Alabama FB Jalston Fowler said players were 'scared to lose' against Ole Miss

Since Alabama’s loss to Ole Miss last week, there’s been a lot of speculation about the future of the Tide and whether the domination Alabama has had over college football for the better part of the past five years is starting to fade.

While it’s probably too early to make such a sweeping generalization, it is clear that the mentality of Alabama players has changed.

Fullback Jalston Fowler put that mentality in the spotlight Monday when he was candid about the feeling of the Tide as the game against Ole Miss started to slip away.

"It's like we were scared to lose," Fowler said. "Everybody wasn't playing their A-Game, they were just 'Oh, if we escape with a win we'll be alright.'"

Fowler said the practices leading up to the game told the story as Alabama wasn’t as sharp as it needed to be going into a game against a tough Ole Miss team. And Fowler said the lackadaisical practices aren’t uncharacteristic, because "it happens in practice all the time."

"Everybody was just mad, everybody was just saying we should have played better and worked our tail off, we shouldn't have been bull-stuffing all week like that," Fowler said.

It’s hard to assert that Alabama isn’t one of the power brokers in college football anymore, but it’s possible that the success the program has enjoyed in the past has started to go to its head while the rest of the country has seemingly caught up.

Alabama can’t just walk onto the field and expect to win. It needs to put in the same dedication and preparation its opponents do.

Alabama lost two games last year for the first time since 2010, and last week’s loss was the earliest the Tide have lost a game since that 10-3 season. With so much parity in the SEC, especially the SEC West, every game needs to be treated as if it’s a championship and Alabama isn’t in that mindset right now.

"We're supposed to be grown men," linebacker Reggie Ragland said. "We're supposed to be Alabama football and we didn't play like we should have."

For more Alabama news, visit TideSports.com.

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Graham Watson is the editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at dr.saturday@ymail.com or follow her on Twitter! Follow @YahooDrSaturday

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