That was an excellent job of painting the picture,
Commissioner. You really helped those of us who could not attend the game
get a feeling for what it was like inside the stadium. Perhaps we’ll get
to go in December. And January.
As to the game itself, it was odd. Partly that was
because it was unprecedented. Having two of the top three teams playing
each other to open the season had just never happened before -- or at least not
since they made the helmets out of leather and “facemasks took real fear out of
the game”.
So as excited as we were for the return of football and as
happy as we were to secure a victory, it was just a little odd to have the
buildup of expectations like you would have for a playoff game in August and
September. The game itself was a little ugly. Frankly, that sometimes
happens when you have two very good teams playing each other -- your offense
may look out of sorts because the other team’s defense is playing quite
well. This, in particular, is true early in the season when defensive
evolution tends to be ahead of the offense any way. Add to that fact that
opening games always tend to have some rough edges -- players are a little more
apprehensive, some players who do well in practice don’t quite come up to
standard in games, and vice versa. Coaches discover situations that they
believed they had practiced fully only to find that perhaps the players weren’t
quite as adept as believed. In short, this had the all the makings of an
ugly football game. How refreshing, then we have decided, that it was
played as well as it was.
We had some specific thoughts:
Offense
The offense turned in a few very excellent plays. The
touchdown pass to Ridley was a great call, recognizing a key mismatch, and
executed to near perfection on all counts. Harris’s initial run in the
game was beautiful. The pass to Jeudy was also very nicely done. We
were not guilty on a hold on that play. Instead, the official turned
around just in time to see the end of a nicely executed pancake block and was so
amazed at the total domination of it, he just assumed something underhanded had
taken place. We guess.
Otherwise, to be honest, the offense has a lot to work
on. FSU dared, nearly begged, Alabama to throw the ball over the
middle. They were ripe for the picking for screen passes and throws to
the tight end. Safety valve receivers ran free to no avail. In some
cases, Hurts didn’t see them. In some cases the offensive line offered
little protection. In some cases, despite six or more defenders being on
the line of scrimmage, we emptied the backfield and ran slow-developing plays
with all kinds of little dipsy doodle things going on that accomplished not
very much. Here’s one way to put it, Hurts completed more passes to
himself than to all the wide receivers not named Ridley combined. This
will not do.
In shades of the end of last season, Alabama converted only
three third downs all night (they did convert two fourth downs and one would
have been converted but for the bogus holding call mentioned above). Even
so, that is eerily reminiscent of the last three games of last season.
The average yardage to make on third down was nine. Let’s just say that
is not a recipe for success.
Having a gift first down at the opponent’s six yard line and
not pounding the ball with the running game four times if necessary bothered us
down here. Look, if the other team can stop our offensive line, Harris
and Scarborough (and Hurts for that matter) four times in 18 feet, then let’s
just tip our cap to them. But at least try. We could have sworn
Coaches Kiffin and Nussmeier had moved on.
However, all that said, the offense put up three scores more
than the other team, gave us makeable field goals on two other occasions, and
put the game in the win column. Aside from the guys they line up against
every day in practice, the offense will not see another defense as good as
FSU’s for at least several weeks. But you can bet all the other teams
have gone to school on what to do. And what to do is to dare us to throw
over the middle. I hope we can take that dare.
Defense
So we read a lot in the Winter of Discontent about how
Alabama had lost too many good players in defense, about how you didn’t just
replace NFL talent right away, about how especially early this season Alabama
was going to have to count on its offense to “carry” its defense until young,
talented players could step up. We frankly weren’t too excited about all
that. Mostly it was because that isn’t how we like our football. We
tend to be “old school” down here at the Tire Store because we are, you know,
old. We think the way to go about winning is to make sure the other team
doesn’t score very many points at all. Mission accomplished.
Alabama’s defense played very well. Everyone from
highly recruited blue chip athletes to determined former walk-ons made their
presence felt. I’ve never even played quarterback in football in the back
yard and still can imagine what it is like to see a man the size of Da’Ron
Payne sprinting directly at you and causing the brief feeling that you aren’t
sure whether he wants to tackle you or eat you for a snack.
Hamilton appears to be just as dominating as he was before
his very unfortunate knee injury. Former walk-on Levi Wallace had an
excellent game in coverage and may have played himself into a starting
position. Hand, on at least two occasions we noticed, commanded a triple
team. Evans, one of the best players on our defense, left the game early
with an injury. ABC didn’t mention it, I suppose it being lost in
important discussions of the announcer’s race horse. The bigger thing is,
we didn’t even notice it.
Our linebacking corps took a serious injury hit,
however. We need to let that be the end of season-ending injuries for the
2017 campaign.
Special Teams
Hurrah. We kicked off the football into the dadgum end
zone. Not only that, we kicked it off into one side of the end zone,
allowing the cover team to have less of the field to defend. Our only
concern is to see Scott hurtling down the field like a determined crimson
giraffe. For our money he is far too valuable for that duty. Let’s
let him kick it into the end zone, pick up his own kicking tee, and hustle over
to the sidelines, perhaps standing behind Payne or some other player larger
than a Mini Cooper.
Kick returns were nothing spectacular on either punts or
kickoffs (of which there were only two, after all, heh heh heh). You win
a lot of football games where the opponent only kicks off twice. On the
other hand, they weren’t disasters, either. You can bet the Seminoles
would happily have traded performances with us in those areas.
We look forward to a sunny, happy, contended day when we
will not have to hide our faces like fifth graders at a horror movie every time
we need to kick a field goal. That day has clearly not yet arrived.
Kickers, in our opinion, get too much credit for good kicks and too much blame
for misses. Snappers and holders are critical pieces of the puzzle.
Coach Saban’s sniper analysis may or may not be perfect, but it’s as good as
anything. And the person who pulls the trigger is ultimately
responsible. But a successful sniper is usually part of a team with
spotters relaying all sorts of information. If any piece of the puzzle is
off, you’ll have a miss. The last field goal was as straight and true as
anything we have seen -- it looked good, sounded good, and flew right down the
middle with plenty to spare. The good news is that if they can do that
once, they have the ability to do that every time. The bad news is they
were certainly trying to do that every time. (Look for us at the next
game, peeking out between our fingers to see if Freddy Krueger is stepping up
for the field goal.)
Come to think of it, that applies to a lot of what we saw
Saturday night -- a team that needs to learn to do what they have shown they
can do, every time. If they learn to do that and avoid more serious
injuries, this team has the potential to be very very good. Getting the
players to that level of consistency is the coaches’ job. We have some
pretty fair ones, I’d say. If this game had been the fourth week in
October, we’d be pushing the panic button. As it stands, it’s only the
first week in September. We are going to hover over the Excited button
instead.
Roll Tide everyone. Welcome back. Go teach the
Bulldogs to behave.
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