The cheer rang out but the fans didn’t look excited. After Ty Simpson barreled into the end zone with 33 seconds left to give Alabama football a 17-3 lead against South Florida, the Crimson Tide’s cheerleaders and Big Al mascot were leading the fans behind the UA bench in chant.

“Ala,” they yelled to the group holding shakers at Raymond James Stadium.

“Bama,” came back from the stands.

The Crimson Tide faithful kept on chanting, but their faces didn’t change. At best, one of them would laugh at a joke, but for the most part, their expressions were perturbed, disturbed by what had just happened on the field in the 17-3 victory.

Alabama won by two scores. But in a game where it had the talent to do more, it didn’t.

Nearly every problem that plagued the Tide in last week’s loss to Texas still was on full display. One that Nick Saban pointed out in the postgame was the penalties that took away touchdowns.

“We’ve actually had four touchdowns negated this year because of penalties,” Saban said. “A kickoff return today, a touchdown run today. Two last week. So all these things add up.”

Terrion Arnold’s return after South Florida took an early lead on a field goal was brought back to the UA 11-yard line after a holding penalty. In the fourth quarter, Roydell Williams went for six before another hold took it off the board.

Overall, the penalties were one of many symptoms of sloppy play for the Crimson Tide on Saturday. Besides that, Alabama had trouble blocking, giving up five sacks.

Alabama also had an interception negated by an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty and had a muffed rolling punt by Kool-Aid McKinstry that turned into the USF field goal. After that mistake, Saban appeared animated on the sideline, giving his team an earful.

“We didn’t execute great,” Saban said after the game. “So I don’t feel great about that. But the way we competed in the game was, I think, outstanding.”

Saban had preached all week after the Texas game how much Alabama needed to improve the consistency of its performance. Clearly, there’s still work to be done.

“All these thing add up to how much consistency and how well you play,” Saban said. “How many points do you score? So we need to fix all those things and we’re certainly going to work on it.”

Alabama will return to Bryant-Denny Stadium next Saturday to face Ole Miss.

More: Casagrande: Texas loss was bad for Alabama, South Florida was worse