We
agree with those grades, with one exception.
Regular readers know it is rare for us to disagree with a letter grade,
but we think that the F for place kicking was simply wrong. There are earnest hard workers out there who are earning
their grades of between 53 and 56. This place-kicking unit just doesn’t
deserve to be in their lofty company.
OK,
maybe we are a bit harsh. Maybe. No component of this unit seems to
have it together. We had a kickoff out of bounds, only one kick into the
dadgum end zone, a long kick return, one iffy snap, a completely botched hold,
a missed blocking assignment, and a PAT kick that was less good than attempts
we’ve seen from contestants in Dr. Pepper’s Kick for Tuition. Contestants who were wearing
skirts. And barefoot. These issues didn’t matter against LSU, but they
will matter at some point this season if it plays out like we all hope and
expect. And you are absolutely correct
that it is on the coaches to fix these problems, one way or another.
On
the other hand, you are so right to point out that the punt game was more or
less a disaster just three games ago.
Now, Bernier is doing a solid job. We are sensitive to the
fact that we may be grading on a curve, because we never expected him to be
J.K.Scott and so far he hasn’t kicked any 12-yarders. It’s always great
to see the walk on do well. Besides, this
team isn’t playing the sort of games where it needs to constantly pin the other
team deep.
Instead
of making other various comments about your excellent analysis of the offense
and defense, both of which continue to improve and play well, we’ve thought we’d
add our thoughts about the officiating on Saturday and the larger issues that
raises.
Regular
readers know that down here beside the grease pit we are no fans of the SEC
officiating mess. The “crew” system
instituted now long ago, has been a disaster.
Calls are inconsistent from crew to crew and even from official to
official within specific crews. For example, the pass interference call on
Savion Smith on Saturday would likely have been a no call on the other side of
the field, and we know that because a mirror-image play later in the game was
not flagged.
However,
Saturday evening we moved from the realm of incompetence to what had all the
earmarks of the officials favoring one team over another. It all started with a game in
which Alabama did not even participate.
As Gary reminded you at least 164,000 times LSU linebacker, Devin White, was suspended in LSU’s last game
for targeting, which included a suspension into the first half of LSU’s game
with Alabama.
Look,
there is a need for some rule about blows to the head in football. The
NCAA has to react to the threats posed by CTE for the safety of the young men
who play in the games as well as to protect the sport from lawsuits that could
end organized tackle football. The current targeting rule might
be well-intended, but it is convoluted, difficult for the officials to apply in
real time, and results in harsh penalties. We don’t actually know anyone
(except the NCAA) that is saying it is a good rule, either as written by the
committee or as applied by the officials.
With
that said, the idea that Alabama as an institution has conspired with the SEC
to “use” the Targeting Rule to somehow gain an advantage in games would be
laughable, had it not been given currency by all sorts of media reports, celebrity
conversation, and lots of people in yellow-and-purple-striped tinfoil hats.
Really,
y’all? Do you think the difference in this year's Alabama vs. (insert prior SEC
opponent of your choice here) game was that one of their defensive players
didn’t play the first half because of a bogus targeting call in the prior game? If Alabama had the kind of pull in
the SEC Office that some bayou-dwellers seem to think, that’s not how it would
be exerted. Wouldn’t it make a lot more
sense, not to mention be a lot easier, to use our vast leverage so that we didn’t
have to play in Death Valley at night? I
mean, everyone generally agrees that night time there is “different” and that
LSU has a definite advantage in the evening due to … something -- its
rabid fan base, atmospheric conditions, alcohol, voodoo, the ghost of Napoleon --
something. As things now line up,
Alabama is going to play the University of Georgia for the fifth straight time
in the state of Georgia and for the sixth of the eight meetings in this century. One would think Alabama’s massive collusive power
would do something about that state of affairs.
But
going past that, back to Mr. White’s specific situation, we’ve seen the video
of the play that got him penalized. The
way things have been called this year, we are confident there are games where
that would not have been called targeting and games where it would have. And we are sympathetic to our Cajun friends
in their frustration over the interpretation and enforcement of the rule,
actually. Where our sympathies end and
our disdain begins is where they claim that Alabama is somehow to blame. We are going to suppose that the majority of
their fans were frustrated about White’s penalty and didn’t actually wander into the conspiracy swamp. We trust that thinking was limited to the ones who are
suspicious of airplane contrails or who believe certain corporate officers are
actually interstellar reptilians.
So
there are two questions to ask. First, how
much did White’s absence affect the outcome of this game?
Hardly at
all, we would say. If your football team
is such that the loss of one defensive player for one half means you have no
hope of winning a game, you likely didn’t have any hope of winning it to start
with. White is a fine linebacker. He is not the greatest defensive
player in the history of the NCAA (fill in your own candidate here), he is not
the best current defensive player in the SEC, he wasn’t the best defensive
player in the game on Saturday night (Q. Williams), for our money, he is not
even the best defensive player for LSU (G. Williams and we’d listen to
an argument that Delpit is a better athlete). And so far as we know, he
doesn’t run any plays in their offense.
Second,
how much did the whole situation end up otherwise influencing the game?
Unfortunately, our answer here is a decent
amount. LSU’s administration, coaching
staff, and a decent chunk of their fan base (even the ones who aren’t
conspiracy-minded) basically spent two weeks arguing for favorable officiating
on Saturday evening. They got it. In spades, or perhaps we should say
in fleur di lis. The math is what it is. Alabama regularly ends up
near the top of the list of teams whose opponents get the fewest penalties
called on them. That is one list you do
not want to top. Somehow, teams that
face one of the most dominant teams in the game, and without regard to their
play before and after facing Alabama, suddenly become very compliant with the
rules. Again, if Alabama ran the SEC Offices, you'd expect that list to look very different. Before Saturday, LSU was
averaging being flagged for nearly 60 yards in penalties per game.
Saturday night, they took three flags for 15 yards -- one was for too many men
in formation and one was for a false start well after the issue was decided.
The
targeting call on Delpit was overturned. Were you the least
bit surprised? Maybe not coincidentally, Delpit was the same
player who just moments before dove at Tagoviola's legs on a play stopped by
the official’s whistle. Gary Danielson, of course, excused the late hit
and said that no one on the field could have heard the whistle. Though if
you look at the replay you can see players from both teams standing up looking
around at the time of the hit. Somehow they managed to hear. Live
play or not, it is (rightly) against the rules to dive at a quarterback’s knees
on a tackle attempt. Of course, this dive appeared to be aimed at the knee
with the brace on it. The same play also resulted in hit to what Tua
described as his “goodies”. This is a
family blog, so we’ll leave off discussions there. Suffice it to say at least a garden-variety
unnecessary roughness penalty seemed in order. Not with Matt Austin’s
crew in Baton Rouge. Nothing to see here. Drag your quarterback off the field.
Move along.
No
wonder their secondary is so feared -- they were consistently allowed to hold
the arms and jerseys of Alabama players running pass routes. Have you
seen the video clip of Williams getting a sack even after being held by two LSU
players at the same time? One Alabama defensive lineman (or maybe
linebacker) had his jersey pulled up over his face like they do in hockey
fights sometime -- that’s why we couldn’t tell who it was. No call then,
either.
To
conclude far too late, we have frequently complained about SEC
officiating. We have always tried to be
clear though -- we believed the officials were not as skilled and efficient as
they needed to be in calling games not that they were crooked or paid off or rooting for one team over the other. We
have felt the “Bama Effect” of officials not calling fouls on our opponents, an effect which is backed up by, you know, math.
Saturday
night was the first time we have felt like the officials were purposely calling the game less strictly against one SEC
team. If there was a conspiracy in action Saturday in Baton
Rouge, it didn’t involve secret backroom meetings between Alabama’s athletic
director and the SEC offices; instead, it played out in the newspapers, on
ESPN, social media, billboards, tee shirts, and signs towed behind
airplanes. LSU lobbied the SEC not to
call penalties against it in the Alabama game.
Whether the officials were conscious of it or not, it worked. Pitiful.
On
to Mississippi State. This team may be
better on both lines of scrimmage than any team Alabama has faced all
year. They played much lesser competition than we did Saturday. Add to that the fact that it is hard to get a team excited
to play critical games in consecutive weeks.
The coaches and players have their work cut out for them. We have confidence in them.
Roll
Tide. Beat the Bulldogs.
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