South Carolina Grades

This was a long time coming.

A record long time; as long a time as it takes to win 29 regular season games in a row. As long as it takes to beat 18 SEC opponents in a row. It was November, 2007 the last time that Alabama players walked off the field after a regular session game on the short end of the score.

Yes, it was a long time coming. But come it certainly did. And it came with a vengeance.

Alabama didn't just lose Saturday. It was dominated in all phases of the game. The Defense? The Defense allowed South Carolina to score three touchdowns, in three consecutive drives that gained 178 yards and consumed 7:20 of game time before ever forcing the Birds to punt.

The Offense? What was supposed to be the nation's best, most balanced and potent offense, saw its two stud running backs marginalized into being either spectators, or blockers vainly trying to keep Greg McElroy from getting pounded into the ground. Mark Ingram and Trent Richardson combined for a paltry 64 net yards rushing on only 17 attempts. Compare that to the day South Carolina's Marcus Lattimore had; 23 rushes, 95 net yards

Special teams? Alabama's place kicking efforts included a missed field goal and a botched PAT while the punting game featured a shanked kick that sailed out of bounds a mere 15 yards down field.

If you want the Reader's Digest version of the game, here it is: The first 8 times the two teams mounted drives ended like this:

UA-FG,
SC-TD,
UA-Punt,
SC-TD,
UA-Fumble,
SC-TD,
UA-miss FG,
SC-Punt.

In the fourth quarter, after managing to claw back to within a touchdown and extra point of tying the score, the defense made its only quality stop, with Will Lowery intercepting a pass broken up by DeQuan Menzie and giving the offense excellent field position at the SC 35 yard line. A game that at one time looked like it was out of reach, was suddenly within a single score of being tied. And what did Alabama's experienced offense, with last year's Heisman Trophy winner in the backfield, do with this opportunity? We turned it over on downs.

As dispiriting as that missed opportunity was, for me, the most agonizing period of the game came in the third 

quarter. South Carolina gashed the Alabama defense on a 15 play, 82 yard touchdown drive that ground 7:55 off the clock. Along the way, the Birds earned 6 first downs, with three of them coming on 3rd and 8, 3rd and 10 and 3rd and 5. If all you did was read the play-by-play on the stat sheet, you would think that the scribe must have made a mistake. It must have been Alabama, with Mark Ingram, Trent Richardson, Julio Jones and Marquise Maze that sledgehammered an opponent and imposed its will. Right? 

Not yesterday!

We didn't wilt under the pressure of a tougher better conditioned team. We got beaten by a team that was better prepared to play intense physical football for 60 minutes.

Did the open week make a difference? I suppose it probably did. It gave the Chickens more time to put behind them the stink of their 4th quarter flop at Auburn. It gave Steve Spurrier time to do whatever it was he did that allowed Stephen Garcia to play the game of his life. It gave the SC defensive staff an extra week to scheme rushing packages that put GMac under pressure all day. But that's just the way it is. Every team gets an open date. Teams that wait later in the season run the risk of losing a game due to fatigue before they get a break to recuperate. Teams that take the bye week earlier run that same risk late in the season. Does it even out in the end? Probably not for Alabama this year which still must play the remainder of its conference schedule against teams coming off of a bye. But that fact will either be one of two things: a factor or a footnote.

It will be a factor in future defeats only if the coaching staff and players allow it to be. Otherwise, if the coaches, trainers, staff and players take the proper lessons away from yesterday's humbling experience, a footnote somewhere will record that Alabama lost a game at the mid-point of the season, then ran the table against teams that all came off of open dates.

Yes, this loss was a long time coming. Whether it will, like the song lyric says, be a long time gone, depends upon how the Process responds. My guess is that the response began at about the time Nick Saban entered the locker room after the game. We will get an indication whether my guess was correct this coming Saturday in Tuscaloosa.  But between now and then, here's how I grade the game:

Offense:        F       From a 30,000 foot view, the offensive statistics from yesterday don't look too bad.  Sure, the rushing numbers are off-way off-but GMac completed 27 of 34 pass attempts for 315 yards and 2 TDs. Julio Jones had one of his best days receiving with 8 catches for 118 yards and a touchdown. Preston Dial caught 5 passes for 29 yards, and Maze gained 41 yards on 4 receptions. Darius Hanks added 55 yards on 2 catches including a career best 51 yard reception for a touchdown to start the 4th quarter.

The Tide had four drives of more than 40 yards [54, 53, 41 and 85]. But what was missing from all that yardage? Those 351 yards of total offense failed to generate the most important statistic of all: points on the scoreboard. Bama's first 4 drives resulted in 3 points. After the opening drive stalled and we took the field goal, the offense delivered a punt, a lost fumble, and a missed field goal before scoring again right before the half.

What about the second half? Well, 2 points were a gift when, for a brief shining moment, Stephen Garcia reverted to his former self and threw an errant snap out of the end zone for a safety. So, what does the Tide offense get out of the ensuing free kick? Another field goal.

How's this for a statistic: In the second half, Alabama did not convert a single third down.

Looking at these key metrics: (i) net rushing yards [36] , (ii) third down conversions [5 of 13], (iii) QB hurries [4], (iv) tackles for loos [9] and (v) sacks allowed [7], I can only conclude that the offensive game was lost at the line of scrimmage.

I must make special mention of the 7 sacks. I haven't looked it up, but I think this is the highest number of sacks allowed since Auburn sacked Brodie Croyle 9 times. At least 3 or 4 of the sacks taken by GMac yesterday seem to me to have been avoidable if GMac just throws the ball downfield and out of bounds. Granted, on one play by trying to make something happen after protection collapsed, he did manage to find Michael Williams for a long completion. But I'm reasonably certain that part of GMac's post-game film study today will include a note about recognizing when there is nothing to be gained from further effort, and making the decision to avoid a loss.

Defense:        F       The official statisticians do not keep track of missed tackles. If they did, yesterday's performance by the Tide defense would have given them writers cramps.

Did anybody make a clean tackle on Marcus Lattimore? Heck, we couldn't even tackle the lumbering Stephen Garcia! [By the way, I could swear I saw Garcia's photo on the wall of the post office the last time I went to buy stamps!]

As far as coverage on Alshon Jeffery is concerned, I have to say that he made two of his 7 receptions under coverage that could not have been better. In the 4th quarter, Dre Kirkpatrick did everything but tie Jeffery's shoe laces together and he still managed to make a catch. On SC's second touchdown, Mark Barron could not have covered him any better. That was just a fantastic play by a talented athlete. The guy had two one-handed catches in a single game.

On that same TD play, Marcel Dareus had excellent pressure on Garcia who typically would have thrown a ruptured duck down the middle of the field; but not yesterday. Garcia did not throw an incomplete pass until the second half! Does anybody know how Garcia spent the open weekend? Check the mileage on his car. From the way he played yesterday, I think he took a trip to the Mississippi Delta and found that cross-roads where Robert Johnson sold his soul in order to become a great blues guitar player. OK; have you got a better explanation? Was this the same player who stunk up the Pizza Pie Bowl last December against U. Conn? Or who coughed up a hairball in the 4th quarter two weeks ago down in The Village?

When was the last time the Steve Spurrier went a complete game without yanking his starting quarterback for at least one series of downs?

Barron was the Tide leading tackler with 9 tickles, all solo. Marcel Dareus recorded 8 stops [6 solo] including 4 for lost yardage. Mosley, Chapman and Hightower each were credited with 5 tackles.

SC was forced to punt only twice in the entire game, but one of those came late in the 4th quarter, after the Birds shut down their offense in order to run the clock.

Special Teams: 

Punting:        D -     Cody Mandell averaged 34 yards on 2 punts. That average is the mathematical result of adding one punt of 53 yards, with one of 15 and dividing the sum by 2. The coverage unit allowed a 17 yard return on the 53 yard punt, and Maze returned one of SC's two punts for 28 yards.

Kick offs:      B+      The one bright spot in an otherwise dismal day, way our kick-off game. Cade Foster averaged 69.2 gross yards per kick and the coverage unit held SC's return game in reasonable check resulting in a net yards per kick of 47.2. Richardson and Maze each had long kick returns of 31 yards. And, on the strength of his return yardage, Trent, for the sixth straight game this season, led the team in all purpose yards [177; 23 rush, 12 receiving, 142 returns].

Place Kicking:  F       Jeremy Shelley was good from 32 and 39, but he missed from 31 and missed a PAT. In his defense, however, the missed PAT was a combination of a bad snap and hold.

Coaching:           F       Is there any other grade that can be awarded for this stinker of a road game? Alabama never had an answer for what South Carolina was doing. And what the Birds were doing was simply playing harder and tougher than Alabama. We suffered 5 penalties for 31 yards, but had at least 2 off-sides penalties declined because the result of the play was better for SC than the charity yards would have been. We were also flagged for a substitution penalty. Whose responsibility is that?

I want to make it clear: I think Nick Saban is the best coach in college football. In my book, it isn't even a close question. Only a great coach could have brought Alabama from its ragged state at the end of the 2006 season to winning the national championship three seasons later. Only a great coach could implement and oversee a process through which, in the age of artificial parity imposed through scholarship limits, a team could win 19 games in a row against quality opposition, and 29 regular season games in a row playing in the SEC. Only a great recruiter and developer of talent could keep a team at the top of its competitive class playing with 20 first-time starters.

That's right. Twenty first-time starters; 5 specialists and 15 positional, of whom 3 are on offense and 12 on defense.

Inside the Mal Moore Center, there is a hall way leading outside to the practice fields. On the wall is a pyramid constructed out of rectangles containing the logos of each team the Tide faces in the regular season. When each of those teams is defeated, the logo is removed from the pyramid, each player signs the block, and it is placed on another wall where the accumulated blocks are a graphic display of the progress of the season.

The blocks displaying the logos of teams that defeat Alabama remain in their spot on the pyramid. The players cannot avoid going past the pyramid at least twice each day. That means the garnet and black block capital "C" with the stylized gamecock superimposed in the middle, will remain on the wall. There is only one way for it to be removed; if we play the Chickens again in the SEC title game.

After yesterday's games, both SC and Florida control their own destiny on the road to the SEC East Championship. A Florida win over SC on Nov. 13 would give the Gators the tie breaker over the Birds. But if SC continues to play the way it did against Alabama, and if Florida plays the way it did yesterday against LSU, then this will be the year Steve Spurrier returns to the Georgia Dome on the first Saturday in December.

In the West, Alabama, Auburn and LSU each control their own destiny, except that both brands of Tigers have a Mulligan coming to them. They could each lose a conference game and still make it to the Big Show with a win over Alabama. For the Tide there is only one clear path to Atlanta: win out.

Indeed, winning out remains a path that could take Alabama back to the BCS Championship Game. It worked for Florida in 2008. The Gators lost to Ole Miss at just about this same point in the regular season, but by defeating a then-top-ranked Alabama, the Lizards earned the chance to play undefeated Ohio State. A similar scenario could unfold in 2010 for Alabama.

Yes, for the Tide to make a repeat appearance in the BCS CG there are several things that would have to fall into place. For instance, SC would have to win out and come into the SEC CG ranked in the top 5 nationally, and Alabama would have to play better in every phase of the game than it did yesterday.

But all that is speculation for fans. For the players and coaches there is only one game that matters, and it is this Saturday's game against Ole Miss. And this Saturday, if Bama does not not play better in every phase of the game than it did yesterday, all the fan speculation in the world will be less than meaningless.
 

Just ask yourself this: is there any other coaching staff and football organization in America that you would rather entrust with the responsibility of correcting yesterday's errors and getting the team back on track? Is there any other collection of players that you would rather depend on to absorb the coaching and benefit from The Process? Is there any other stadium in America that you would rather return to in order to start the next string of consecutive victories?

If your answer to any of these questions is a "yes," then you are subscribing to the wrong e-mail group.

The Commissioner