Alabama football lost to Michigan 27-20 on Monday in the College Football Playoff’s Rose Bowl semifinal. The game went to overtime, with the teams tied at 20.

Alabama won the toss to start overtime and elected to start on defense. UM’s Blake Corum promptly rushed for a 17-yard score.

On the ensuing drive, UA quarterback Jalen Milroe rushed to get Alabama to the Michigan 9. Alabama then got swallowed up on two runs, before Jermaine Burton caught a pass and got down to the Wolverine 3-yard line, where the Tide faced a fourth-and-goal.

Milroe was short. Michigan won.

Trouble with the snap

Alabama had a real chance to score on the first drive of the second half. The Crimson Tide was down 13-10 and was driving into Michigan territory.

Then, Seth McLaughlin rolled the snap past Milroe. A play later, he did it again.

The bad snaps were a plague throughout Alabama’s season. McLaughlin simply never could pull it all the way together, even as the problem temporarily improved.

“I went to the dead-ball snap,” McLaughlin said in November of how he had improved the snaps. “I think the inaccurate snaps have been cleaned up a little bit. That’s still a thing I’m trying to work on, just cleaning up the snaps in practice and in the game, just putting an emphasis on how important it is to get the ball in Milroe’s hands and let him go to work and do what he’s so good at.”

Against Michigan, it all went downhill again, as bad as it ever was. It couldn’t have happened at a worse time for the Tide..

Offensive line troubles

Throughout the early part of the season, Alabama had major offensive line problems. Milroe was heavily criticized through the first several games, but the issues often started with him having to run for his life.

Alabama had given up 43 sacks on the season entering the game, but for a while, those problems seemed to have been rectified, especially in the SEC championship game against Georgia. No such luck against the Wolverines.

Milroe was sacked on Alabama’s first offensive play, and it didn’t improve much. He went down five times in the first half, with the Tide’s line getting manhandled on a fair chunk of passing downs.

Milroe went down five times in the second half. Alabama reached its school record for sacks allowed in a season.

Sloppy start

After Will Reichard’s opening kickoff went through the end zone, Michigan started the game on its own 25. JJ McCarthy was forced out to his right, and appeared to toss the ball directly to Caleb Downs for an Alabama interception.

McCarthy was bailed out by the fact that Downs had been out of bounds before grabbing the pick. Still, not a good way to start the game and the Wolverines went three-and-out.

Alabama started in similarly abysmal fashion. Milroe was sacked for a 13-yard loss on the first play, and two snaps later he went down again, 11 yards behind the line of scrimmage.

The Crimson Tide went to punt, but another miscue set it up for success. Michigan’s Semaj Morgan muffed the punt and the Tide took back over.

The teams settled down a bit after that, though Alabama continued to have some of the snap issues that have plagued it all season. The first quarter ended with the game tied at 7.