Crimson Red Sports

To say it was hot in the stadium today would be an understatement but as I sat there and watched the players practice in that heat, I couldn't complain to anyone. I was very impressed with their conditioning and the way the scrimmage went, there were a lot of substituting going on and that helped the players stamina a lot.

I'll start this off with what part of the team that I thought did the best today. If you guessed either the defense or the offense you would be wrong, it was the kicking game. I know this will make a lot of you happier since what we saw on A Day was a train wreck. Freshman Scott did all the punting and showed he can kick it long with very good hang time but we all need to remember, he is a freshman and hasn't played before 100,000 fans yet but I have some confidence in him. He is tall, 6'4", and I did notice him being a little slow to get some of his punts off but that can be fixed easily. Griffen, the place kicker, has a tremendously strong leg and it showed on his kickoffs, they all went inside the end zone. His field goal attempts were even better, he tried 4 or 5 and made all of them as well as the extra points too. I think one of his field goals was around 50 yards. I felt going into the season that Bama would suffer if the kicking wasn't any better than it was on A Day but trust me, it was beautiful thing to watch today.

I knew before the scrimmage today that there would be a lot of the backup players getting a lot of reps today and I blame some of this on the sloppiness that the offense showed at times. There were some dropped passes, bad passes, and fumbles as well and this I didn't like to see. Some of the fumbles though was between the QBs and the substitute centers. The dropped passes hurt the team last year in the latter part of the season and again, this can be corrected, there are too many good athletes in the receiving corp.

I was impressed with the speed of the defense, especially the d-line. They really came off the ball well and applied a lot of pressure on the QBs. Most of the rushing yardage that you see in the stats came in the latter part of the scrimmage because the top 3 runners were used sparingly today, Yeldon, Henry, and Drake. The QBs all had their chance and personally and I didn't see one that stood out head and shoulders above the rest, they all had some good and bad moments. Coker did show off his arm with a long bomb to Cooper I think, that hit him in stride down the sideline for a touchdown. Sims then got his turn and had a nice throw for a long touchdown as well and I think that was with Drake down the sideline.

The defense really impressed me at times and if those injured players can get well, I think our defense can be very good this year. I know all of you are wondering how Taylor and Humphrey looked and I was very impressed with both. Barring any injuries, these two should have a very good career at Bama. Depriest looked good today coming off his injury but he's a little out of shape but he has time to fix that before the West Virginia game. Unless something strange happens to the defense, they shouldn't disappoint anyone.

As CNS spoke to us today he continued to dwell on the character of the players on and off the field and how important that is if this team is to reach the championship game. He continues to recruit players on the team to become not just a leader but a good leader. He described a good leader as one being highly respected by the other players, sometimes that respect includes them being afraid of the leader as he has had some of them in the past. He closed out today saying that he feels good about this team and if they will continue to improve their play in a consistent way, where they make good plays on every down, this team can be pretty good. He felt good about the reps that the non-starters got today because that will help the team in a big way down the road. RTR!!

Any injuries to report, Jamos??

 :pray:

To say it was hot in the stadium today would be an understatement but as I sat there and watched the players practice in that heat, I couldn't complain to anyone. I was very impressed with their conditioning and the way the scrimmage went, there were a lot of substituting going on and that helped the players stamina a lot.

I'll start this off with what part of the team that I thought did the best today. If you guessed either the defense or the offense you would be wrong, it was the kicking game. I know this will make a lot of you happier since what we saw on A Day was a train wreck. Freshman Scott did all the punting and showed he can kick it long with very good hang time but we all need to remember, he is a freshman and hasn't played before 100,000 fans yet but I have some confidence in him. He is tall, 6'4", and I did notice him being a little slow to get some of his punts off but that can be fixed easily. Griffen, the place kicker, has a tremendously strong leg and it showed on his kickoffs, they all went inside the end zone. His field goal attempts were even better, he tried 4 or 5 and made all of them as well as the extra points too. I think one of his field goals was around 50 yards. I felt going into the season that Bama would suffer if the kicking wasn't any better than it was on A Day but trust me, it was beautiful thing to watch today.

I knew before the scrimmage today that there would be a lot of the backup players getting a lot of reps today and I blame some of this on the sloppiness that the offense showed at times. There were some dropped passes, bad passes, and fumbles as well and this I didn't like to see. Some of the fumbles though was between the QBs and the substitute centers. The dropped passes hurt the team last year in the latter part of the season and again, this can be corrected, there are too many good athletes in the receiving corp.

I was impressed with the speed of the defense, especially the d-line. They really came off the ball well and applied a lot of pressure on the QBs. Most of the rushing yardage that you see in the stats came in the latter part of the scrimmage because the top 3 runners were used sparingly today, Yeldon, Henry, and Drake. The QBs all had their chance and personally and I didn't see one that stood out head and shoulders above the rest, they all had some good and bad moments. Coker did show off his arm with a long bomb to Cooper I think, that hit him in stride down the sideline for a touchdown. Sims then got his turn and had a nice throw for a long touchdown as well and I think that was with Drake down the sideline.

The defense really impressed me at times and if those injured players can get well, I think our defense can be very good this year. I know all of you are wondering how Taylor and Humphrey looked and I was very impressed with both. Barring any injuries, these two should have a very good career at Bama. Depriest looked good today coming off his injury but he's a little out of shape but he has time to fix that before the West Virginia game. Unless something strange happens to the defense, they shouldn't disappoint anyone.

As CNS spoke to us today he continued to dwell on the character of the players on and off the field and how important that is if this team is to reach the championship game. He continues to recruit players on the team to become not just a leader but a good leader. He described a good leader as one being highly respected by the other players, sometimes that respect includes them being afraid of the leader as he has had some of them in the past. He closed out today saying that he feels good about this team and if they will continue to improve their play in a consistent way, where they make good plays on every down, this team can be pretty good. He felt good about the reps that the non-starters got today because that will help the team in a big way down the road. RTR!!

 The QB situation will work itself out, personally I think Coker is the man. All of the qbs had problems with the timing on their passes yesterday. I can understand Coker having this problem but not the other QBs. Most of the passes thrown across the middle were late to the receivers.

Coker has a strong arm and it showed when he threw long downfield. He completed the one to Cooper in stride and hit another receiver on a similar play but the ball was dropped. In all fairness to the qbs, there were a lot of dropped passes yesterday and that concerned me a lot. There are only 4 downs in a series of plays and dropped passes are nothing but a drive killer as we saw so many times last year.

The OL didn't look as good as I think they are because CNS was playing everybody that has a chance to play this year on the OL and I think this affected how they performed, especially the botched snaps to the QBs. He talked about this after the scrimmage and dind't seem to be too concerned about how they performed other than the reserves got some very valuable experience yesterday playing against the first unit.

Great report J.

Kickoffs into the end zone?  WOW!!! :o :o :o