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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