In life, there is a difference between what we need and what we want.
We need food. We want steak. We need hydration. We want Coke products. OK, for some of our Correspondents that might be a "need," but you get my point.
The Alabama football team entered last night's game against the Ole Miss Rebel Black Bears . . . . I'm sorry. We will return to The Grades in just a minute, but I must take a detour to comment on the absurdity that is the University of Mississippi's effort to be what it isn't.
The new Ole Miss mascot, a beast whose natural habitat does not include the Magnolia State, is the latest effort of the school to disassociate itself from its past. It started years ago with changing the fight song from "Dixie" to whatever it is now. The "Hottie Tottie" maybe?. There was even a brief period of time when the Ole Miss band would play "Dixie" not as an up-tempo Scotch-Irish jig, but as a languid, mournful ballad; the way Elvis did it in his American Medley. The confederate battle flag was next to go. For a while the stars and bars was replaced by a big blue capital "M", piped in white on a red field, with eleven white stars inside the letter. Did they really think that would fool anyone?
Was it a reasonable idea to get away from "Colonel Reb?" For me, that particular character was reminiscent of what Sam Watkins described as "a rich man's war and a poor man's fight." Not exactly the kind of thing that would inspire me to lay it all on the line for the old Alma Mater, but to each his own. In the end, Col. Reb just could not survive the pandemic of political correctness that has swept college athletics like swine flu. So, why not replace him with a mascot that would be a representation of the more noble aspects of being a rebel?
What about a private soldier, clad in course gray flannel with butternut pipping, a bed role slung over his shoulder, carrying a muzzle-loading rifle? You can find excellent models to choose from standing atop monuments in the town-squares of county seats all across the landscape of the rural South. No. That would not do for the folks at Ole Miss. The aristocracy from places like Hernando, Gautier, and Corinth that comprise the core of the Mississippi alumni base would evidently rather be represented by an ursine beast than a mere enlisted man. I guess that the Ole Miss fans decided that nothing says "rebel" quite like a bear, but with so many variations of bears available, why did they have to infringe on the trade-mark of Tuscaloosa High School? . . . Now back to The Grades.
The Tide came into last nights game with a list of "needs" and "wants." We needed a win. We needed the defense to play with intensity, to tackle, to pressure, to dominate. We wanted the offense to be more consistent. We wanted the running game to return to the lethal efficiency it knew earlier in the year.
The Tide left the game having gotten what it needed. But not what it wanted.
The defense played a much better game, in the first half, than it did in the three halves of football the preceded it. We held the team that had led the SEC in scoring, to only 10 points.
The offense, however, did not take a step forward. The Rebs borrowed a page from Ellis Johnson's game plan and walked the safeties up towards the line of scrimmage. They clogged the running lanes, and the passing game failed to stretch the field north and south.
Julio Jones did his level best to play with a left hand that was only four days post-operative. He's a great football player, but he's not bionic. With Julio unavailable, going forward we will need GMac and the remaining receivers to elevate their game. Opposing defenses must be forced to respect a deep threat. So long as our passing attack consists of medium routes, screens, and sacks, our running game will have no chance to achieve the levels it knew in September.
While we got what we needed from the defense, there is still a list of unfulfilled "wants" on that side of the ball. I want to see us get better on third down. I want the linebackers to start getting a higher number of tackles than the defensive backs. I want the defense to play a full game, just like I want the offense to do.
We have now faced two opponents coming off of a bye week, and we can see how one team took advantage of the open date and how one didn't. Steve Spurrier and his staff did an excellent job preparing for Alabama-they enjoyed their win over the Tide right up to the kick off of their game against Kentucky. Houston Nutt, on the other hand, evidently spent the open week exhorting his team to play more physical, without bothering to tell them that being more physical does not mean being dirtier. The Rebs were the least penalized team in the league prior to Saturday night, yet they were flagged 12 times against Alabama, mostly for late hits, piling on, and other assorted chippy shots. Even so, the refs missed some pretty blatant stuff. Just ask Darius Hanks, who had an Ole Miss player remove his helmet by the face-mask, while the official was auditioning for a gig as a guest referee on Monday Night Raw.
Yes, Alabama got what it needed, even if we didn't get everything we would want, and here's how I grade the game:
Offense: C+ GMac's passing stats actually look pretty good on Sunday: 17 completions on 25 attempts for 219 yards and two TDs. But 8 of those completions were to running backs [Trent caught 5 passes for 101 yards including an 85 yard screen pass for a TD; Mark caught 3 for 7 yards.] Marquis Maze had 4 receptions for 42 yards and Earl Alexander had 2 for 32. Despite his broken hand, Julio caught one pass for 8 yards.
The rushing statistics tell you all you need to know: Mark ran the ball 15 times for 60 net yards. Trent added 45 yards on 11 carries. GMac was sacked 4 times for 16 yards; fewer sacks by nearly half from the previous week, but still far too many.
The drive chart shows that the offense just isn't performing consistently. Alabama had four drives of 40 or more yards [46, 52, 82 and 40] that resulted in 2 TDs, 1 FG and a punt. Our first six offensive possessions [I don't count the punt return as a possession] ended as follows: TD, Punt, FG, Punt, FG, FG. The opening drive of the second half was a three and out. We only converted 33% of our third-downs.
Defense: B- The defense tackled much better than last week, and the intensity of play by the front seven was much improved over last week. Rumor had it, that Coach Saban told the defense on Monday that nobody had a job on the defense unless they earned it in practice. Perhaps that's so, and perhaps it accounts for the clear step up in play by the Stop Troops.
Ole Miss' first six possessions all ended with a punt and all but one of those possessions was a 3 and out. The exception was a 5 play possession that consumed only 2:30 of game time. In the third quarter, however, the D allowed Mississippi to convert 5 third-downs in a row all from long distance and permitted drives of 41 and 78 yards, yielding a TD. A 10 play Rebel scoring drive was followed by a 9 play drive that resulted in a punt. For a good portion of the third and fourth quarters, the defense was simply unable to get off the field.
Jeremiah Masoli spend much of the night running for his life. The defensive stat sheet records 10 quarterback hurries, 6 tackles for loss [2 sacks], 6 passes broken up and an interception [Mark Barron].
Dre Kirkpatrick is credited with 7 tackles all solo. Barron also recorded 7 tackles [5 solo] and Dequan Menzie, Dont'a Hightower, C.J. Mosley, and Robert Lester each had 5. It was good to see Dont'a having a good game. This was perhaps his best game so far this year. His photo was on the cover of the game program; which is where it needs to be, rather than on milk cartons.
Will Lowery saw a great deal of action in the game and recorded 3 tackles and a pass break up.
Special Teams:
Punting: B- Cody Mandell averaged 38.2 yards per kick on 6 punts none of which were returnable, his longest was 50 yards and he nailed Ole Miss inside its 20 yard line 4 times. Marquis returned 6 Ole Miss punts for 125 yards [37 longest] but lost a fumble on one return. The hit of the game was the block thrown by Junior LB, Alex Watkins [6-3, 232], from Brownsville, Tennessee, on Maze's long punt return. The block decleated two Ole Miss players and left so much equipment scattered on the ground that you would think it was a yard sale.
Kickoffs: B- Bama averaged 63.6 yards gross and 44 yards net on kick offs. Trent Richardson returned all 3 Ole Miss kicks for 74 yards. His longest return was 28 yards.
Place kicking: A+ Cade Foster was good from 44 and 49.
C Jeremy Shelley was good from 19 but missed wide right from 42.
Why are we doing this? I know Shelley is the "short FG kicker" and Foster is the "long FG kicker." But don't you think that someone who can kick it good from 44 and 49 should be able to kick it from 42?
Coaching: C+ We got what we needed. We didn't get all that we want. The Tide was penalized 8 times for 52 yards, including a delay of game penalty. What's up with that? This was the 7th game of the season, shouldn't we be able to get the play in on time?
For the 7th time this season, Trent Richardson was the leader in all purpose yardage with 220 [45 rushing, 101 receiving, and 74 returning].
We need food. We want steak. We need hydration. We want Coke products. OK, for some of our Correspondents that might be a "need," but you get my point.
The Alabama football team entered last night's game against the Ole Miss Rebel Black Bears . . . . I'm sorry. We will return to The Grades in just a minute, but I must take a detour to comment on the absurdity that is the University of Mississippi's effort to be what it isn't.
The new Ole Miss mascot, a beast whose natural habitat does not include the Magnolia State, is the latest effort of the school to disassociate itself from its past. It started years ago with changing the fight song from "Dixie" to whatever it is now. The "Hottie Tottie" maybe?. There was even a brief period of time when the Ole Miss band would play "Dixie" not as an up-tempo Scotch-Irish jig, but as a languid, mournful ballad; the way Elvis did it in his American Medley. The confederate battle flag was next to go. For a while the stars and bars was replaced by a big blue capital "M", piped in white on a red field, with eleven white stars inside the letter. Did they really think that would fool anyone?
Was it a reasonable idea to get away from "Colonel Reb?" For me, that particular character was reminiscent of what Sam Watkins described as "a rich man's war and a poor man's fight." Not exactly the kind of thing that would inspire me to lay it all on the line for the old Alma Mater, but to each his own. In the end, Col. Reb just could not survive the pandemic of political correctness that has swept college athletics like swine flu. So, why not replace him with a mascot that would be a representation of the more noble aspects of being a rebel?
What about a private soldier, clad in course gray flannel with butternut pipping, a bed role slung over his shoulder, carrying a muzzle-loading rifle? You can find excellent models to choose from standing atop monuments in the town-squares of county seats all across the landscape of the rural South. No. That would not do for the folks at Ole Miss. The aristocracy from places like Hernando, Gautier, and Corinth that comprise the core of the Mississippi alumni base would evidently rather be represented by an ursine beast than a mere enlisted man. I guess that the Ole Miss fans decided that nothing says "rebel" quite like a bear, but with so many variations of bears available, why did they have to infringe on the trade-mark of Tuscaloosa High School? . . . Now back to The Grades.
The Tide came into last nights game with a list of "needs" and "wants." We needed a win. We needed the defense to play with intensity, to tackle, to pressure, to dominate. We wanted the offense to be more consistent. We wanted the running game to return to the lethal efficiency it knew earlier in the year.
The Tide left the game having gotten what it needed. But not what it wanted.
The defense played a much better game, in the first half, than it did in the three halves of football the preceded it. We held the team that had led the SEC in scoring, to only 10 points.
The offense, however, did not take a step forward. The Rebs borrowed a page from Ellis Johnson's game plan and walked the safeties up towards the line of scrimmage. They clogged the running lanes, and the passing game failed to stretch the field north and south.
Julio Jones did his level best to play with a left hand that was only four days post-operative. He's a great football player, but he's not bionic. With Julio unavailable, going forward we will need GMac and the remaining receivers to elevate their game. Opposing defenses must be forced to respect a deep threat. So long as our passing attack consists of medium routes, screens, and sacks, our running game will have no chance to achieve the levels it knew in September.
While we got what we needed from the defense, there is still a list of unfulfilled "wants" on that side of the ball. I want to see us get better on third down. I want the linebackers to start getting a higher number of tackles than the defensive backs. I want the defense to play a full game, just like I want the offense to do.
We have now faced two opponents coming off of a bye week, and we can see how one team took advantage of the open date and how one didn't. Steve Spurrier and his staff did an excellent job preparing for Alabama-they enjoyed their win over the Tide right up to the kick off of their game against Kentucky. Houston Nutt, on the other hand, evidently spent the open week exhorting his team to play more physical, without bothering to tell them that being more physical does not mean being dirtier. The Rebs were the least penalized team in the league prior to Saturday night, yet they were flagged 12 times against Alabama, mostly for late hits, piling on, and other assorted chippy shots. Even so, the refs missed some pretty blatant stuff. Just ask Darius Hanks, who had an Ole Miss player remove his helmet by the face-mask, while the official was auditioning for a gig as a guest referee on Monday Night Raw.
Yes, Alabama got what it needed, even if we didn't get everything we would want, and here's how I grade the game:
Offense: C+ GMac's passing stats actually look pretty good on Sunday: 17 completions on 25 attempts for 219 yards and two TDs. But 8 of those completions were to running backs [Trent caught 5 passes for 101 yards including an 85 yard screen pass for a TD; Mark caught 3 for 7 yards.] Marquis Maze had 4 receptions for 42 yards and Earl Alexander had 2 for 32. Despite his broken hand, Julio caught one pass for 8 yards.
The rushing statistics tell you all you need to know: Mark ran the ball 15 times for 60 net yards. Trent added 45 yards on 11 carries. GMac was sacked 4 times for 16 yards; fewer sacks by nearly half from the previous week, but still far too many.
The drive chart shows that the offense just isn't performing consistently. Alabama had four drives of 40 or more yards [46, 52, 82 and 40] that resulted in 2 TDs, 1 FG and a punt. Our first six offensive possessions [I don't count the punt return as a possession] ended as follows: TD, Punt, FG, Punt, FG, FG. The opening drive of the second half was a three and out. We only converted 33% of our third-downs.
Defense: B- The defense tackled much better than last week, and the intensity of play by the front seven was much improved over last week. Rumor had it, that Coach Saban told the defense on Monday that nobody had a job on the defense unless they earned it in practice. Perhaps that's so, and perhaps it accounts for the clear step up in play by the Stop Troops.
Ole Miss' first six possessions all ended with a punt and all but one of those possessions was a 3 and out. The exception was a 5 play possession that consumed only 2:30 of game time. In the third quarter, however, the D allowed Mississippi to convert 5 third-downs in a row all from long distance and permitted drives of 41 and 78 yards, yielding a TD. A 10 play Rebel scoring drive was followed by a 9 play drive that resulted in a punt. For a good portion of the third and fourth quarters, the defense was simply unable to get off the field.
Jeremiah Masoli spend much of the night running for his life. The defensive stat sheet records 10 quarterback hurries, 6 tackles for loss [2 sacks], 6 passes broken up and an interception [Mark Barron].
Dre Kirkpatrick is credited with 7 tackles all solo. Barron also recorded 7 tackles [5 solo] and Dequan Menzie, Dont'a Hightower, C.J. Mosley, and Robert Lester each had 5. It was good to see Dont'a having a good game. This was perhaps his best game so far this year. His photo was on the cover of the game program; which is where it needs to be, rather than on milk cartons.
Will Lowery saw a great deal of action in the game and recorded 3 tackles and a pass break up.
Special Teams:
Punting: B- Cody Mandell averaged 38.2 yards per kick on 6 punts none of which were returnable, his longest was 50 yards and he nailed Ole Miss inside its 20 yard line 4 times. Marquis returned 6 Ole Miss punts for 125 yards [37 longest] but lost a fumble on one return. The hit of the game was the block thrown by Junior LB, Alex Watkins [6-3, 232], from Brownsville, Tennessee, on Maze's long punt return. The block decleated two Ole Miss players and left so much equipment scattered on the ground that you would think it was a yard sale.
Kickoffs: B- Bama averaged 63.6 yards gross and 44 yards net on kick offs. Trent Richardson returned all 3 Ole Miss kicks for 74 yards. His longest return was 28 yards.
Place kicking: A+ Cade Foster was good from 44 and 49.
C Jeremy Shelley was good from 19 but missed wide right from 42.
Why are we doing this? I know Shelley is the "short FG kicker" and Foster is the "long FG kicker." But don't you think that someone who can kick it good from 44 and 49 should be able to kick it from 42?
Coaching: C+ We got what we needed. We didn't get all that we want. The Tide was penalized 8 times for 52 yards, including a delay of game penalty. What's up with that? This was the 7th game of the season, shouldn't we be able to get the play in on time?
For the 7th time this season, Trent Richardson was the leader in all purpose yardage with 220 [45 rushing, 101 receiving, and 74 returning].
Tennessee is next.
The Vols are a bad football team, but they are nevertheless very dangerous. They are dangerous because they are bad. They are dangerous because they have nothing to play for but to beat Alabama. They are dangerous because, just like last year going into the Tennessee game, Alabama is tired and beat up.
The Vols are a bad football team, but they are nevertheless very dangerous. They are dangerous because they are bad. They are dangerous because they have nothing to play for but to beat Alabama. They are dangerous because, just like last year going into the Tennessee game, Alabama is tired and beat up.
There were more Alabama players limping as they walked off the field than trotting. We have managed to avoid serious, season-threatening injuries, but we've got lots of guys dinged up. A lot has been written about our opponents having open dates, it's about time that we get one. We need one. But we need to go into the open date with a two-game win streak. That requires us to beat Tennessee.
Beating Tennessee is a "need" not a "want."
My closing comment is about the pre-game ceremony.
Those of you who watched the game on TV might not have seen that the honorary captain for the game was Tyrone Prothro. Few players have given more to the Crimson Tide football program than Tyrone. He was an electrifying, all-purpose player. He had speed, quickness, hands of glue, a head for the game, and a heart like a lion. Anyone who was fortunate enough to witness "The Catch" late in the second quarter of the 2005 Southern Miss game will ever forget it. Prothro astonished everyone with his athletic ability, just as he inspired everyone with his courage as he doggedly pursued returning to the team following the devastating injury he suffered in the Florida game just a few weeks later. The adverse fortunes of a violent game brought his athletic career to a premature end.
When he was introduced last night, 101,832 people roared their heartfelt respects, and lustily cheered as he stood on the script A at the center of the field and waved to every quadrant of the stadium. Legendary basketball coach, John Wooden, once said "things turn out best, for people who make the best of the way things turn out." Tyrone Prothro is a living example of the truth of that observation
The Commissioner
Beating Tennessee is a "need" not a "want."
My closing comment is about the pre-game ceremony.
Those of you who watched the game on TV might not have seen that the honorary captain for the game was Tyrone Prothro. Few players have given more to the Crimson Tide football program than Tyrone. He was an electrifying, all-purpose player. He had speed, quickness, hands of glue, a head for the game, and a heart like a lion. Anyone who was fortunate enough to witness "The Catch" late in the second quarter of the 2005 Southern Miss game will ever forget it. Prothro astonished everyone with his athletic ability, just as he inspired everyone with his courage as he doggedly pursued returning to the team following the devastating injury he suffered in the Florida game just a few weeks later. The adverse fortunes of a violent game brought his athletic career to a premature end.
When he was introduced last night, 101,832 people roared their heartfelt respects, and lustily cheered as he stood on the script A at the center of the field and waved to every quadrant of the stadium. Legendary basketball coach, John Wooden, once said "things turn out best, for people who make the best of the way things turn out." Tyrone Prothro is a living example of the truth of that observation
The Commissioner
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