It’s so nice to have college football back. Partly, the excitement of the return of the
season is the return of The Grades. Nice
to see you already in mid-season form, Commissioner.
For a long set of complicated reasons that I’m sure we down
here at the Tire Store really couldn’t understand, the ACC decided that its
representative in the Chick Fil A kickoff game this season would be the Duke
Blue Devils. Now, we expect one of the
factors was, you know, money, which we do like to think we have a handle on,
but we’re sure there are others.
Without regard to the precise reason or reasons, Duke was
the opponent on Saturday night. Alabama
and Duke have some limited amount of football history, handled in a not very coherent
fashion by ABC, more below. Duke’s
coach, David Cutcliffe, is a wily old bird and how he has not managed to end up
as head coach of a somewhat larger institution is sort of mystifying. He is a pretty good recruiter, a decent
motivator, and an acknowledged leader in play-design and working to exploit his
opponent’s weaknesses.
We will add a few comments to the Commissioner’s excellent
review of the game.
Offense: The running game needs some work. Duke has a veteran defensive line that was in
position to make plays in the running game most of the night. The Alabama offensive line was reportedly a
mix-n-match operation throughout Fall Camp and some of that continued in the
game. Shifting personnel certainly
shoulders some of the blame for a weak run game. So does the fact that two of our running
backs ended up suspended for the first quarter.
And it did appear to us a couple of times that the offensive line
actually did a good job blocking at the point of attack and the running back
then chose to, um, adjust the play to a different point of attack of his liking,
which didn’t help. In addition, one of
last year’s starters will not be available for three more games and we are
uncertain how his return will alter the picture. Whatever. We look for a lot of those things to be
cleaned up over the next few weeks.
The passing game more than made up for weakness in the
running game. Tight end, a position
generally agreed to be a major question mark entering the season, accounted for
two touchdowns. Tagovailoa mostly made
excellent decisions all night and was only sacked once (he was pressured more
than that, but made a nifty run to pick up a first down on a scramble -- an
underappreciated part of his game). It
appeared that Duke’s strategy was “we are going to make you beat us by Alabama
beat us by allowing short passes and challenging you to make sustained drives
and not letting your receivers beat us deep”.
OK. Challenge accepted. And, we expect other defensive coordinators
to try to follow suit. As long as this
outstanding group of WRs stay healthy, the tight ends continue to be involved,
and the quarterback is willing to take what the defense is giving them, that
should work out just fine for Alabama.
Speaking of the first-string quarterback, we noted that his
exceptional play has become so routine that it hardly merits a mention by the
media any longer. In fact, we seemed to hear
a lot more about Clemson’s quarterback this weekend, whose QBR was not in the
top 50 on Saturday.
Defense: The defense played an outstanding
game. In particular, the interior was
manned by a true freshman nose guard and two true freshman inside linebackers. You wouldn’t have known it by their
play. Even when Duke trotted out
offensive formations/systems that Alabama could not possibly have prepared for,
the defense was mostly solid. The stop
in the red zone early in the game set a tone that continued throughout the
contest. If this group can stay healthy
we think it has the potential to be very special.
Special teams: WE KICKED OFF THE FOOTBALL INTO THE DADGUM
END ZONE. That was enough to keep us
happy down here at the Tire Store.
Punting wasn’t perfect, but we only punted twice all night and we are ok
if that is also a trend for the season.
PATs were perfect, though having that particular holder out there gives
us some indigestion. We did doink
long-ish field goals off of both uprights (which ought to be worth something in
scoring system, it seems like.) However,
regular readers know that we think missed field goals over about 45 yards aren’t
the fault of the kicker so much as the coaching and offense for not being a bit
closer. It looked to us like in both
cases the kicks would have been good where they crossed the goal line. And at least we are improved from the last
couple of years where it was on PATs that we were shaking the poles. The jury, as they say, is out but we feeling
some optimism.
Coaching: We had
a LOT of new coaches on the field and in the pressbox Saturday afternoon. The team seemed ready to play and anxious to get
into a game, even if the opponent was not the highly-ranked foe of previous
seasons. Even so, it took some fortitude
on the part of the coaches to suspend the #1 running back. And the #2 running back. With the #3 running back lost for the season
to injury, that should send a good message to the team that no one is above the
law. Throw in the team’s best edge
rusher and a starting wide receiver and we expect the message came through loud
and clear. Next time there is a team
movie, we’ll expect that everyone will be in his seat before the previews of
coming attractions begin. The in-game
adjustments seemed effective, especially on the offensive side of the
ball. The Defense appeared more coherent
overall. A good day.
Officials: Well, it is nice to be reminded, I suppose,
that incompetent officiating isn’t limited to our conference. The head coach got the first penalty flag we
can remember being thrown on him.
Supposedly this had to do with his displeasure at a sideline warning
flag after an interception. Our guess is
that his tirade was really not so much about the sideline warning as it was
just cumulative. He was clearly unhappy
when an Alabama touchdown was taken off the board on a review that stretched the
boundaries of indisputable evidence thinner than a penalty flag. He was even more unhappy about a questionable
holding call away from the play on a big run.
The second pass interference call of the night was flagged from thirty
yards away by the official with about the third-best look at the action. So, yeah, by the time that flag went up in
the air, Coach was ready to give someone an idea of what he thought. Now, if he had known one of his assistants
was the one who was called and that he actually did run into the official, he
might have been a little less distraught, but we think that was just a
15-yarder over about five iffy calls, so at three yards per, that seems like pretty
good value. The coach took responsibility for the penalty and more or less
apologized. I doubt anyone reading this
space much disagreed with him being upset, however. And, it can’t hurt to have your players
reminded on national television in a very visible way that you have their
backs.
Broadcast: We don’t have many games on ABC (not counting
ESPN, which is sort of owned by ABC, or well, Disney, well, never mind….) After Saturday, I’m not too sad about
that. A couple of examples should
suffice. The sidelong remark that
Alabama’s turnover belt was some kind of new invention copying Miami’s turnover
chain was the sort of throwaway comment by an announcer that he thinks little
of making, but for real fans of the team show how disconnected and ignorant he
is of the team and its traditions. More
importantly, we were disappointed that the last several minutes of game time
devolved into completely ignoring the action on the field in favor of a bunch of
banter and blather between the announcers about one of them, their NFL career,
draft positioning, etc. Whoop de doo. We
got used to the idea a long time ago that many football announcers have decided
that their commentary was the primary reason the game was being held, rather
than the other way around. But we feel
sorry for the family, friends, high school coaches, and others who are cheering
for second and third string players who enter the game at the end, are fighting
just as hard as those ahead of them in the starting rotation, and who deserve
to have their names and numbers called for their efforts.
So, on to game two.
We’ll be honest, when the 2019 schedule was announced, this was the opponent
that most left us scratching our heads. On
paper, this is a major mismatch.
However, it is unnecessary to hark back to Coach Stallings’ warning
about a game not being big till you lose it.
The coaches can just show the players a few clips from this past
Saturday in Knoxville.
Roll Tide. Beat the
Aggies.
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