On 2nd down? No. You trust you coaches and your team to do what they've been doing all day long and move the chains on the next play. You don't risk an injury on a 2nd down play when the game wasn't on the line in that very moment.

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It was crucial play he came up short on.

It wasn't more crucial than others. Had the next play not been a tipped pass, we likely move the chains and no one even talks about the slide. It was only "crucial" in the eyes of many because we now know the outcome of the game. You can do that to literally any game and second guess a decision that was made in real-time after the fact given knowledge of what was unknown at the time.

I'm sure had Fromm known that the next play would result in a tipped pass, he would have tried to pick up the first down, but that's not how football works. You make plays based on risk vs. reward in the situation that you find yourself, and 2nd down is more acceptable for sliding short of the marker than 3rd or 4th down.

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Bama bear us because their QB made the plays with his legs in addition to his arm.

Fromm didn't need to make plays with his legs to beat Bama for most of the game. He did alright throwing for 300+ yards and 3 touchdowns. The issue was that our defense wasn't prepared for Hurts to come out on fire (he scrambled more than Tua was/did) and we paid for selling out to the pass. Bad field position on the fake punt ultimately killed us. Bama's defense played really well late in the game and brought more pressure than we were able to handle. You should also remember that our QB with legs wasn't able to run the ball very well against them in his short time in the game.