Crimson Red Sports

First:   First congrats to the Bama team for the victory.  This was a tough battle on both side of the ball.  This was big boy football.   

Offense:  The offense struggled most of the night.  They only had one long drive during the game which ended with a missed field goal.  They had seven 3 and outs.    Bama only ran 16 plays in the 2nd half until the 9 play drive to tie up the game.  They put together only 315 yards of offense.   The offense only had 4 running plays for 10+ yards.  They did have 10 pass plays of over 10 yards, but most of those were throw under 10 yard and the yardage was made after the catch.  Bama’s offense only got into the red zone three times and one of those was in overtime. The positive beside the win, is Bama only had 4 negative plays last night; two were tackles for losses, one was a sack where Cooper was blocking instead of running a route, and the big fumble which allowed LSU to take the lead.   It looked like they didn’t communicate well on offense.

QB:  Blake did not make some throws in this game, but did make the plays in the last 50 seconds and in overtime for Bama to tie and ultimately win the game. Sims missed some big balls which were underthrown and a few passes were behind his rec but some still made the catch.   He was not helped by 4 drops which I will address later.  It looked at times he wasn’t keeping his eyes downfield. 

RB:  They ran hard in very little space.  The LSU players hit them hard and often.  If you watched when they were pass blocking, which they did a pretty good job, they were getting jacked.  One big play not made was the pass to TJY who had a lot of open field to work with.

REC:  There were some opportunities here but plays weren’t made.  I do think LSU got away with a couple of pass interference calls that were not made.  I had Cooper for 3 drops.  I also didn’t think White ran some routes well or didn’t think he was getting the ball.  The good thing here is more rec got involved in the game.

OL:  They did a good job pass blocking but never really established dominance in the running game.  The line did get a push a couple of time,

Defense:  They only gave up 259 yards.   They had 6 tackles for losses, 2 sacks, and 1 interception.   They had 4 three and outs, but one of those was because of the interception.   They did lose contain a couple of time but overall played well.  The biggest plays the LSU had were when the QB scrambled.  The QB ran for 40 yards and most of that was on 3 scrambling plays.  They did have some substitution problems early, but seem to get them worked out.  In the game, LSU had 6 runs for 10+ yards and 4 passes for 10+ yards. 

DL:  Against the big physical offense the DL held their own.  The only problem was they lost contain a couple of times, and when they rushed the QB they got too far up the field allowing a lane for the QB to escape.

LB:   RR again a very good game.  He had at least 8 tackles in the first half alone.   TD also played pretty well, but RR is the one that seems to stand out each week. 
 
DB:  They played a solid game.  One of the best plays of the night was on the 3rd play of the game when LSU ran the option.  Collins got cut and still got up to make the play. 

Penalties: Bama had 3 penalties in the game.  They overcame every one of them which is a plus. 

Special teams:   Scott did a good job in the clutch flipping the field. 

Finally:  This game was a battle.  It is what we have come to expect in these games.  I do think Bama needs to be more balanced on offense.  They threw the ball 46 times and ran 29.   


Please feel free to comment.

Good Luck and Roll Tide Roll 
15 and counting

The dropped balls is one thing that has me confused. It is late in the season to be dropping passes and WR's getting frustrated and letting up on their routes. I thought after the ole miss whuppin and arkie scare we got that this was going to become a complete team.
Penalties: We keep saying this can be fixed but can it? Especially if one player continues to do this?
These men played great to win this game. the LSU game is already a hard row to hoe every year no matter who is ranked where. I wonder if we could possibly be playing down to our opponents level sometimes? I think Blake is the man to finish the job this year, win, lose, or draw.
We are going to be beat up going against msu next Saturday. Great job coach as always my friend. RTR!

Is it time to sit Leon Brown?

Two of the penalties were on him.m  On the personal foul he was saying he didn't hear the whistle.    Maybe a little extra conditioning or sit him a while and play Hill.

I'll bet some extra running will clean out his ears.

They were getting Hill ready to play in case Cam couldn't make it.  I think he was going to play right tackle though.  I don't like shifting the line around this late in the year but we can't tolerate any more costly penalties when the game is on the line.  I believe Leon was also the one who got the penalty at Ole Miss that cost us the game.

How difficult is it to switch back and forth between tackle and guard?  It seems like guard needs to be more of a bulldozer type to plow a path in the running game while tackle needs to be more athletic to stop the edge rush.

According to how smart the young man is.  The tackles have to be athletic because of the playing the edge, good feet in other words.  The guards are both mashers but athletic.  Look at who are your pullers in the game.

"Alabama didn’t earn style points Saturday night. It earned respect."

 
http://espn.go.com/blog/sec/post/_/id/93120/alabama-grinds-out-another-victory

Nice quote from the linked article.

Gotta have a better game plan for the offense for MSU.  And Blake has to play better.  God bless our D.

Thanks coach for another good summary.

He's a senior & sadly, the best we have it seems.

Great summary as always, coach!  I'd like to add two things.

Character: Never giving up even when things aren't going your way.  Playing through adversity and persevering until you achieve your goal.

Leadership: 65 yards from the end zone with 50 seconds to play, three points down and no time outs.  "When we were in the huddle, I said 'Guys, this is the game,'" Sims said. "We can make history. We can sit down in December and watch other teams perform and get to the championship game, or we can do what we got to do."

It won't surprise me if he is with the 2's in practice this week.  He was talking to CNS after the last drive and CNS just didn't even want to hear it.  No yelling, no nothing.  Not a good sign for Leon IMO.

Excellent observation. I witnessed that too and saw how Saban just ignored him as Brown pleaded his case. Like you said, not a positive sign.

Thanks as always for the observations, coach.  LSU is always a battle, especially in Baton Rouge.

I can't remember a Bama team who looked so good at home and struggled so much on the road.  Any thoughts on what causes the dramatic drop in effectiveness or how it can be improved?  The good news is there's not another true road game this season.  But if Bama wins the next three they will have to win three neutral site games against very good teams in order to bring home the trophy.

I really don't know how to explain it.  I know communication was a problem and noise surely had something to do with it.  Maybe, and just maybe if the rec's don't drop some of those balls then LSU has to change their defensive strategy and things turn out a little different.

I agree with the lack of communication from the side line to the playing field causing so much indecision with the players. Surely CNS and CLK can simplify that some as the team heads into the meat of their schedule.

I also think that the LSU QB had a field day on his third down success until CKS made a change with the defense. This  to me was what kept LSU in the game as Bama couldn't stop them on third down. I expect the MSU QB to look at the LSU film many times this week as he likes to run the football.

Blake called an audible on that TD play in OT.  I wonder if Blake recognized the coverage and called that on his own, or if CLK signalled it in from the sideline.  The next time I watch it I am going to pay attention to see if Blake is looking to the sideline before that audible.

In either case, it represents improvement.  Sims has either gotten better at the game management side of being the starting QB, or CLK has figured out how to get the signals in on the road in spite of all of the crowd noise.

Part of that success was Bama's DL pushing too far up the field opening up a running lane for the QB.  I think that will be corrected this week.

We will probably play a lot of zone to prevent the QB scrambles, or we might just put a spy on him.

I bet he was given two plays and if they line up in man he was to check to the pass play.

I agree.

CKS did switch to the zone and that did stop LSU. Prescott is a much better QB than the LSU QB so I hope Bama has a better plan for him.

The 24 hour period is almost up for this game. Due to the magnitude of this win, I vote we extend it to 48 hours.  :-*

No way, time for Misses State.


 >:(

You talk about Miss St. I wanna talk about my near heart attack and the win that was my defibrillator.

(http://por-img.cimcontent.net/api/assets/bin-201406/59b7359ef1af7b215195e862aeda4242.jpg)

 :lol:

In the past, at a home game, I have seen that check called by CLK from the sideline.  This is probably one difference in how the offense performs on the road vs. at home.

At home, the crowd noise is not a factor and CLK can be more involved with directing the action on the field.  So instead of contending with a 1st year QB, the defense basically has to match wits with CLK directly.  I will take CLK every time in that situation.

On the road, that is much harder to do.  CLK can't help as much, and we are relying on Blake to handle more of those decisions.  At this point though, Blake has gained a lot of experience, and if he is making those checks all by himself now that shows a lot of poise and confidence.  I think earlier in the year he probably knew what to do most of the time, but lacked the confidence to make the call assertively.  You have to be assertive out there.  Even if you make the right call, but you are wishy washy about it, it will have an impact on the confidence level of your teammates and in turn the execution of the play.

The problems seem to go beyond communication though.  At home Sims makes great throws. On the road he's often missed open receivers that he should have easily hit.

Sometimes the receivers run the wrong routes but that isn't always the reasoning for his misses. Cooper ran a wrong route last night, he was downfield blocking and Sims was wanting to throw the ball to him. Poor communication.

Nerves also play a big role.  They are comfortable at home.

Yes, but i don't think all was his fault last night.  Even the announcers, on the bad throw to OJH, thought he didn't come out of his break and was confused.  Also, I think I mentioned that it didn't look like DW ran some routes as he should have.  The one I am specifically talking about was the inside route where it looked like he pulled up.  However, I know what you are saying about some of his throws, they were not perfect.  

(http://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/daily/vulture/2012/09/18/18-elisabeth-shue-silo.o.png/a_250x375.png)

OK.

If Mrs. 2 sees that you are going to be #1 on the misery index.

 :lol: :lol: :lol: You got that right!

That may be the case.  However, I think I would take a small step backwards over consistently getting penalties from LB...

To me the lack of offensive balance is what stands out the most from this game.

I have two theories:
1) Kiffin persuades Saban to let him run a game plan that Kiffin schemed for lsu
2) Lack of depth at RB and known issue with Yeldon forced BAMA to pass more and run less

My guess is #2.

Good to get a win.


Also, BAMA averaged 3.7yds/carry and 10.5yards/pass.

That is generally considered a pretty good day.

Leon Brown had some bad penalties, but he also had some excellent blocks.  He's big and strong.  Before you talk about dumping him, review the total game and give him a fair assessment.  He definitely has a problem with errors, but he's solid blocking.  And the dropoff behind him may be significant.

 :dunno:

That is the key issue.  I have no idea how big the gap is between him and the next guy.  I trust CNS to make the right call, I am just curious (and speculating) as to what that call is going to be.

Does he need some hearing device installed so he can hear the count better? Just a question. RTR!

Seriously, that could be an issue.
But I am confident that the coaching staff would have checked that.
It's fairly common to have a receiver who drops passes to be diagnosed with vision problems.  So it's possible he is hearing impaired, and they probably thought of it.

Thanks, Preacher.

From peewee football on offensive players are taught to move on the snap, not the sound.  That would eliminate a lot of LB's penalties IMO...  :dunno:

I was thinking of the 'late hit' penalty.  I saw that Leon said he didn't hear the whistle. 
And if you watch the video, the whistle sounds after the hit (unless there was a previous whistle).

The rules of football has created the penalty like the one on LB. Anytime the officials are permitting the players to push and shove each other well after the forward motion of the play has stopped only enhances late hits from the players. Why it changed I have no idea but it is bad for the game. It also permits unfair fumbles to happen as well.

True.  Watch LSU tug at the ball and swarm Brandon Greene.  The video ends, but the tugging continued well past then:
https://mtc.cdn.vine.co/r/videos/3A4F8ECBD61143095357673209856_378faf45411.0.1.5707231815318944027.mp4?versionId=VppJ7T_8y2pHnHDZB73R7zA4WVaeitjA

My question is if and know it is a big if, don't you think the game would have changed if Bama had hit a few of those passes and not had the drops?  A couple of those drops coulld have gone for big gains.  Also, AC almost made a big difficult catch on one fade, if they had just hit on a couple of those then I think LSU changes their coverage and opens up the running game more. On the fade to DW the defender grabbed his hand if the PI had been called things could have changed. 

I have got to add this.  Bama did an outstanding job on the running game of LSU.  They had 186 yards on 56 carries.  I know this counts, but take away about 30 yards on QB scrambles which leaves you 156 yards on 53 carries.  This breaks down to 2.9 yards per carry against a 230 lb running back led by a 250 lb fullback.  I also didn't count, but I understand Reed had about 15 tackles that night.

And Reggie Ragland had 13!

http://www.al.com/alabamafootball/index.ssf/2014/11/alabamas_reggie_ragland_arie_k.html

Sorry for the delay in responding to hs coach's analysis but had some issues going on.

First another great analysis by hs coach, and a hard fought victory for our boys in Death Valley!!
This was almost a carbon copy of the game two years ago. We all knew that LSU would be big time fired up for this game!! This makes four in a row including the 2011 NC game that we have defeated them. They came out out very physical and had a determined state of mind to win this game.

Offense: They did struggle for the biggest portion of the game due to the amount of noise making it hard to hear. They did not really get the push that was needed to open up the run game either. They did fairly well on the pass blocking all night. This week will be another huge challenge for them.

QB: Blake did not have a great game but he he had a solid game with no turn overs, he missed a few throws but also with the uncharacteristic drops by Amari & company did not help him but when it came down to the nitty gritty and we had to drive the ball down the field he made the plays that were needed to put us in position to tie the game and ultimately win the game in OT.

RB: They did not have a lot of space to run in but when they did they made the most of it. I am not sure that TJY was at his best for the game and the injury at the end of the game that resulted in the fumble does not help him recover from it. So it could be that we are in line for a big dose of Derrick Henry this week!!

REC: Again not their best game but when plays had to be made they were there. Coop's drops were not like him at all and hurt us when they happened. But what about the big catch made by Green in OT?? Totally out of the blue right there!! But I was very proud of the way the offense responded after the PF against Leon Brown that backed us up after it was First and Goal from the 1 yard line!! The pass play to score the winning TD was run to perfection by D White & company and it was a Great Pass that was on the money by Blake.

OL: Nothing else needed to say except as I mentioned above they have another huge challenge this week and must step up and give the RB's a little room to run the ball!!

Defense: This group stepped up to the big challenge of shutting down the run game and did just that. LSU hit a couple of descent runs but no huge run or pass plays!! 

DL: They had a mighty task for the game and performed very well imo. For the most part of the game the shut their running attack down and between RR & JR they combined for 28 tackles!!

LB: Another very solid game turned in by RR & TD. RR has become a force for us and only gets better and better with each game he plays!!

DB: What can you say about these guys!! They had a very solid game and made the plays at the end to secure the win for us!!! Congrats to this group!! They have made a lot of progress in the last couple of weeks and I hope they continue to do so!!

Penalties: The PF on Leon Brown in OT could have easily cost us the game but the offense rose up to the occasion and moved the ball back down to the goal line to set up the game winning pass.

Special Teams: JK Scott did not have the booming punts that we have come accustomed to but he had good ones that help flip the field position. Adam Griffin did miss his first attempt of the night but made the big one when we had to have!!!

Final Thoughts: This was pure smash mouth football that we all love and want to see!! Very physical all night long as we expected it to be. But we get no reprieve this week as MS St. comes to call and we are in for another very tough and physical game!! Bottom line this week is we need to run the ball!!

Please let me know what yall think.

Roll Tide!!!!




 

We do, indeed, need to run the ball against Miss St. The OL has got to be able to find the push needed to spring the RB's.

Having said that, I think we will be pass heavy again, since the Miss St DB's are vulnerable. I bet Coop doesn't drop any this weekend!  :D

I have no problem with an unbalanced offense.  It is a departure from the norm.

I 100% agree that if BAMA start hitting passes early then the defense backs off the line and out of the box and running lanes become wider and the backs would have more space.

However, Yeldon is/was still injured and that would still limit his production, but when the running lanes open they open for all RBs.

Yeah, that early PI no call against lsu would have made things different.

The same way that late PI no call against BAMA would have made things different.


The tigers have been whipped.  Now on to the bulldogs.

How about more Brandon Greene?

Everybody, except the secondary, likes a 300# 6'5" TE.  He has some speed for a big guy.

I bet State spends some time this week going over formations and who is eligible to catch a pass.  That's time they could be spending on something else.

:popcorn2:

Was getting a little worried about you.  Thanks for your input.