Hurrah for the return of College
Football Season and Hurrah for the return of The Grades. Excellent effort, Commissioner. You are already in mid-season form and it’s just
the very beginning of September.
Down here at the Tire Store, we were very excited for
college football to begin again. It
shouldn’t be that way, of course. When
your team has won the championship and holds the trophy, you should savor that
feeling. You should say as many times as
possible that you are the reigning champion.
You should not be in a hurry to kick it off again, just re-opening the
months’ long struggle to determine once again who is the college football
champion. Don’t be wishing your life
away, etc.
Yeah, well, bag all that.
College football season is too much fun.
We’ve celebrated long enough.
Time to get back to business. And
boy, did we.
Hurrah for the return of College
Football Season and Hurrah for the return of The Grades. Excellent effort, Commissioner. You are already in mid-season form and it’s just
the very beginning of September.
Down here at the Tire Store, we were very excited for
college football to begin again. It
shouldn’t be that way, of course. When
your team has won the championship and holds the trophy, you should savor that
feeling. You should say as many times as
possible that you are the reigning champion.
You should not be in a hurry to kick it off again, just re-opening the
months’ long struggle to determine once again who is the college football
champion. Don’t be wishing your life
away, etc.
Yeah, well, bag all that.
College football season is too much fun.
We’ve celebrated long enough.
Time to get back to business. And
boy, did we.
Offense: This group earned a good grade. We seemed to move the ball effectively and understand
the schemes. The offensive line had a
little bit of a rocky first quarter. The
newspaper reports indicated that the linemen felt there were “communication”
issues. On one particular play early in
the game, Alex Leatherwood had two men to block. We’re pretty sure that Alabama doesn’t have a
scheme that requires one offensive lineman to block two pass rushers simultaneously. Those issues, communication or otherwise, seemed
to get worked out.
The biggest problem for this offense may be whether there
are enough offensive downs for everyone to truly show their skills. Both Harrises ran hard and will break off
long TD runs this year. Josh Jacobs, who
just never really seemed to be fully healthy last year, demonstrated what a
great asset he is to the offense. Pass routes
seemed crisp. Ball security is an
issue. We expect there to be emphasis on
that in practice this week.
The quarterback thing has had so much conversation about it
that we don’t really want to add to the pile.
However, we heard the great Cecil Hurt make the point that Coach Saban
didn’t really have so much a difficult decision to make as a difficult
situation to manage. So far so
good. We don’t really envy him on this
one.
Defense: You just don’t send as many players from this side of the ball to
the NFL and not see some drop off in performance. But honestly, we thought things went pretty
well. For starters, if someone told you
that in every game this season the other team would rush the football for a
grand total of 16 yards on 26 tries, wouldn’t you take that without playing the
games? Despite losses already (and don’t think this team doesn’t miss having hard-luck
Terrell Lewis on the field for lots of reasons) the defense performance was
pretty solid. We’ve done a decent amount of worrying over the winter about the
young defensive backs. The Cardinals
managed to pick up some yardage through the air Saturday night (though their
statistics were padded with a long drive by their first team against our
second/third units near the end of the game).
Say what you will about Coach Petrino, and we mean that, say
whatever you like and even share it with us, especially if it is a joke about
falling off a motorcycle, nobody seriously contends that he is not an excellent
X’s and O’s offensive coach. Alabama
recruited their quarterback, Pass, and how could you not recruit a quarterback
named “Pass”? Anyway, Petrino knows how
to run a passing offense. On several
occasions variations on the wheel route resulted in an uncovered receiver in the middle of the field. We suspect the actual problem was not the
play of the defensive backs, but linebackers who were to cover players coming
out of the backfield. Even so, this
little bit of dark lining in a silver cloud of defensive performance was made
brighter when Dylan Moses ran down a Louisville receiver from behind. Y’all, that doesn’t happen. Except at Alabama.
For a first game with a new coordinator, I think this went
about as well as we could have expected.
Aside from the late game TD, Louisville’s other drive was helped
immensely by two 15-yard penalties on third down, no less. More on that later.
Special Teams: This was certainly a mixed bag. Start with the worst. What is it in the water in Tuscaloosa as far as
place kicking goes? We missed a short
field goal, AGAIN. Some reports say that
may have been the holder’s fault and I’m not excited about Tua out there doing
it anyway, but we also missed an extra point AGAIN. Seriously?
There are something like 250 high school football teams in Alabama. Every one of them has someone who
successfully kicks PATs every Friday night.
Our kicker is a grad transfer with an excellent record of success. What in the name of Bucky Berry is going on? Maybe we should insist they only drink and
cook with Dasani to avoid the bad place kicking mojo carried in the
Black Warrior.
Punting was serviceable with one shank that we’ll forgive
for the first game. (OK, it’s not fair
to ask any punter to exceed what J.K. Scott did for Alabama. Let’s just get over that one). Kickoffs went well. We had a coverage bust that allowed one run
back, but with complete new rules, it was not bad. Returns were outstanding and should have
accounted for two scores. We aren’t sure
we’ve seen a returner like Waddle since, maybe, Arenas. I would not be surprised if teams don’t start
punting out of bounds with him back there.
Coaching: It is worth noting that of the various
coordinators and position coaches on the Alabama staff, only one (besides the
head coach) still had the same position and title on Saturday night as he had in
January. Given that state of affairs,
things seemed to go pretty well. There
were communication issues. There were
some breakdowns, as noted above. But as
between the two teams, if someone was going to have 12 men on the field three
or four times, I would have bet that would have been Alabama, trying to
compensate for all the new roles. It
wasn’t. That’s a credit to the coaches.
We’ve got to get the penalties cleaned up. Which leads us to our least favorite subject….
Officiating: This officiating crew was from the B1G. They can have them. It used to be, and may still be, that in the
television business anyone who got any part of their body on camera was
entitled to certain pay rates for appearing in a program. We wondered about that briefly on Saturday
night. Maybe the head referee thought he
was getting paid by the minute for every appearance he had on camera. This group was just plain terrible.
We are going to leave this subject alone because: 1. We hope
and think there is a decent chance we’ll never have to deal with that crew of
underachievers ever again; and 2. Our doctor is already concerned about our BP readings this time of year.
What we do want to talk about is how penalties can affect the
game in a lot broader ways than just the call.
We had a punt return Saturday night that went for a
touchdown. However, far away from the actiony,
we were penalized for a block in the back (looking at the film, it was iffy,
especially because the player who was blocked was not going to be involved in
the play) but we’ve seen worse calls.
So, on paper, the penalty looks like Alabama’s ball, first down, 10
yards from the spot of the foul.
However, the real effect was that: 6 (and in our case possibly 7) points
did not go up on the board. Waddle did
not get credit he deserved for a punt return for a touchdown. He also did not set an Alabama record for all-purpose
yardage by a freshman, which he might have achieved. We have one less Special Teams touchdown this
year.
More tellingly, we had a player commit a fairly silly
penalty out of frustration after a third-down play. The result of the play ought to have been
fourth-and-long, with Louisville punting.
Instead, the penalty racked up 15 yards and gave Louisville a first
down. They eventually scored. The defense, which should have
been off the field resting, drinking Powerade, and getting coached up by the
staff, instead had to stay on the field for more downs.
On the very next play, Mack Wilson and Quinnen Williams both went down
with injuries. (Williams eventually returned. Wilson could have done so if needed, though
he missed one day of practice, too.)
However, regular readers of this space know that those are two gentlemen
we cannot afford to lose, especially early in the season.
So, all that to say that stupid penalties and stupid officials
calling them often have an impact far beyond what the box score will show. We are pretty confident the coaching staff will
take steps to reduce such.
Coach Saban once said that the paradox of success is that
once you stop to enjoy it, you are in trouble.
You have to keep moving forward.
We are glad it is college football season again. We are glad the team is moving forward. We are glad we beat the Cardinals in the
first game.
Roll Tide. Beat
Arkansas State. See you next week,
everybody, there are tires to change and brake pads to replace, but Saturday
will be here soon.
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