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I agree with the grades, Commissioner. And Kent State is the sort of competition that requires some sort of asterisk or deduction. They have some good players, particularly along the defensive front, but they are just not, in any relevant respect, on the same level as Alabama.
Offense. I might even have been tempted to award an Incomplete for this effort. It is clear that a lot of things were going on that were not, strictly speaking, about a game plan to defeat the opponent. I can think of several examples off hand where the game plan seemed to be more about finding out things about Alabama than it was about the Golden Flashes. By my count B. Jones played three different positions on the offensive line – it could have been more. Wonder if he can play tight end? According to today’s newspaper accounts, even Coach Saban was somewhat chagrined when the first and goal play after the stopped punt resulted in the first string center observing the play from the sidelines. I’m confident there were double digit different offensive line combinations in the game. I’d expect that AJ gets the start on Saturday and it will not be with a plan for three series before giving way to Sims. I think Sims can play better than he showed Saturday, but…. And AJ’s stats were good, but should have been better. There were some drops, a couple of hurries that were the result of the mix and match scheme across the front line, and one of his interceptions hit the tight end in both hands before coming to rest in the arms of the Kent State player. I don’t think the other one (an ill-advised throw) was a catch, see below. And we did manage to rack up almost 500 yards of offense and 48 points despite all those turnovers (and with perhaps 2 of our 4 best receivers unavailable). Incomplete, but full of exciting potential. The things that went wrong are susceptible to improvement by practice and hollering from the coaches. It’s good for the coaches to have something to holler about.
Defense. Wow. Some of the same experimentation was going on with the D. The good news is that it was less obvious. You graphically point out the offensive futility. Here is another measure: Kent State averaged 2.1 yards on its called passing plays. Ouch. This defense is really good. It has the potential to be dominating. About all that I can see is that we are missing is a truly dominating nose guard; Chapman is quite good, just not dominating. I’ll take this group over any of those I’ve seen so far, and I watched a lot of different highly ranked teams on Saturday. We blitzed very little for a Nick Saban team, that'll change on Saturday, I feel sure.
Special Teams. I wish we would kick off the football into the dad-gum end zone. Why we have such trouble finding someone who can catch punts and kickoffs dependably before running with the ball is beyond me. Arenas spoiled us all, of course, but it's not asking too much to just catch it. That said, I do not fault DeAndrew -- lots of players are going to fumble on that hit – credit Kent State for spoiling an otherwise pretty runback. Punting was much better than A Day. Like you, I would never criticize a kicker for missing a 50+ yarder.
Officiating. Well, it’s good to see someone was in mid-season form. There were about four close/critical calls in this game and the zebras missed on two of them. I do not believe that Kent State successfully caught the first AJ interception. I think the ball hit the turf. I’m pretty sure that is reviewable, but no one bothered to look. But the worst call of the game (and it may be hard to top this season) was the play where our wide receiver was driven out of bounds about the five, a flag came in, but the ball was ruled "uncatchable". Of course, that ruling ignores the inconvenient fact that the receiver caught the ball without about half his body in bounds. Just imagine what he could have done if he hadn’t been interfered with. Perhaps the rule should be amended to state that if the receiver catches the ball with some part of his body in bounds after interference, you can assume the ball was "catchable". Sigh. I guess one of the endearing things about college football is that some things never change. Someone should call Texas A&M and warn the Aggies what they are getting into.
We’ll know a lot more after next week. I don’t predict outcomes, much less scores, but I do predict that Jones will play a lot fewer positions on Saturday, that barring injury or a blowout we’ll see a lot more of just one quarterback, that any number of Penn State offensive players will be sore next Sunday morning, and that if we lay the ball on the Happy Valley turf close to a half dozen times times we’ll not be celebrating a victory.
It’s nice to have the grades back. And it’s nice to support a football program where most of the attention is about the team on the field and its performance.
The Correspondent From The Tire Store
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