The Commissioner's Blog

Tire Store Report -- Texas A&M

We liked those Grades, Commissioner.  We had been worrying about this game since the little pocket-size folding schedules we keep on the counter in the store showed up back in the summer.  We knew the Aggies would remember being embarrassed in Tuscaloosa last year, would have a brand new stadium with (as it turned out) 105,000+ noisy fans to cheer them on, Coach Sumlin's would have his Air Raid offense up and running, and they'd get an extra week off to prepare (like it seems everyone does)....  Adding to that the fact that we'd be coming off two straight games against opponents who like to line up and try to run it over you, just made us worried it would take a special effort to prevail.  Good thing the Crimson Tide just happened to have a special effort to give.

We wouldn't call what Alabama turned in on Saturday a pretty effort.  In fact, there were mistakes galore.  What it lacked in esthetic beauty, though, it more than made up for with displays of resilience, guts, toughness, competitiveness, and plain old hard work.  From down here at the Tire Store, that's what we want to see.

The same things win that always won, Coach Bryant's voice reminds us every time we are in the stadium.  We can also remember Coach Stallings saying run the ball, stop the run, don't turn the football over was the formula for winning football games.  "But, but, but, Coach," we hear the talking heads saying "This is a new day.  A new era.  Hurry up.  No huddle.  50 passes a game. Spread formation.  Don't bother with defense.  Air Raid.   Basketball on grass."  Well, thanks very much for all that.  Saturday, Alabama held A&M to 32 yards rushing; ran the ball with authority, including between the tackles; and won the turnover battle in lopsided fashion.  And that effort produced a convincing win on the road in the SEC against a higher-ranked opponent.  We'll take that, every time, thanks.  If you want to see up and down action with scores in the 80s, head over to Memorial Coliseum starting in a few weeks.  Coach Johnson will appreciate your support.

Offense:  Offense wins games.  Although this week the defense itself almost scored enough to win it, so did the offense.  The offensive line was clearly handicapped when Kelly had to leave the game.  We hope it is nothing serious.  Henry ran like, well, like Derrick Henry.  When he gets a head of steam, it is tough to stop him.  We haven't been keeping count of how many defensive players have left the game after trying to tackle him this year.  Drake still does not quite seem to be back to old form.  We sure would like someone to step up and take a little pressure off of Henry, although we'd be scared to say that in Henry's hearing.  Ridley is going to be a great one and Mullaney reminds us of Kevin Norwood.   Most of all, though, let's have a short moment for Jacob Coker.  OK, so he's not the second coming of Slingin' Sammy Baugh.  We hear his arm motion is too long.  Stares down receivers.  Slow release.  Big whoop, says us.  Right now he's undefeated as our starter.  As a measure of how much we appreciate him now, do you remember in Saturday's game when everyone was covered and he took off towards the far sideline? Just past the first down marker two A&M players converged.  Coker could have easily stepped out of bounds past the first down stick.  We know this because we were yelling "step out of bounds, dadgummit."  He didn't.  Instead, he wrapped up the ball, lowered his shoulder, and gave a forearm shiver to an Aggie defensive back.  You think his teammates don't notice that sort of thing?  This has rapidly become Coker's offense.  We hope the coaches will continue to come up with ways to show off his particular skills.  And where skill isn't in play, we're pretty much content with pluck, grit, and plain old cussed determination.  Sure, he drives us crazy some plays, but no question about his heart.

Defense:  Defense wins championships.  Huzzah.  This is turning in to a very special group.  It was largely conceded around the league that Alabama's front seven, with determined leadership from Reggie Ragland, would likely be the best defensive front in the SEC, and therefore, probably in all of college football.  The problems would come with a young and inexperienced secondary.  Teams would beat Alabama, we were told, by throwing over that front seven and exploiting Alabama's secondary.  Mississippi had some success there.  Accordingly, Alabama's front seven started spiking passes back at quarterbacks like an Olympic volleyball team.  Saturday, we didn't get as many deflections.  It was a good thing.

Credit whatever you like, our guess is that it's a combination of hard work, experience, new coaching from Mel Tucker, and growing confidence, but we now view batted passes as messing up potential interceptions for touchdowns.  The Commissioner very accurately chronicled the interception success.  Did you know that in addition to those efforts, the defense was also credited with seven passes broken up?  This was an outstanding effort by a special defense.  Shoot, our dbs had three times as many receptions for touchdowns as A&M's receivers.  I'm not ready to declare this defense the best of the Saban-era, there's too much football to be played.  However, it's a measure of this group's success that we start thinking about some of these teams and wonder.

Special Teams:  Ugh.  For every leak we plug another one springs open.   Griffith was perfect on the day (Despite Gary Danielson irritatingly remarking about how extra points were just inside the left upright; last we checked "inside the upright" actually means "your team scored another point").  We kicked off out of the end zone.   J.K. Scott is back to kicking the air out of the ball and matched A&M's very talented punter in flipping field position.  On the other hand, we: got a player thrown out for targeting on a kick return, fumbled after a nice return, fair caught a punt inside the 10, muffed a catch and kicked a kick off back into our end zone (and despite Verne and Gary, I do not think that we had the choice to just take a knee without risking being called for a safety); got a punt blocked, messed up two long snaps,  allowed a punt return for a touchdown....  Wait, let's say we are springing two leaks for every one we get plugged.  We aren't sure what the answer is here -- our best athletes already play on special teams.  Perhaps it's time to work on another part of that formula.

Coaching.  This was a really hard category to grade.  It's like when teachers assign group projects in class.  You can always count on there being one member of the team that does all of their work, half of somebody else's and the extra credit piece.  And then there's the kid that shows up the day before it's due, asks if there's anything they can do, and makes sure their name appears at the top of the list of the "team" and once in my experience added the phrase "project manager".  Uh, yeah.  So it was yesterday.  Kirby Smart was the first kind of kid.  The defensive game plan for Texas A&M was, for the second year in a row, just about perfect.  A team with as much offensive talent as the Aggies, especially at wide receiver and quarterback, is going to gain some yards.  The trick is to make that difficult to do, limit actual scoring, and give your offense a chance to win the game.  Yesterday, the defense didn't take any chances, and put 21 points on the board themselves.  Except when Alabama decided to help A&M out, their scoring was mostly limited the 50-yard field goal variety (and tip your cap to the kid who made two of those).  So there's some kind of A+ grade to be had there.  The team was mostly ready to play.  The offense did what it needed to do to move the ball for the most part and was well-prepared for the A&M schemes.  Their outstanding pair of defensive ends, both headed for NFL careers, made a few plays but did not disrupt the entire offense.  So even the offensive coaches contributed and get pretty good marks.  Then we have special teams.  So, Coaching earns an A+, B+ or so, and a F-.  I guess you average and grade on a curve.

Broadcast:  D  We did not award the grade of F because we did get at least quality video from College Station.  We are not sure when CBS started the new habit of staying at the game during an injury time out and THEN going to a half dozen commercials for insurance and chicken sandwiches.  These games are lasting forever.  We stopped counting after it reached 500 so we don't know exactly how many times Gary Danielson mentioned Rehab Dropout Johnny Manziel. Safe to say we were tired of hearing it.  Perhaps because we were in attendance last year we know for sure there were a couple of dozen highlight worthy moments. We don't recall hearing Blake Sims' name called.  Or A.J. McCarron for that matter.  I'm not sure how we'll manage to sit through the game next week.  Our advice is whatever the over and under is on Danielson saying how excited Peyton Manning makes him, take the over.  In fact, bet the rent money.

Officiating:  F (as in the Fix is in).  OK, that's hyperbole, we don't really think the notoriously rich Aggie faithful paid off Matt Austin's crew.  In fact, we do NOT think yesterday's calls (and more critically the lack thereof) was to benefit Texas A&M.  We think games are being called to make a point to the Alabama coaching staff about calling out the officials. Something is clearly up.  I mean, if even clueless Verne and Gary feel compelled to second guess the officiating more than one time in a game, something needs to be addressed.  Texas A&M was penalized a grand total of one time for five yards.  Despite A&M attempting 44 passes, this group of blind mice did not even once detect holding along the offensive line.  Marlon Humphrey likely should have been credited with an interception along the sideline that was not reviewed.  Facemask penalties were not called.  Alabama returned an interception for a touchdown and that play was reviewed, even though the ball carrier didn't come particularly close to the sideline.  One reason for Texas A&M's relative success against the run in the second half was because they were lining up  offsides.  And credit to their players and coaches -- if you are not going to be flagged for it, take advantage.  Suffice it to say they seemed to be getting off the ball rather, um, quickly as well.  Given the noise there was no audible snap count to move on, so it's not like we were giving it away.   Our usual rule  is that if your choices are between conspiracy and incompetence, you should choose incompetence every time.  It's an attractive option here, given the subject is the sorry state of SEC officiating.  After yesterday, however, we may need to rethink things.  Not to worry, the conference office will announce this week that it has reviewed the film and the officials were all right, all the time.  Yeah, and Bert Bielema is an honorable man.  In the back of our minds we hear Groucho asking, "Who you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?"

Back to Tuscaloosa to prepare for Tennessee and their suddenly resurgent offense.  Don't miss a minute.  This Crimson Tide team is truly entertaining.

TO COMMENT ON THIS POST, PLEASE CLICK ON THE ABOVE LINK.