We were lucky enough to be in
Tuscaloosa for the game on Saturday. It is a good thing that homecoming
day in Tuscaloosa is by definition beautiful, because otherwise, it really
wasn’t. It rained during the early morning hours of Saturday and the sky
was thickly overcast all day. The wind was pretty constant and
gusty. The Met Life blimp was blown around so badly that it often
couldn’t get over the stadium. They just gave up about the third quarter
and went back to the hanger or dock or wherever it is you land a blimp.
Hats, toboggans and gloves
were the order of the day. The lines for coffee and hot chocolate were
long. I know a lot of people have mentioned fans in the upper decks leaving
early (and the student part of the upper deck never did fill up) but frankly I
didn’t blame them much. Remember that on Friday the high was in the
mid-80s and it was sunny. It was not as cold as that night we played
Mississippi State and Sly Croom was wearing that coat he borrowed from Huggy
Bear on Starsky & Hutch, but it would have reminded you of it.
The lousy schedule that
Alabama got from the conference after the new teams were admitted combined with
TV scheduling continues to be a real hassle. The last time Alabama
played at home it was September, and game time temperatures on the field were
in the mid to upper 90s. We missed all of the good October weather.
The 7:30 time slot is just miserable, and particularly so on homecoming.
I wish someone had the guts to stand up to ESPN about this. We stayed
till the bitter end of the game. It was past 11 p.m. before we made it
out of the stadium. Two accidents, including one that shut down Paul
Bryant Blvd just past Calvary Baptist had traffic in a mess. Not only can
you still buy Western Carolina tickets, they are even offering discounts on
concessions to get people to buy. That’s also the effect of four home
games in five weekends, and this one being against a lightly regarded opponent
on Saturday before Thanksgiving.
The team’s respective
attitudes during the game were interesting to see. The Bulldogs were
clearly excited and confident coming into the game. By about the
mid-point of the second quarter, you could tell that spark was fading.
Alabama was imposing its will. MSU no longer “believed”. But it
affected Alabama, too. I have seen it before this season. I’m not
sure what the proper description is -- Coach Saban resorted to boxing in the
press conference. I’ve considered everything from cats toying with mice,
to fist fights, to naval encounters, even Auden. Nothing quite
fits. There is just a sense you get from this team that they collectively
decide the other team is just not that much of a threat -- we can score
if we need to and our defense is figuring out their special wrinkles and
shutting them down. It’s not that they don’t try, but the intensity level
sags a bit. The offense quits stringing together first downs…. I
can’t quite describe it, but it is palpable. So long as they are not
wrong and don’t let an opponent back in a game, I don’t guess it matters.
Think about this question: when was the last time A.J. McCarron had to play the
entire fourth quarter? Interesting answer, isn’t it?
A word about
officiating. All rules of reason have simply gone out the window.
Saturday night’s last two snaps were just stupid, as was the last penalty
flag. Both coaches were out as far as the numbers (not that this was a
new spot for Mullen, who seemed to spend as much of the night on the field as
A.J. McCarron) yelling at the referees to let the time run off. No such
luck. The umpire Saturday night was constantly in the way.
Safeties, linebackers, running backs and tight ends were all having to run
around his rather considerable girth. He was hit with a pass and Yeldon
lost yardage dancing around him on at least one notable occasion. It was as if
the team managers had failed to remove a tackling dummy from the defensive
backfield during a scrimmage and they decided to just play around it.
I was sitting in the endzone
Saturday. We need to do whatever we can to get our kickoffs back into the
end zone. Our lane discipline continues to be poor and there were several
kick returns where the returner had multiple clear pathways. As you
pointed out, we were fortunate to get a couple of turnovers after long
returns. The next two games, in particular, field position may be
critical. We cannot continue to have our kick off coverage team put our
defense in short field situations, especially right after we have scored.
A word about Vinnie
Sunseri. This is the sort of kid Coach Bryant just loved.
Relatively speaking, Vinnie is not really physically gifted enough to be
playing where he is and achieving the sort of things he does. But he
doesn’t know it and I hope no one tells him. The PA announcer credited
him with four straight tackles on Saturday night. He was MSU’s worst
nightmare. He stopped the run, he covered pass patterns, he tackled hard,
he faked blitzes and then dropped back to spy the quarterback, he is a wrecking
ball on special teams….
Our defensive backs played a
great game Saturday and though you can’t see it on tv, often receivers were
just so completely covered there was nothing for the MSU quarterback (who as
you correctly point out continued to play tall after a pretty good beating) to
do but throw it away. The d-line was credited with 10 hurries out of 30
pass attempts. Think about that for a minute.
Saturday night should be a
great one. The offensive line needs to step up and play to its
billing. MSU’s rather pedestrian defensive line hassled McCarron all
night long. That won’t do it in Red Stick.
Roll Tide. Beat some
more Tigers.
The Correspondent From The Tire Store
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