It's a good thing that football games are played in two halves. Because the first half of Alabama's game against Arkansas was about as bad as Alabama has played since being boat-raced by Utah in the Sugar Bowl following the 2008 season. Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. The defense began the game flat-footed and confused, giving up a TD in two plays that covered 74 yards and consumed only :50 on the game clock.
But that's OK, right? We knew Arkansas was going to score, and probably score quickly, but the Alabama offense is the best in the country and would control the clock, shorten the game and score points. Not today. The game was more than half gone before the Alabama offense quit stoping itself with uncharacteristic turnovers and played like champions, grinding out lengthy drives that finish with points.
In the first half, Alabama couldn't generate any pressure with its pass rush, and the secondary was allowing Pigs to run free and uncovered down field.Thank goodness for the second half. After intermission, Alabama held a very potent Arkansas offense to just 3 points, scoreless in the fourth quarter and ended the Hogs' last two possession of the game with interceptions.
I've been saying that the Defense needed to mature. Well, sometime during the half-time show, the guys on the Alabama defense grew up. No matter how much the Offense improved its execution by eliminating turnovers and scoring 17 points, if the Defense had not shut down Ryan Mallett and the Arkansas points machine, the Offense would never have had the chance to grind out the win.
Arkansas is a really good team. The Hogs are going to win a lot of games this season. They might win the rest of them. They are really going places this year. Fortunately, the SEC Championship Game will not be one of those places.
There is a lot of football to play this season. But if Alabama manages to run the table, we will look back on this weekend as the game where a team of champions first came of age.
Here's how I grade the game:
Offense: C+ That's the average grade between a first-half F and a second half A+. GMAC completed 18 of 26 pass attempts for 194 yards, a TD and 2 interceptions. Those two picks were pretty darned ugly. The first, came on a third and goal at the Hog 5 yard line. Rather than throwing the ball out the back of the end zone and settling for the FG attempt, GMac tried to force the ball into double coverage. The second pick killed another promising drive. GMac took too long to deliver the ball to Darius Hanks who was wide open on busted coverage. The Arkansas safety made an excellent play on the ball, but if the pass had been thrown even so much as a second earlier he would have been treated to the sight of the number 15 getting smaller as Hanks ran into the end zone.
Mark Ingram rushed for 157 net yards on 24 carries and scored 2 TDs. This brings his career total to 33 touchdowns with 8 games to play in the regular season. I predict that Mark will eclipse Shaun Alexander's record of 41 career TDs by the end of the Tennessee game.
Trent Richardson once again had the most all purpose yards-227 [85 rushing, 25 receiving, and 117 in kick returns].
Julio Jones gained 55 yards on 5 receptions and Marquis Maze added 33 more on 3 catches. Trent Richardson caught GMac's only TD pass, but the effort to get the ball across the goal line was all Trent.
Bama had 421 yards of total offense and dominated time of possession [33:52 to 26:08] especially in the fourth quarter [11:25 to 3:35]. That's where Alabama's superior conditioning made the difference in the ball game.
Defense: C+ Again, the average of a failing grade in the first half and an excellent grade in the second.
Dre Kirkpatrick led all tacklers with 9 [7 solo]. This should surprise no one. Mallett threw in Dre's direction most of the afternoon with excellent results for the Porkers. Dre did have 1 tackle for loss and made the interception that killed the Hogs chance for a repeat of their late-game heroics last week against Georgia. Just as an aside: Georgia really stinks this year-now back to Alabama.
Mark Barron and Nico Johnson each had 8 tackles. Robert Lester had 7 [5 solo] and collected 2 more interceptions. The sophomore from Foley is really making the most of this season. Against Arkansas alone, he nearly matched the 8 tackles he recorded all last season.
Arkansas was held to 421 yards of total offense, coincidentally, the same number as Alabama. But in the 4th quarter, Ryan Mallett completed only 4 of 10 passing attempts. For the game, the Hogs only converted 2 of their 10 third downs.
Special Teams:
Kickoffs: A Alabama averaged 66.8 yards gross per kick and covered returns well enough that the net per kick average was 45.6 compared to the Piggies 36.8.
Punting: A Bama averaged 45.7 yards per punt, kicked 2 dead inside the Hog 20 and had one punt in excess of 50 yards.
Place kicking: A Jeremy Shelley was good from 36 on his lone FG attempt and made each of his three PATs. Moreover, it looks to me as if the whole, snap-place-kick sequence is sharper than in the earlier games.
Coaching: C+ It's really hard not to give the coaches a higher grade considering the excellent adjustments that were made at the half. But the Tide was clearly not ready to play when the opening whistle blew. A lot of that is explained by the maturity level of the secondary. But the offense seemed out of synch for most of the first half. Moreover, the Tide was penalized 8 times in the game, and we came out of a time out with the wrong players on the field. Nick wasn't happy about it either. You could tell.
After the game, Nick focused his remarks on how the players responded during the game to the adversity that rained down in the first half. He said that he hoped this game would help teach a lesson about what it takes to compete at a high level against a good opponent.
I'm willing to bet that this week in practice that lesson gets repeated.
Florida cruised to a win over Kentucky today. That's a good thing. I didn't want the Gators to get tripped up and come into Tuscaloosa having been embarrassed the week before. It's too bad that South Carolina wilted in the 4th quarter down in the Village, because I really would have liked to see Alabama be the team to give the Hogs, the Lizards and the Fighting Chickens their first losses of the season. We will have to settle for two of the three.
With Florida sandwiched between road games at Arkansas and South Carolina, Alabama is playing the toughest three game stretch of any team in the country. Does anyone in their right minds think that Boise State could win those three games?
Beating Arkansas the way it did today was a tremendous achievement for the 2010 Crimson Tide. There are more challenges ahead. But today in Fayetteville, Arkansas the Alabama players found inside themselves the key to meeting and overcoming each of those challenges.
Rammer Jammer.
The Commissioner
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