Thanks for filling in for your father and legator in his
absence. A splendid job. He will be proud of you and your efforts.
OK, we might as well get this out of the way at the
beginning. We said last week that Matt
Austin's sorry officiating crew was considered one of the better ones in the
SEC. Saturday night was evidence of the
fact that that distinction is sort of like being the highest scoring player on
the Washington Generals basketball team.
Alabama finally had an opponent called for holding on the
offensive line. It took a full-on MMA
style take down effort to get the flag, but it did happen. We suspect it wasn't that Arkansas was
holding any worse than, say, Mississippi or Texas A&M, it is just that
various media members were talking about it publicly and (we hope) University officials were discussing it privately with the Conference office. That doesn't mean that the game was
well-called. For the second time in two
weeks a very questionable pass reception by the other team did not merit a
review. Which is ok, if the new rule is
that we aren't going to look at as many plays as we have. Though they then have to explain why a catch
by Ridley (correctly called on the field and confirmed by the replay booth) was
reviewed for several minutes. Perhaps close play reviews that might benefit Alabama just aren't allowed now.
The Umpire in Saturday's game (we do not know his name, we
call him Keymaster because he wears a pair of thick black glasses that make him look like the Rick Moranis character in Ghostbusters) nearly lost his life. Look, we understand that the officials have to
stand somewhere in the field of play to do their job. However, when the offensive line opens a
gaping hole up the middle and #34 starts through it, you probably want to move
to one side or the other of his projected path.
Instead, it was like Keymaster just froze.
Maybe he was doing one of those hard math calculations -- Mass x
Acceleration = Pain. Or maybe his brain
just froze like a small furry animal on the railroad tracks while the 7:18 from
Tuscaloosa is roaring right at it, horn blowing and lights shining and totally
terrifying. Or maybe it is in the
Official SEC Officiating Handbook for Dummies (oops, redundant) "In the
event a gigantic human being is bearing down on you at a high rate of speed
during the course of play, close your eyes, click your heels together three times and say
'there's no place like home.'"
Whatever.
Usually we are in the
school of not being too critical if we probably couldn't do it any better. But y'all, this happened twice. We might have just
stood there and tried not to ruin our fancy white knickers the first time. The second time we'd at least have run towards
the sideline a step or two, trying not to scream like Mr. Poole did that time
the 2-inch hose blew on the hydraulic lift while he was in the grease pit. Enough being funny. That zebra gets his posterior out of
the way and we think Harris and Alabama have another touchdown. Maybe next time
Harris should just truck him and we'll see if his replacement has any better
reflexes.
People say that Alabama fans are paranoid. Maybe.
Even paranoids have real enemies.
If the various officiating crews in the SEC cannot fairly be characterized as Alabama's enemies, let us hope we don't ever make any.
The A grade for the defense was well-deserved. This bunch is getting better week by week. Isaiah Buggs (who we hope is ok) is filling in
nicely for Da'Shawn Hand. LaBryan Ray
has gotten quality snaps. Josh Frazier
is making an impact at nose. So overall,
the depth along the defensive line should be coming up to standard. Former walkon Levi Wallace (note: apparently
you have to say it that way every time, as CBS and ESPN insist on doing) has
quietly become a national leader at his position. Despite missing three key defensive starters from
opening day, it just never felt like the Razorback offense was much of a
threat. If their offensive line keeps
playing like it did Saturday, they are going to need 275-pound quarterbacks,
just to take the pounding. The play of
our defensive front is a compliment to our recruiting, coaching, and the hard
work of the individual players to realize their potential.
We agree that watching the offense can be frustrating. Hurts threw two roll out passes that were
just beautiful. Never even tried it again. The offensive line,
especially on the left side, continues to open holes so
wide you could push, not drive, a Dodge Dart through them. Pass blocking is still a work in progress,
especially along the right side. And the
play-calling, well, it seems to us like even though we are headed for the
eighth game of the season we are still using actual games to experiment with
different plays on offense. I guess it's
good if you can get away with it. We
agree with you, CS&H, it can make for very frustrating viewing. Saban himself described it as "vanilla".
Minkah Fitzpatrick, who could arguably be named All-SEC at
about three different positions, got included in a nifty little ESPN graphic
about the Heisman, though we don't know why they insist on using the same
format for it that the local news uses to show the four guys being sought in
connection with the liquor store hold up.
Perhaps he will get the courtesy defensive player invitation to New
York. We hope so. What we cannot figure out is why Damien
Harris is never mentioned. All the TV
talking heads want to say that the award is Saquon Barkley's to lose. We agree he is an exciting athlete -- so far
this season he has 102 carries for 649 yards and 6 TDs. Very impressive. Harris has 68 carries for 625 yards and 9
TDs. Maybe he just doesn't play enough. Can you imagine the numbers if Harris was not
on a team with four or five other quality running backs? Anyway, it just struck us that perhaps, just
perhaps, there are other pretty good players out there that aren't getting
enough attention.
Although the question wasn't very artfully worded, Saban did
give a response at his press conference about the punt muffs. Apparently a technique error noted by the
staff needs to be remedied. Namely, the
players are coached to get their fingertips up at eye level so that there isn't
a blind spot before they catch the ball.
Sounds fairly detailed. We guess
the real issue is the pressure-inducing decision-making process -- do I run?
Fair catch? Let it bounce? This just has to get cleaned up. Our punter gives us the chance to flip the
field on every exchange of punts -- but not if we ricochet the ball off our
chests towards 11 on-rushing players from the other team every time. Sheesh.
One other thing on special teams. We agree that the kicking game is important and therefore using your best players for it makes sense. Given Harris's value to the over all effort though, we are not sure that someone else couldn't handle his spot on punt coverage. We saw a little whiff of just how bad that could turn out Saturday night. Would an opposing punt player consider taking a shot at one of the best running backs in college football?
With that said, we
are happy to say that our place kicking seems to be settling down. For
fear of jinxing it before the rest of the season, we'll just tap gently on the wooden counter top and say no more.
On to Tennessee. Yes,
it's been over 4000 days. Yes, their program
appears to be a mess. Yes, we saw last
year's game. We still owe these
guys. We owe them big. We expect the coaches will be focused on reminding
the players to play up to Alabama's standards, not just meeting the level of
the competition. There's lots of speculation that
this will be Butch "Sgt. Carter" Jones's last visit to Tuscaloosa as
the head coach at Tennessee. We hope
Alabama turns in the sort of performance that makes him happy he doesn't have
to return in 2019. They low down, they
dirty....
Roll Tide, everyone.
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