The way the games in Baton Rouge have played out, you almost wonder if Coach Saban is just toying with the Tiger faithful. Letting them have hope and excitement till the very last minute (or after) and then turning his team loose to deliver (another) spirit-crushing defeat. If you are keeping count (and we sure as heck are) Coach Saban has now won four in a row over his old employer. Overall, the Alabama Crimson Tide has a better winning percentage in Tiger Stadium than LSU does.
We agree with your eloquently
delivered set of grades, Commissioner.
It is hard not to award a higher grade to a defense that played its collective
heart out, but the inability to get off the field for practically the entire
third quarter means that you awarded what they earned. However, in the face of so thrilling a
victory, it seems kind of wrong for us to spend much time nit picking some
questionable play calls, iffy execution, and slow adjustment to quarterback
runs.
We choose to focus on the
positive. Last night, the Crimson Tide got
unlikely positive contributions from those you would expect to play a key role
and also contributions from some darned unlikely contributors. Writ their names in Crimson Flame, so to
speak.
1. Jarran Reed -- The Commissioner wisely
pointed this out; Reed had 15 tackles last night. Think about that for a minute. Lest we be accused of making football into
something other than a team sport, only two of those were solo. Those statistics are a tribute to him and the
whole defense.
2. Christion Jones -- After (another) fumble on an otherwise nifty
kick return in Oxford, the boys in the grease pit wondered whether 22 would
ever touch the ball again for Nick Saban.
When those guys are questioning your hands, well.... The Coach continued to trust him. Now, we are not sure we agree with Gary
Danielson's analysis that the Tigers' final kickoff dribbled out of bounds
because Les Miles was thinking he didn't want to put the ball in Jones's hands
and take a chance on him bringing it back all the way. That is partly because we are pretty
skeptical of anyone saying they know what Les Miles is
"thinking". Whether he
affected that kick or not, Jones sure as heck made as pretty a just-off-the-top-of-the-grass
catch as you will ever see at any level of football. It went for 22 yards (a/k/a almost a quarter
of the football field) on Alabama's game-tying drive.
3. O.J. Howard -- Last year Howard took a down
the middle pass to the house in a backbreaking play against LSU. Frankly, they didn't much look like they
wanted to tackle him. This season he has
been largely AWOL in the offensive game plan, more memorable for penalties and
a catch he didn't make than anything else.
As one of the Tire Store crew remarked this morning, last night he was
more like Kevin Norwood, making clutch catches and stopping the clock on the
last drive in regulation.
4. Blake
Sims -- We know what you are thinking.
Sims didn't have his best game.
Not by a lot. Communication
issues were still there. He missed a few throws and had some drops. In truth, though, Sims is the most unlikely
contributor to this year's success. Did
you watch the A-Day game? Go ahead,
everyone who back in April thought "Blake Sims" would be on the list
of top quarterbacks in America in the middle of November, much less lead a
50-second comeback against LSU in Death Valley, raise your hand. Yeah, us either.
5. Coach Scott Cochran -- These guys didn't show
up with the ability to just grab a guy like Leonard Fournette and slam him to
the ground. The defense played
substantially all of the second half. And
still looked good to go at the end of overtime.
That's a tribute to their conditioning, which is a tribute to this
coach.
6. Reggie Ragland -- By comparison, Ragland was
only the show horse in the tackle competition, notching a mere 13. Some extra credit needs to awarded, given
that he broke his hand in practice and had surgery last week. We don't know about you, but if we had hand
surgery last week, on Saturday night we'd still be lying around on the couch
whining for someone to bring us the remote control, not shedding blocks and
knocking down ball carriers for one of the most potent rushing attacks in the
SEC.
7. Cam Robinson -- We last saw the true freshman sitting on an
equipment box with his pads off and his leg bandaged in Knoxville. Diagnosis was a "high ankle
sprain". We kind of hate that
name. It makes it sound like you could
rub some dirt between your foot and knee, wrap an Ace bandage around it, and get
back in there. In fact, the misnomer
actually means that you tore the ligament that connects the two bones in your
lower leg. See earlier notes about
couch/remote control/whining. Big Cam
was not only recovered but started and played most of the game Saturday. On the first play of overtime, he was split
out in the slot as if he was a receiver (he wasn't eligible, actually) but he
was calling for the ball. Now, let's say
you are a 180-pound defensive back and you look up and you are expected to cover
a 6'6" 325 pound "receiver".
Sure, he's not going to run off and leave you, but he might just pick
you up and trot to the end zone with you.
Robinson is from Louisiana. He
took a lot of heat for coming to Alabama.
Hope he has been able to send a few text messages out today.
8. Brandon Greene -- OK, let's take a quiz. Which Alabama player had the longest catch
and run on Saturday night? Cooper,
White, Jones, Howard? Nope, the team
lead (officially 24 yards) went to Brandon Greene on his first legal football catch. EVER.
He's a third year sophomore. He's
practiced at tackle some, tight end some, moved around to help the team and
when he has been on the field it has been with the idea that he'd move defensive
players, not the ball. It took four Tigers,
one pulling on the football, to bring him down at the one-yard line. Christion Jones told him it was just like
practice, according to newspaper reports, just catch it and tuck it. Good advice, say, in the third quarter of a
game against the likes of Western Carolina.
To get the ball on first down of overtime against a team that had held
your offense to 13 points for the entirety of regulation? Greene may never get the ball again, although
we hope he does. If it doesn't happen,
you can bet he's still got a story to tell his grandchildren.
9. Adam Griffith -- You realize the game-winning field goal was
from almost the exact same spot as the one earlier in the game that clanged the
upright, don't you? Think back, were you
holding your breath? We were. Coach Saban has said that the young man is
dealing with an unmentionable physical problem that is limiting his kicking. Whatever that was, it didn't seem to bother
him when it counted.
10. Reuben Foster -- We still think it is even money as to whether
this kid kills someone else with his vicious hits before he kills himself with
his, um, questionable technique. The hit
he put on Fournette at the end of regulation lifted the ball carrier off the
ground -- and lifted Alabama's team spirit and energy in a way that you could
almost sense through the television.
Learn to tackle, Foster, before you hurt yourself, because Alabama needs
you. If we got to vote, that lick would
be added to the BOOM section of the pregame video. Tomorrow.
We've alluded to it before. This is a young team, still growing up and
finding its way. Other young players at
various positions contributed in ways small and large on Saturday (Freshman
punter? No problem, he's probably All-Conference and nailed a 60-yarder
Saturday. How about our long snapper
credited with three tackles?). This team
can be excruciating to watch some times.
They can also be a whole lot of fun.
Let's hope the energy and momentum from late Saturday night sets a tone
for the rest of the season.
With compliments handed out, we
cannot fail to say a word about the deficient officiating in this game. Tom "Tex" Ritter's crew more
closely resembles the Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight than anything Tex was
ever involved with. They are just plain
bad. At least they are equally bad for
both teams. How do you miss it when one
player tries to pull another player's pants down? If that isn't unsportsmanlike conduct, they
need to take it out of the rule book.
Speaking of which, the stupid Push the Pile rule they changed for Reggie
Bush needs to be changed immediately.
Someone is going to get very badly injured in these rugby like plays
(Exhibit A is Cam Robinson). We digress
(as usual). Ritter's crew just keeps
showing up like a bad rash for big game after big game. We acknowledge that it could have been worse,
it could have been Penn Wagers and the Traveling Doofuses; guess we'll see them
next Saturday. Maybe Ritter's crew will
ride off into the sunset for Alabama's 2014 campaign, but we aren't counting on
it.
So now the coaches have the
interesting and difficult job of getting the team to put LSU behind them. No time to rest and heal. The #1 team in the country and its
multi-threat quarterback comes to BDS on Saturday, along with the ESPN Gameday
crew, CBS broadcast team, the playoff committee's attention, and the eyes of
the college football world. Mississippi
State is enjoying its best season since the memory of man runs not to the
contrary. Alabama has played far and
away its best football on its own campus.
It is not too much to say that since the bye week, Alabama essentially has
been in an elimination tournament for the playoffs. If we were you, we'd make plans to watch.
Roll Tide everyone.
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