, there are plenty of playmakers on this team to step up when the opportunity arises.