Stop us if you have heard this before…. Alabama started its season with a convincing
victory over a Power 5 opponent, then returned to Bryant-Denny Stadium for its
home opener, only to give a less-than-stellar effort against a lesser opponent,
leading to some apprehension about the beginning of the SEC schedule.
In some ways, this season was different. For one thing, we aren’t actually sure who
would be the favorite in a game pitting Arkansas State against Louisville. The Red Wolves are certainly not the
equivalent of the Southeast Mississippi College of Cosmetology & Auto Body
Repair. Arkansas State received some
votes to be ranked in the Top 25 last week, are favorites to win the Sunbelt
conference, and consistently put up outstanding numbers in the passing game. They could earn double digit wins this
season. We think it was appropriate not
to do the letter grade deduction.
Also, for all the nitpicking and hand-wringing that we are
inclined to do after the second game, we just hung half a hundred (plus) on
these guys and only threw three passes in the entire fourth quarter. We play to a standard and the Process says
that each and every play has a life of its own.
Still, it just seems like quibbling to get wound up after beating a team
by 50, especially after we decided to take it easy on them at the end. Maybe we are just a tiny bit spoiled?
One other thing you might have heard before -- The
University of Alabama Varsity Football Team is ranked #1 in the AP poll for
this week. As we write this on Sunday
night, that means the University of Alabama has been ranked in the #1 position
by the AP more than any other team, ever, at 106 weeks. And in the unlikely event you are inclined to
take him for granted, 75 of those weeks have been while the team had a head
coach named Nick Saban. Also, Alabama
has been ranked #1 for at least one week in every season since 2008. (To be fair, Alabama was having football
success well before the poll started in 1938, but still).
Offense: There were bright spots aplenty in this
game. You very correctly point out the
receiving corps as having a great deal of talent and exploiting it. We didn’t try to do anything fancy in the
running game except for bouncing a few runs outside, and even then we had four
running backs with double digit yardage as well as two of the
quarterbacks. Tagovailoa threw the ball
on the money. Hurts threw the ball on the
money. Shoot, we even passed the ball to
the tight end more than once, which watching us in some seasons you’d have thought
was against the rules.
If we have a concern on the offensive side of the ball,
right now it is the offensive line itself -- the whole
just seems to be somewhat less than the sum of its parts. The Cardinals’ and the Red Wolves’ defenses
both managed to find their way into our backfield, especially with well-timed
blitzes, and our run blocking was not getting the push we expected. We have time to clean this up, but it needs
cleaning up.
Defense: A lot of people expected Alabama to have
trouble with the Red Wolves’ passing game.
As you point out, we had a lot of trouble with their offense in
general. We get that a decent number of
those yards gained were against players who are, shall we say, the starters of the
future. But gracious.
If there is work to do to clean up on offense, the work on defense
may be like that Friday night Moses didn’t tighten up the plug on the 55-gallon
drum of 10W-40 and by Monday morning just walking across the shop floor was
like crossing a hockey rink. Our
defensive backs were confused as to placement a few times. Our linebackers are still having
communication issues and Mack Wilson is already playing with some sort of
custom protective device on a broken foot.
He and Dylan Moses need work on diagnosing what is coming and getting us
set to defend it. The gallant Anfernee
Jennings, who apparently came within a few hours of losing a leg after his
injury last year, is not quite back to top speed yet. Along the line, Isaiah Buggs
has a nagging ankle injury that cost him time Saturday. Reserves Johnny Dwight
and Stephon Wynn, Jr. are also injured.
We even lost defensive back Jalyn Armour-Davis to a knee injury Saturday in warm ups. Sheesh.
Kicking game: Last week we wondered if there was
something in the water in Tuscaloosa that was affecting the kickers. A couple of alert readers pointed out that
just bad water couldn’t possibly account for all of it. One reader suggested voodoo was to blame, which
makes as much sense as anything. Bonking
two PATs in a row off the uprights is just, well, nobody on the lug nut crew
could remember that happening in an Alabama game, ever. Much less by a transfer kicker who was in the
top five in points scored in history for his old team. And collectively, we’ve
seen a lot of games. Perhaps Mr. Bulovas
is the answer. We recommend he not give
anyone any hair clippings, just to be safe.
And you are right, Commissioner, despite Skyler DeLong having the most
perfect kicker name ever, if he doesn’t get his punts off a little faster he’s
going to be watching the ball travel backwards a few times this season.
Coaching: The team was mostly ready to play in this
game and the game plan itself seemed pretty vanilla, which was all it needed to
be. There are enough issues, noted
above, to give the coaching staff plenty to fill up the meetings this week. We are just going to trust the staff on the whole
rotation concept for the quarterbacks. I
mean, we see rotations at other positions like we rotate tires around here, but
it is one thing to see a second string tight end run on the field for a series
-- keeps the first guy fresh and gets work for the second guy -- doing that
with the quarterbacks seems like a novel way of proceeding. Of course, we did win by 50, so there’s that.
On to the Rebellious Admiral Ackbar Black Bear Hotty Toddy
Landsharks. Make no mistake, we owe
these guys. They managed to put up 35
points in just the first half last Saturday.
On the other hand, they had given up 38 points to an
FCS team. Should be interesting.
Roll Tide, beat Mississippi.
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