Crimson Red Sports

Bama vs Tennessee

First congrats to the Bama players and coaches on the big win vs Tennessee on Saturday.     It was a dominating performance on both sides of the ball.

OFFFENSE:  The offense put 594 yards of offense on the board.  They had 438 yards rushing and 156 passing. They had 5 scoring drives of 91, 65, 51, 75, and 86 yards.  Now for negative plays, I have Bama for 0 sacks.  The official stats have them with giving up 2 sacks.  One was a QB running play that I guess they thought was a pass play, but if you watch the receivers they are blocking downfield.  I call that a tackle for loss.  The other sack was the fumble and I guess you should count that as a sack.    As far as other negative plays I have 9 tackles for losses, 2 fumbles (1 lost) and an interception. According to my stats, I have Bama for 2 three and out one of which was the fumble.   I have Bama getting into the red zone 5 times.  They hand and interception, missed field goal, scored 2 touchdowns, and turned the ball over on downs.  As far as play for 10+ yards, I have 17 runs and 5 passes.  Three of the touchdowns came from outside the red zone. 

QB:  Hurts ran the ball well.  The fumble was not his fault because Robinson was beat from the beginning give the Tennessee player a clean shot at the QB.  On the interception the play was messed up from the beginning when the center stepped on the QB’s foot.  With that being said he should have taken the sack since they were in scoring position.  The big knock is throwing the ball downfield.  At times it looks like he is grasping the ball too tight.  He doesn’t always throw a pretty ball it has a lot of wobble.  If he ever cleans this up he will be a heck of a QB.  Overall he made good decisions most of the day.
RB:  They ran well.  They had a lot of big holes to run thru.  This is obvious since there were 17 runs of 10+ yards.  The times they were ask to block on pass plays they did fine.   The good thing is there are 4 quality backs.  I see a totally different player in Harris this year.  Scarbrough shows the power and speed.  I didn’t like him putting his hand in the face of the Tennessee fan.  Jacobs shows a burst and toughness every week and Emmons is a tough runner with some quickness.

Rec:  They did well especially blocking.  Ridley had a block and the announcer gave him credit for another drop on a ball that bounced before it got to him.  The bad part is they were open several times but the ball wasn’t delivered where they had a chance to catch the ball.  Diggs, is lost at times.  On the one pass thrown toward him Diggs missed the hot read with the corner coming off of him and Hurts read it and threw it.  Also, I think he was responsible for not lining up properly that may have led to a timeout.  Finally, on one of the best throws Hurts made, Diggs was in the area and probably ran his route a little too deep putting another defender in the area.   

OL:   Overall, I think they played well.  There were a few busted assignments but that is going to happen when you run so many plays, 76.  The big one was the missed block by Robinson that led to the fumble and the only touchdown Tennessee scored.  I also think they were slow getting out on a screen pass once. 

Defense:  The defense played outstanding.  They gave up a total of 163 yards.  Tennessee had 131 passing and 32 rushing.  I will say after the first few plays where Tennessee gained a few yards on the edge I thought it was going to be a tougher game because of the run.  However, the defense tightened up and clamped down on the running game.  As far as negative plays I have Bama with 3 sacks, 10 tackles for losses and 1 interception which went for a touchdown.  For 3 and outs, I have the defense with 6 three and outs one of which was the interception.  Tennessee had 2 runs of 10+ yards and 6 passes of 10+ yards.  They only got into the red zone twice.  Once was because of the fumble and they scored a touchdown while the other drive ended just inside the red zone, on the 19 yard line, which led to their field goal. 

DL:    They had a very good game. They kept the running game in check and they applied pressure on the QB.  As the announcers said during the game, they got in the QB’s head with pressure as he was looking to get the ball out of his hands in a hurry.  It is obvious with the stats that they dominated the OL of Tennessee.

LB:  Again they played well.  It is hard to imagine how difficult these games are on LB’s.  As a LB you have run responsibility especially with a running QB.  You have coverage responsibility and you have to make the calls and get people lined up. 

DB:  This was one of their better games.  Most completions were thrown underneath and the corners were not challenged very often.  I don’t think Humphreys gave up a reception over 10 yards and came up and made the plays on the short passes.  I also think the only 10+ yard reception Averett gave up was when he dropped too deep on the bunch formation Tennessee shifted into and there was probably a bust in the coverage.  Most of the 10+ yard passes were against Fitzpatrick.  One of them I thought the receiver got away with a push off.  However, Bama got away with using the hands a couple of times themselves.  I thought Harrison did a better job in coverage and played better.

Special Teams:    The main concern here was the missed tackles and big returns both punt and kickoff.  It looked at times they were going too early for the strip instead of the tackle therefore missing tackles.  The other concern was the missed field goal. 

Penalties:   Bama had 5 penalties for 38 yards.  Most of the time they overcame them.  I guess the worse was the false start by Robinson which put Bama in a 3rd and 15 and just allows the DL to tee off.  This is the series where the fumble was caused by the sack. 

Finally:  Bama has improved the last two games especially with the offensive line in my opinion.  It looked like Tennessee was playing their safeties close to help with the run and daring Bama to throw the ball. I mean there are throws where they were not even close to the receiver.  Bama needs to be able to throw the ball downfield.  If this happened and they keep improving, then they will be very difficult to beat.  This next week will be tough.  The other concern is getting a team up 3 straight weeks in a row and not allowing them to think they are where they need to be.

Feel free to comment:

16 and Counting

great Analysis   coach ...  :clap:

I was happy with the way the TEAM played
the O did great but was especially happy with the D  

Coach Saban says he likes Reliability
well I'll have to say the 2016 D is become quite reliable
they are playing as a team , close to having one heartbeat  
it's not about position it's not about a few guys
it's about the "heartbeat" and I like what I'm seeing

a wise man once said ....

As always, thanks for your insight coach.

DBs weren't tested much in this game.  That will be different vs aTm.  I hope they have another meeting.

Thanks coach!  Good stuff.  ROLL TIDE!!!

Thanks hscoach as always well done sir. I know our guys seem to bring it together as the game wore on but I understood that there were several players missing from the 1st unit of the Tenn team. I know they will all be there this week against TA&M. This will be our biggest test all year I believe because we are tired and have been up every week. To win this game next game I believe what was previously said' It will take one heartbeat of a team to win it." I sure hope we are up for it. I think our NC Banner hangs high on this A&M game. RTR!

Watching the replay on youtube and it seems we have the quietest coolest QB in college football. I don't get to see him much and he is a good QB. Our oline played hard. CNS looked like he was upset some times. Our defense has to be the best in the country. The one thing I noticed when these guys score they are shaking hands. They don't do all that jumping hootin and hollerin. RTR!

Excellent analysis, coach.
The DBs got much credit for their improvement, and they seemed to play better, but didn't appear they were challenged much by the WRs of Tennessee.  Dobbs was hurried and sacked early, and from then on he seemed to hurry his passes.  Because of that, our DBs had an easier day.

That is a generality, I know, but what did you think?  Were the UT receivers quality?

Coach, we had a discussion during the game (in-game thread) about the Harrison pick-6.  It appeared that Reuben Foster grabbed the UT running back during the screen pass; BUT was that behind the LOS?  It's legal if so, NO?  Butch Jones argued that we held the receiver.

What say you?

Foster didn't hold him; he was engaged with a lineman. He just pushed the lineman into RB.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WeWmTx-pVs

The receivers never had a chance. Dobbs was pressured early and he got happy feet the rest of the game. Dobbs threw very few passes over 10 yards down field. As Gary Danielson kept pointing out our DB's were sitting on the short routes and never had to defend the deep pass.

Watch Foster's left hand grab the RB:
(https://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/7284915/bamapick2.0.gif)

Another great assessment, Coach! That was indeed a complete game. If there was any weakness at all, it was with the STs, and nothing there came back to bite us.

I hope we are ready to get up, yet one more week for A&M. We will need this kind of performance against them.

I am wondering myself if this will be our hardest game of the year? Year I mean, regular season? If so can we do it again as we have our murderer row as does everybody in the SEC. RTR!

A good pass rush is the best form of coverage.  The least amount of time you have to cover the better it is for the DB.  I think Dobbs got intimidated early and was getting rid of the ball as soon as he could.

That is a fine line.  I'm not even sure on the rule,  The official may think he was going to chip the defensive player or especially if there is a play action fake.  You rarely see it called.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pass_interference

"SUCK IT, BUTCH!"

However could they have been called for holding if the official thought the player was held?

As usual there are a couple of points I left off that I wanted to address:

1.  On the punt return for the touchdown, do you know how difficult it is to do what Jackson did?  If you watched the replay he looked to see the coverage more than once and had to look back up to find the ball.  This is not as easy as some think.  Also there were some very good blocks on the return.

2.  Special teams and the defense outscored Tennessee. Plus I have never seen a streak where the defense has scored in so many consecutive games.

3.  Around the 7:05 mark in the first quarter.  Did you see Williams use one hand to destroy the tackle and get in to make the sack.  He basically held him off with one hand and got around him for the sack.

4.  A couple of those sacks were coverage sacks looking for the quick passes and they must not have been there.

5.  The RB's were rarely hit behind the LOS,  Even when they were they still gained yardage.  It wasn't solid contact.  When I am talking about this I am talking about the tackle to tackle box.  They was some yardage lost outside the tackle box.

6.  On one pass defense play by Averett he did the right thing.  The taller player went up for the ball and Averett went for the arm to pull it away. 

7.  There was a big bust by the RT and the running back on the pass play and both went for the end man on the LOS which enabled the defender to come inside and disrupt the play.

8.  Hurts is 24/56 on passes from 11-21+yards.  However this breaks down to 15/29 on passes 11-20 yards and 9/27 on balls 21+ yards.  There were a few throws that were way off. 

9.  I still don't think Bama has played their best game.

I did see that, and it scared me to death.  It's very difficult indeed, and easily could lead to a muff.  BUT it paid off.

Your other points are excellent, coach.  Thanks again.  :worship:
E-creds.