Offense: Not too much to add to your excellent report, Commissioner. Watching the game, we did hark back to a
question Coach Saban asked rhetorically a few seasons ago. Namely, is this what we want football to
become? For good or ill, the trend right now is to do what Alabama did Saturday
-- prove it can score at will (Alabama punted once in the game and took a knee
once -- otherwise, we think all the drives ended in scores or FG attempts) and
otherwise try to occasionally generate a turnover or force the other team to
kick a field goal. We think of it as the
boat race strategy. Is it what we would
prefer? No. Is it what we have? Looks like.
Are we good at it? Darn right we are.
Perhaps the return of our suspended lineman will improve the traditional
running game. If not, we will just have
to get comfortable with thinking of 8-9 yard swing passes and screens as really
long handoffs.
Defense: The
growing pains attributable to losing two talented upperclassmen at the inside
linebacker spot became apparent on Saturday.
Credit the USC staff for finding ways to try to use those players'
inexperience against them. The good news
is that on the job training works. The
more those players are exposed to those schemes and matchups, the better they
will defend against them. It will be
interesting to see who takes the field for the first snap on defense the next
couple of weeks. We are not, however,
wringing our hands over whether Saturday's effort would be enough to beat some
other team appearing later on the schedule.
It was more than enough to beat USC and they were the opponent. Whether that effort would beat Team X won't
matter till our game with Team X. We'll
see then.
Special Teams:
Sorry we mentioned it last week. Totally our fault. Back to covering our eyes on kicks. To be honest, we thought the 13-yard punt was
the result of a pretty favorable spot by the official. That was the functional equivalent of a turn
over. Seriously, we know we have readers
all over the country. If you live in
Baton Rouge or New Orleans or roundabout, we are willing to see if we can't
take up a collection to bury some chicken bones or get a reverse voodoo doll or
some other ritualistic program underway to try to undo whatever it is that
happens to great kickers when they put on an Alabama uniform. We tend to not be all that superstitious, but
as J.M. Keynes put it, "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
Broadcasting:
We were surprised to hear from Gary about all the good things that
Najeeh Davenport did during the game.
We'd have thought that having already won a National Championship at
Miami and playing for three or four NFL teams (not to mention being about 40
yeras old) he'd not be eligible. I guess
it's just more recruiting genius from Nick Saban. The only good thing about the broadcast is
that CBS has one fewer chances to show our games this season. They picked up the Mississippi game week after next. Perhaps we can hear what Terrell Owens is
doing for our defense or how Brian Russell is shaping up in our backfield in
his second turn in college. Sheesh.
Officiating.
OK, you saw the game. Though
Gary Danielson will still be harping on whether the USC running back's knee
touched the ground before he crossed the goal line when your grandkids are in
college, he really did miss the point.
If there was an error on that call, it was USC deciding to run another
play before a review could be called.
And despite Coach Exploding Head blaming bad officiating, that was a
stupid coaching mistake. Admit it,
Coach, you ran the play because you were certain you'd score on the next snap
if you rushed it. You might be right to
be angry, but not at the officials. To
be honest, I couldn't tell from the super slo mo or the zoomed in view whether
the runner's knee touched the ground or not -- too much shadow. We did not see light between his knee and the
ground. Is it down if he touches the
grass but not the earth underneath it?
The supposed expert for CBS made some remark about not seeing dirt fly
up, which was definitely a rule interpretation we had never heard of before
Saturday. I'd say if we are down to that
level of argument, whatever was called on the field would stand. Lousy calls were the order of the day on
Saturday. We could see green grass
between our tight end's shoe and the sideline from the overhead view, but he
was ruled out of bounds even after review. The officials were equally terrible both
ways. And before you take any guff from
other fans about Alabama always getting favorable calls, we stand at a proud
108 in the NCAA rankings of teams with fewest penalty yards (out of 130). So the other team always feels that way, but
the math doesn't support their feelings.
Based not just on our game (though the targeting
call on Barmore has been widely-criticized, including outside the SEC) but on
several calls from the last two weeks (see Kentucky vs. Florida as the prime
exhibit) it doesn't appear to us that there is any consistency or really even a
shared understanding of what targeting is.
Comments from various officials out there make it clear that different
strokes apply to different folks.
Quarterbacks appear to be particularly protected. And while we are at it, we are not fans of
this rules expert in the booth concept.
We get that the networks, probably at the insistence of the conferences,
want someone to speak "for" the officials. Networks do not want to be in the middle of
that. However, this has started to seem
like nothing more than an on-screen apologist defending whatever the officials
at the game have decided. On a couple of
occasions Saturday we could hear them as the great Chico Marx: "Who you
gonna believe? Me or your own eyes?"
Unfortunately, before we leave this topic, we have
some worse news for you. That was
Hubert's crew doing the game. That crew
is generally regarded as the best the SEC has to offer. Let that sink in for a minute....
Roll Tide.
Beat Southern Miss.
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