Monday, September 17, 2018

Tire Store Report -- Mississippi

Over the last two seasons, Alabama has beaten the University of Mississippi’s football team by a total score of  128 - 10.  Said another way, the universe is once again spinning in greased grooves.  Thanks for the analysis, Commissioner. The whole team had a pretty impressive evening and we seem to have gotten through without any (new) major injuries.

Offense:  That was a thrilling performance.  Did you know that it is legal in American college football to throw a forward pass to the tight end? You did, huh?  If we did, we’d forgotten it.  It’s a very effective weapon.  And as it turns out, you can even throw to two different tight ends in the same game -- they don’t have to report to the officials as eligible receivers or anything.  Sort of a trick play, I guess. 

Let’s not kid ourselves here.  Mississippi’s defense is, well, awful.  In fact, you might not even choose a well-defined term like “defense” and instead go with “the players who are on the field for Mississippi when the other team is on offense”.  Often when things are this bad for your team, you can at least fill your time with some analysis of what, exactly, is wrong.  In some cases, the answer is an issue with the defensive schemes and recognition; in other cases, it is a player personnel issue.  Said the other way, is it the X’s and O’s or the Jimmies and Joes?

After Saturday evening, we’d have to say it is choice C, All of the Above.  There were plays where inexplicably Mississippi had players reading keys that had them running away from the point of attack -- or maybe they had just seen enough of Harris #1 and Harris #2 running people over like so many ninepins.  On other plays, it seemed as if the player assigned to the play just didn’t have the physical ability necessary to do what was called for.  Case in point, on Jeudy’s touchdown, I don’t think that the defenders could have caught Jerry if he had had to run all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.

With that said, it is hard to understate the dominance of Alabama’s offense.  (Do let that sink in for a minute -- savor it.  How many times have we all thought exactly that sentence, just substituting the word “defense” for “offense”?)  These guys had rolled up 248 yards passing and 170 yards rushing (418 total) by the end of the first half.  This was while the Mississippi defense was presumably fresh.

And yes, intellectually, we know you win with class.  You don’t run up a score just to embarrass your (hapless) opponent.  The guys who are third on the depth chart work hard and deserve a chance to show what they can do in an actual game, especially a conference game.  They need experience for the future. Coach Saban, in particular, is sensitive to his teams’ impact on his brothers in the coaching fraternity, blah, blah, blah.  But we have to admit, somewhere, deep down in the dirty bottom corner of the grease pit of our heart, we’d like to see our first string offense just turned loose to see how much havoc they could wreak.  Our guess is that when Tua Tagovailoa’s career is done, he will leave with the thanks of a grateful university, but also one that wishes it could have seen him run just a few more plays….  It’s kind of like that time the guy came in because he had gone through a set of brakes on his Maserati in less than 3000 miles and left it overnight for us to fix.  When it came time for the road test, well, maybe that is a story best saved for another day.

Defense:

The defense played its best game against its best competition this year.  Make no mistake, as poor as the Mississippi defense is, the offense could be outstanding.  Their quarterback, at least three of their receivers, and the center are all future NFL players.  The Alabama defense will not see another set of receivers this good this season, well, except every week in practice.

Let us give credit where credit is due -- the opening 73-yard pass play was a thing of beauty for them.  The ball was perfectly placed to hit the receiver in stride and he used every inch of his giant frame to haul it in, while keeping his balance.  Comments from the head coach and a couple of the players after the game made it sound as if Smith was expecting to have help from a safety that didn’t materialize.  So, that got fixed.  Want proof?  Mississippi had more passing yards on that one play than it had for the entire rest of the game.  In fact, aside from that completion Ta’amu threw for fewers than 60 yards on 21 tries.  The Mississippi offense did not snap a single play in the red zone.  In fact, on its last nine possessions, Mississippi didn’t manage to cross the 50-yard line.   We could go on, but regular readers of this space saw it for themselves.  Well, they saw it if they have ESPN Double Secret Channel 18453.

Some individuals acquitted themselves particularly well.  All of the DBs seemed to have solid games and freshman Patrick Surtain was in on a lot of plays.  Anfernee Jennings seems to be playing faster.  We expect that is a combination of confidence, recovery from surgery, and the fact that Mississippi’s play-calling did require him to play quite as much laterally.  Valiant Mack Wilson continues to play through his injury.  We are not clear whether this is something that rest would help or if it is going to require some sort of repair and a long recovery period.  Quinnen Williams will be making regular appearances in the nightmares of various Mississippi players for some weeks to come.

If this defense is able to develop into an elite group (and aside from injuries we don’t know why they won’t) this team will be very formidable, indeed.

Special Teams:

We hope problems on special teams are straightening out.  Of course, we don’t think any team is likely to actually punt the football anywhere near Jaylen Waddle for the rest of this season, at least not on purpose.  The same is likely now true for Jacobs on kickoffs (not that we are receiving a heck of a lot of kickoffs).  Our kickoffs are having a satisfactory rate of people fair catching them, returning them to short of the 25, or sailing through the dadgum end zone, which is how we like it. 

The rest of the kicking game still worries us.  Punting is not great.  We’d like to just forgive Skyler DeLong for short punts Saturday night in Oxford because it was so long between warm ups and his actual participation.  That ignores the same issues he had the first two games.  He seems to have developed some sort of hitch in his giddyup as he prepares to punt.  We get that the great J.K. Scott has come and gone and comparisons to him aren’t really fair.  Quick, name the player that took Michael Jordan’s spot with the Bulls after he retired.  Still, we wish the punts would get off a little quicker, go up a little higher, and travel a little farther.  PATs appear to have, ahem,  straightened themselves out with Bulovas taking over.  Now, there is something just wrong with having something that needs to be straightened out about PATs, but we’ll leave that alone hoping that we don’t have to think about it again this year.  Field goals.  Well, just think happy thoughts about going for it on 4th and 2 at the opponents’ 34-yard line -- not to mention this team’s third down conversion rate which is spectacular.

Texas A&M and new (to them) Coach Jimbo Fisher come to town on Saturday.  This team played a great game against Clemson a week ago.  We will need to be ready.


Roll Tide, beat the Aggies.

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