The box score after Alabama’s stomping of Mississippi State looked pretty good if you are a fan of the Crimson Tide.

UA gained 357 yards to the Bulldogs’ 261. Alabama had no turnovers compared to three for MSU. Quarterback Will Rogers continued to have some of the worst performances of his career against a Nick Saban defense. Yet, when looking at the sack totals, a season-long issue for the Tide remained.

Alabama rotated left tackles for a second straight week. Underclassmen Kadyn Proctor and Elijah Pritchett traded a few series, with Proctor getting the majority of the snaps. On Monday, Saban commented on their performance as well as the overall blocking performance.

“I thought they played better in this game. This is probably the best they played all year. The offensive line as a whole played one of their better games against a difficult front that stunts a lot,” Saban said. “But (Proctor) probably played the best he’s played all year, which is a good thing and hopefully there’ll be some confidence and I still think we have confidence that (Pritchett) can do a good job for us as well.”

No. 10 Alabama (4-1, 2-0 SEC) allowed four sacks, losing 22 yards of offense. It brought the Tide’s season total to 16, which ranks 124th nationally. However, most of the latest sacks appeared not to be the fault of Alabama’s offensive line, as quarterback Jalen Milroe tried to buy too much time in the pocket on Saturday.

According to PFF, Alabama’s 79.1 pass-blocking grade and 73.4 mark for run-blocking are its second-best performances in a game this season. Proctor conceded one quarterback hurry, one pressure and committed a false start. He allowed no sacks for the second consecutive game after allowing four to Texas and South Florida.

“They played really well. You know, those guys, I mean, even you all could tell that they were plugged in. That’s what I told you. That’s really tough on offensive linemen when you have to block movement and pluggers all the time. I think the offensive line did a fantastic job of controlling the line of scrimmage. I don’t know what we ended up rushing for, but I think that’s important to our team to have that kind of balance,” Saban said following the 40-17 win.

Milroe only attempted 12 passes. Alabama ran for 193 rushing yards on 43 carries, including a 53-yard scramble by Milroe to open the scoring. The ground attack put Milroe into favorable passing situations, which he took advantage of.

The Tide will need its offensive line to keep improving. The next step will come against Texas A&M this weekend in College Station (2:30 p.m. on CBS). Milroe produced 192 yards against the Aggies a year ago in his first collegiate start but was sacked four times. Two of the stops came via Fadil Diggs, who’s back for his junior season.

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Nick Alvarez is a reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @nick_a_alvarez or email him at [email protected].