Vanderbilt Grades

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As the Alabama players ran out onto the field for the start of the second half of Saturday night's game against Vanderbilt, I noticed that a team of maintenance workers headed into the Tide locker room. They had to repair the scorched pain, broken furniture and busted ceiling tiles produced by Nick Saban's half-time "remarks." Those University employees were not the only guys who were busy in the second half; the Tide players, who sort of sleep-walked through the first half really turned it up in the second. Rushing yards: first half 45, second half 108; points scored: first half 14, second half 20. And this was accomplished in a little more than twenty minutes of game time. With about 9 minutes left in the game, the starters were finished for the night and Bama used its last two offensive possessions to run out the clock in its 34-0 win.

Earlier in the week, a colleague asked me whether Bama would cover a 30 point betting line. I told him to take VU and the points. Vandy has a starchy defense, I could foresee a situation where Alabama might be leading by more than 30, but suffer a pick-six during garbage time. There was plenty of garbage time last night, but the Tide's turnovers were on downs, not interceptions, as Coach Saban elected to give the ball back to Vandy rather than add meaningless field goal points.

In his post-game remarks, Saban said that the team played flat in the first half. Big wins over Arkansas and Florida induced a sense of complacency, which is, according to Saban, human nature. In his view, guiding players so that they overcome human nature is one of the functions of coaching. It's pretty obvious that he provided a full measure of that guidance during intermission.

The game started in a peculiar manner with the 'Dores staying in the locker room long after the Tide had taken the field. It made some fans wonder whether they had left early so they could get a jump on the traffic headed north on I-65. But eventually, they did emerge from the south locker room and they quickly demonstrated that they had come to play.

This is not the Vanderbilt of prior years. Coach James Franklin is doing a good job turning the VU program around. They play good, opportunistic defense, and have a good punter. With two weeks to prepare, Vandy showed up with some wrinkles on offense that gave the Tide defense some challenges. We took a long time figuring out Vandy's screen passes. They ran a drag-route over the middle that we didn't cover well, and their tight end was completely uncovered more than once. But for poor execution by the VU field goal unit the score at intermission could well have been 7-6 instead of 14-0.

Statistically, Alabama played a very good ball game and beat a conference opponent by more than 30 points and lots of younger players saw action. From a physical standpoint, this game was a lopsided affair as several Commodores, including starting quarterback, Larry Smith, were knocked out of the game. Although Vandy under James Franklin is improved, he still has his work cut out for him. While Nick Saban is working on overcoming human nature, Franklin is trying to improve the humans he has to work with.

The talent disparity on display last night, reminds me of something that Franklin said during SEC Media Days. When asked what he thought about the quality of the league compared to the others where he had coached, Franklin replied: "There are three conferences in America that are pretty much alike, the NFC, the AFC and the SEC."

Here's how I grade the game:

Offense: A- That's the average of a not so good first-half grade and an excellent grade in the second half. Alabama's 5 first half possessions resulted in 3 punts and 2 TDs. The second half began with three straight touchdowns, two on long drives and one that took advantage of a short field following a take-away.

Bama earned 24 first downs, converted 12 of 17 third-downs [4 of 4 in the third quarter] and gained 419 yards of total offense [153 rushing, 266 passing].

AJ completed 23 of 30 pass attempts for 237 yards and 4 touchdowns. His 4 passing TDs ties him with Mike Shula who threw for 4 touchdowns against Memphis State on October 26, 1985 [JP Wilson holds the single game TD record with 5 TD passes against Arkansas on September 15, 2007]. Philip Sims was 3 for 3 for 29 yards. Marquis Maze had a career high 9 receptions for 93 yards, Darius Hanks had 5 catches for 60 yards and a TD. DeAndrew White caught 3 passes for 58 yards and 2 TDs. Brad Smelley gained 19 yards and a TD on 3 catches. For both players these were the first touchdown receptions of their careers. Eight different receivers caught passes during the game.

Trent Richardson rushed for 107 yards and one TD; his fifth straight 100+ yard game. With Eddie Lacey nursing a case of turf-toe, Jalston Fowler played behind Richardson and gained 58 yards. Richardson led all players with 108 all-purpose yards.

You knew that the Tide was ready to dispatch Vanderbilt with its first offensive possession of the second half, a 94 yard TD drive that consumed 6:31 of game time. Only 1 of the drive's 13 plays was a pass. Bama had four drives that gained 40 or more yards [77 (10 plays), 78 (13 plays), 94 (13 plays), 81 (9 plays)] each resulted in a TD.

Alabama possessed the ball for 36:14, and had no turnovers, but surrendered 2 sacks.

Defense: A- Vanderbilt was limited to only 190 yards of total offense [41 rushing] and Bama defenders made 2 interceptions, and 7 tackles for lost yardage.

Mark Barron recorded 6 tackles [4 solo] and broke up 2 passes. Dont'a Hightower made 5 stops [2 solo] and Robert Lester is credited with 4 tackles [2 solo]. Jerrell Harris, Nico Johnson and Nick Gentry each had 3 tackles. Johnson made one interception which he returned 2 yards. D. Milliner returned his pick 37 yards to set the offense up at the Vandy 20 yard line.

Special Teams:

Kick Offs: C Cade Foster recorded 2 tackles against the 'Dores giving him 5 tackles on the season. This leads all other kickers in the SEC, and might explain why kickoffs are chronically short. We averaged only 41.8 net yards per kick and had no touchbacks.

Punting: B Bama averaged only 34 yards per punt against Vandy. We had 1 punt for more than 50 yards for a touchback.

Place Kicking: C- Jeremy Shelley made 4 of his 5 PAT attempts, and one of the good ones was barely good.

Coaching: B+ Bama only had 2 penalties and the participation report lists 67 players who saw action. The half time .... "adjustments" were highly effective. By "adjustments" of course I mean the paint-blistering, furniture-wrecking, ceiling tile-busting chewing out that Saban must have delivered. Schematically, Alabama "simplified" what it had been running so that the players could focus on execution and eliminate mental errors. In laymen's terms, I think that translates to: "By golly, we're going to give the ball to Trent and he's going to run behind the Road Graders until they either stop us, or we run out of football field." The defensive version is: "Beat the man in front of you, get to the guy who has the dad-gummed ball and plant him so hard that he doesn't want to get back up."

It was a great day to be in Tuscaloosa and it was a great day around the league. Georgia is looking good in the SEC East; the trees down in The Village are getting a respite from the toilet paper, and LSU reaped the benefit of the beat-down Alabama delivered to the Gators last weekend. The Ole Miss Black Rebel Bears are next, and I think the coaches are going to have an easier time on the "human nature" issue this week. It's human nature to want to avoid the recurrence of unpleasant events, and the Tide locker room could not have been a pleasant place to be at half time yesterday.

Roll Tide

The Commissioner