I thought both he and Williams were impressive.  There was one run where Williams went left and saw an opening and put his foot in the ground and accelerated thru the hole and made a big run.  Both also were impressive because Bama wasn't throwing the ball in the 4th quarter so the defenses could load up on the run.

I thought the scramble throw was very impressive as he was moving away from the receiver and threw across his body, which is frowned upon, but was on the money with some pace.

There will probably be a lot of new faces there.  This is why it is great for them to get real game time experience.

                                                                                                            UK vs Bama

First, congrats to the Bama players and coaches on the big win today.  Also, congrats to Devonta Smith for the career touchdown leader title.

OFFFENSE:  The offense put together 509 yards of total offense which included 283 passing and 226 rushing.  For negative plays, I have Bama with 4 tackles for losses, 1 sack, and 1 interception.  Bama only had 1 three and out and it didn’t come until the 2nd half.  For plays that covered 10+ yards, I have Bama with 11 passing plays and 9 running plays.  Of these running plays 5 came from the 2 freshman Williams and McClellan.  Bama got into the red zone 7 times and scored 7 touchdowns, they scored on touchdown from outside the red zone.  The other touchdown came on an interception return by Battle.  I did think the running game was a little slow getting started as the UK defense did a good job without adding additional bodies in the box. 

QB:  Jones played well, but he did try to force a ball and made a bad throw on the interception.  The interception was into good coverage and it was short and thrown inside.  That ball must be thrown to the outside with that type of coverage where the only one who can make a play is the receiver.  He completed 16 of 24 passes which equates to 67%, but I think there were 3 other balls that should have been caught.  This would have pushed his percentage to 79%.  Jones also did an outstanding job finding receivers when his first option was taken away.  This is evident on the TD throw he made to Smith when he was flushed out of the pocket.  Young came in and played well.  He was 2 for 2 and both were very good throws.  The throw for the touchdown was not an easy throw, but he put it in the perfect sport with a quick release.  Bama did not throw a pass in the 4th quarter.

RB:  Harris played well especially since the running game got started a little late.  Robinson played sparingly and only had 6 carries.  The end of the 3rd and all of the 4th quarter belonged to McClellan and Williams.  I thought both looked good.  They both showed a burst and some toughness.  As I said above, combined they had 5 of the 9 runs for 10+ yards. 

Rec: This was another Smith show tonight. He had 9 catches for 144 yards and 2 touchdowns.  The other receivers had a combined 6 catches, not counting Harris’s 2.  It was good to see Billingsley make and impact since I never saw Forristall on the field.  I do think someone else really needs to step up and be more of a factor.

OL:  After the first 2 drives the OL played a good game.  Early the UK DL was giving them all they wanted especially in the run game. The pass blocking was solid as the only sack didn’t come until late in the 3rd quarter when Young was in the game.  It looked like they overloaded the side where the TE released and got to the QB quick. 

Def:  Statistically this was the best game Bama’s defense played.  They gave up a total of 179 yards which included 120 passing and 59 rushing.  If my stats are correct, Bama only gave up 12 yards in the 2nd half.  UK had 12 first downs and 11 of them were in the first half.  For negative plays, I have Bama with 4 tackles for losses, 2 sacks, and an interception.  There were 3 fumbles, but not were recovered by Bama, however 1 did lead to a turnover on downs.  For 3 and outs Bama had 5 and 1 one and out.  UK had 7 possessions in the 2nd half.  Four of them were 3 and outs and 1 was a 1 and out because of the interception.  There was basically another 3 and out that ended the game.  For plays that covered 10+ yards, UK had 5 passing plays, all in the first half, and 3 running plays, 1 in the 2nd half.  UK got into the red zone twice and kicked one field goal, while the other field goal attempt was stopped by a bad snap.  The other attempt was outside the red zone and was no good.  I do think the defense started a little slow with some missed tackles as well as allowing the yards to be made by getting outside of the LOS.

DL: I thought the DL played after the first couple of series.  They made the running game difficult and kept the OL from getting to the 2nd level.

LB: The LB’s played well as they had the responsibility of the possibility of a running QB early.  They also were spread out by the formations and had to make the call adjustments with the shifts made by UK.   

DB: They played well, but really wasn’t tested very often.  There was a penalty for pass interference on one of the deep throws.  The sad part is the other DB was in position to make a play.  A majority of the passes completed, and there was only 10, were completed on short throws.   

Special teams:  The special teams were solid again.  All kicks were made.  The only downside was a kickoff return that got outside the 25.  Smith subbed in for Bolden on the punt return and had one for 42 yards.  Bama’s blockers did a great job of not taking blindside blocks which would have negated the return.

Penalties:  I think this was Bama’s best night for penalties.  They only had 4, 2 false starts, 1 PI, and 1 offsides.  Overall, they didn’t hurt Bama as they overcame them.

Finally, Bama got better as the game went on.  They also got some good game experience for the backups.  Some of these backups show some promise, especially the running backs in my opinion.
Feel free to comment:

17 and Counting

I agree, I thought Sanders ran hard and showed a bit of speed.

I'm like you, I thought their defense played tough. They tend to hit us hard.

                                                                                                           MSU vs Bama

First, congrats to the Bama players and coaches on the big win today. I thought the defensive game plan was outstanding for the MSU offense. Bama line up in a defense that, if you count people in the box, you should be running the ball. I guess the arrogance of Leach would not allow it.

OFFFENSE:  The offense put together 499 yards of total offense which included 291 passing and 208 rushing.  For negative plays, I have Bama with 3 tackles for losses, 1 sack, and 2 fumbles which includes one that was loss.  That one lost fumble looked like his arm was going forward to me.  Bama only had 1 three and out the whole game.  For plays that covered 10+ yards, Bama had 13 passing plays and 9 running plays.  Bama got into the red zone 4 times and scored 2 touchdowns, kicked a field goal, and had that fumble.  They scored 3 times from outside the red zone kicking 1 field goal and scoring 2 touchdowns.  The other touchdown came from the pick by the defense.  Bama left points on the field tonight, by not cashing in on touchdowns in the red zone with the fumble and having to kick a field goal.  They also cost themselves when a 33 yard punt return got to the MSU 35 but was called back because of a holding.  Basically, I think they left at least 15 points on the field.

QB:  Jones had good game, but I thought he tried to force the ball on a couple of throws.  He started 4 for 8 but finished 20 for 23.  He did complete 77% of his passes which is still very good.  This also include what I consider a drop by Smith where Bama had to kick a field goal instead of getting the touchdown.  Young was a bit handicapped as Bama put their backups in and MSU kept their first defense in.  He was under pressure most of the time he tried to throw the ball.

RB:  Harris had another good game both rushing and receiving.  He had 119 rushing and 36 receiving for a total of 155 yards.  He also pickup a blitz on one of the deep touchdown throws.  He did get blown up on one blitz where he didn’t really attack the rusher.  Robinson only carried a couple of times. I understand he has a bit of a nagging ankle injury.  Sanders added 80 yards on 12 carries and had the two longest runs of the night for Bama, 21 and 25 yards.  He also showed a burst when he broke one of the runs outside.

Rec: This was the Smith show tonight as he had 11 catches for 203 yards and 4 touchdowns.  Bolden and Metchie added 3 catches each but their total was only 38 yards.  Forristall added one catch and was targeted once more, but there was a pass interference call.  As I said above, Harris had 6 catches and it made him the 2nd leading receiver for the night.  One side note here is Smith had a pass break up on a ball where he was covered. 

OL:  The OL played well except for about 4 plays.  There were a couple of times pressure came from the left side and I know they got beat on a stunt on the right side.  However, overall, they got a push most of the night.  One thing I really like seeing OL down the field when a running back makes a run of over 5 yards and I saw this numerous times.  One other disappointment I had was when Bama didn’t convert on a 4th and 1. 

Def:  Statistically this was the best game Bama’s defense played.  It looked like a simple game plan and allowed your athletes to go and make plays.  Bama gave up a total of 200 yards which included 163 passing and 37 rushing yards.  Bama only gave up 38 yards in the first half.  As for negative plays, Bama had 5 tackles for losses, 2 sacks, 2 interception (1 returned for a TD), and a fumble recovery.  For 3 and outs, I have Bama with a total of 7, 6 of those were in the first half.  There were also 2 four and outs.  For plays that covered 10+ yards, MSU had 4 passing plays and 3 running plays.  They got into the red zone once and Moses made and interception in the end zone.  I really thought Bama did a better job tackling and the players did a good job coming up and making tackles in space.  Something else big, not counting punts, Bama only played 63 downs on defense. A last note here, the MSU offense really didn’t pose a running threat so that makes it a lot easier on the defense.

DL: I thought the DL played well especially playing a lot with 3 down linemen.  It also helps when the defense gets off the field.  They may have only had 2 sacks, but again they pressured the QB and batted some passes down.  Players that stood out to me were Mathis, Anderson, Harris, and Barmore.  I also thought they did  a great job on redirecting on some of those short throws to the outside and getting in on the play.

LB: The LB’s played well as they had to drop in coverage and come up and make tackles.  They had to make open field tackles on some of the short throw and did a good job of this. 

DB: The longest completion of the night was 19-yards and it was in the middle of the field where it looked like the LB didn’t drop properly into coverage.  I thought they did a great job being physical when coming up and making tackles.

Special teams:  The worse part of the special teams was when Sanders tried to bring the kickoff out of the end zone.  If my counting was accurate, the hang time on the kick was between 5 and 6 seconds, plus it was in the end zone, you don’t usually bring those out unless the kick is lower.  Punts were good as was all the extra points and field goals.  The bad part of special teams was the holding call that negated a 33 yard return on the punt by Bolden. 

Penalties:  Penalties hurt Bama this game more than the others.  They had 10 penalties for 71 yards.  Holding call negates a 15 yard run, false start negates a touchdown, false start now makes it 1st and 15, holding turns a 10+ yard passing play to basically nothing, false start make it 2nd and 13 instead of 2nd and 8, unsportsmanlike conduct give them a first down when it would have been 3rd and 9, holding only cost about ½ a yard since if was right after Moses interception, false start goes to 1st and 15,  and finally offside on 4th and 1 to give them a first down.  These are mistakes that need to be cleaned up, especially false starts and offside.  The offside came from the guy right over the ball.

Finally, I think Bama benefitted from a simple game plan defensively.  There are still things that need to be improved, but I think they are on a good path and this week off could help.  There should be plenty of motivation from last years game vs LSU. 

Feel free to comment:

17 and Counting

Ex Bama coach Mel Tucker getting ready to beat Harbaugh/Michigan.  Couldn't happen to a better guy.

I have been hesitant to mention the kicker too much because I didn't want to jinx him.  I will say his technique looks a lot better this year.  Too me, last year he reminded me of a golfer who didn't trust his swing.

                                                                                                UT vs Bama

First, congrats to the Bama players and coaches on the big win today. Tough luck on the injury to Waddle, prayers go out for him.

OFFFENSE:  The offense put together 587 yards of total offense which included 417 passing yards and 170 rushing yards.  The only three and out was where there was a fumble on the third play.  For negative plays, Bama offense is credited with 3 tackles for losses, 2 sacks, and 1 fumble.  For plays that cover 10+ yards, I have Bama with 20 passing plays and 6 running plays.  Bama had 12 possessions during the game and scored 5 touchdowns and 2 field goals.  The other touchdown was scored by the defense.  On possession was right before the half with little time on the clock and one was to run out the game.  Basically, what I am saying here is Bama really scored on 7 of 10 legitimate possessions.  Bama got into the red zone 6 times and scored 5 touchdowns and kicked one field goal.  The other field goal came from outside the red zone.  As I stated above the other score came from the defense.  I also want to mention Sark here.  Even with the loss of Waddle, Bolden stepped in and contributed.  Also, Sark seems to add a little wrinkle each week and they seem to be successful.  I think his game calling has been outstanding.


QB:  Jones had another good game. He threw for 387 yards and completed 81% of his passes. What really impresses me with Jones is his deep ball throws.  Many times, he puts the ball where his receivers are the only ones who will get it.  Two plays really impressed me in this game.  First, the fumbled snap where he picked it up and still made the completion.  He has to take his eyes off the defense and then regain his composure find the receiver and complete the pass.  The second was when it looked like was going to take off and run but pulled up in the pocket and completed the pass.  The announcers made a statement that and 8 yard average on passes attempted, how they measure it, is good.  Jones averaged 12.5 yards per attempt, and 15.5 per completion.  I guess the only negative I saw was he did miss Metchie who was wide open for a touchdown threw a completion to Smith.  Bama still scored on the drive.  Young came in and did a good job. He was 3 for 5 for 30 yards.  However, what impressed me was he didn’t try to force plays where mistakes are usually made.  He did take a sack near the goal line, but I think the zone defense confused him when they were expecting man in that area.

RB:  Harris had a good game as he had 96 yards rushing on 20 carries but added 61 more yards receiving for a total of 157 yard from scrimmage.  He also did a good job pass blocking when needed.  Robinson ran hard and actually had the best average per carry considering all the running backs. He had 4 carries for 29 yards which is about 7.3 yards per carry.  Sanders showed a little of what he could do as he had the longest run of the day which was 20 yards.  He carried the ball 7 times for 39 yards for a 5.3 yards per carry.  I also saw him step across and pick up the blitz on one of the passing plays.

Rec: This was the first time since I don’t know when Bama receivers didn’t have a touchdown.  However, they set ups many with catches that put Bama inside the red zone as well as inside the 10 yard line.  Metchie and Smith each had 7 catches.  Metchie had 153 yards and Smith had 73.  Bolden comes in and adds 6 catches for 94 yards.  The tight-end Forristall had 1 catch, but it was for 25 yards.   What I really like about these receivers is they go and get the ball, they don’t wait for it.  As they say they high point the ball and don’t mind catching the ball in traffic.  They also use their hand and don’t let the ball get in on their body.  I don’t know if anyone heard the talk with Smith, but he was ask about competition among the group and he told the interviewer it was more of a competition for knock downs/blocking than it was for who catches the most.

OL:  Too me the OL keeps getting better as they had another good game.  This is pretty evident when you only have 5 total negative plays.  I thought they got a good push on the defensive line and got downfield blocking.  They didn’t miss a beat when Brown went out and Dickerson moved over to left guard.  It did look that Dickerson was still making the line calls from the guard position.  I also think the OL is communicating better since I haven’t seen as many bust. 

Def:  Bama gave up a total of 302 yards which include 163 passing and 139 rushing.  UT gained 165 yards in the first half which means they were held to 137 in the second half.  For negative plays, I have Bama with 9 tackles for losses and cause 1 fumble which was returned for a touchdown.  I credit Bama with 6 three and outs one of which was caused by a fumble.  For plays that covered 10+ yards, I have 5 passing plays and 4 running plays.  UT got into the 1 and kicked a field goal and scored 2 touchdowns from outside the red zone.  Bama defense has improved, but still makes correctable mistakes.  I have Bama with 10 missed tackles most of them in the first half.  A few of their running plays should have been stopped.  On one, a Bama player blitzed right past the runner.  On two others, the Bama players opened up a hole in their pass rushing lanes which allowed the QB to run for 10+ yards.  They did cut down on losing the edge as I only counted a couple of times this happened.  One thing I heard Saban say a couple of weeks backs.  We need to stop looking at the stats as far as yards rushing and passing and start looking at the stops or possessions that end in no points.  The defense also held the UT QB to a 54% completion rate. 

DL: I thought the DL played well as the 2 LBs were the leading tacklers.  It is their job to keep the OL off of them so they can make plays.  I thought they held their own again a pretty solid UT OL. There were no sacks they did a better job containing the edge.

LB: The two inside LB’s were the leading tacklers for the game.  Again, this has to do with the people in front of them.  However, it also means they were in the position to make the play. 

DB: There were positives and negatives here.  The DB’s came up and made some solid tackles and was involved with the tackles for losses.  However, Battle allowed the receiver to break his cushion and run past him for a touchdown.  He was not the only one.  The good thing is it didn’t happen very often.  On the touchdown over Sartain, Sartain was looking back and lost the receiver.  It would have been better if he was looking at the receiver and maybe not allowing the separation, then he could have played the arms of the receiver.

Special teams:  Overall the special teams were solid.  The biggest problem was the was the 2 kickoffs that went out of bounds.  One of those was just unlucky as it took a UT bounce that helped them out.  I know Waddle wanted to make a big play by making a good return, but and I have said this before, you have to consider the depth and height of the kick.  Height on kicks allow the coverage to converge on the returner.

Penalties:  Bama had 8 penalties for 45 yards (the official stats only shows 7 penalties).  Three were on the offense with 2 false starts and a grounding.  The defense had 3 for holding, roughing the passer and a substitution infraction.  The substitution infraction came on the field goal drive that helped UT go from a 3rd and 8 to a 3rd and 3.  The defensive holding call came on the first down of one of UT’s touchdown drives.  The defense did hold forcing the field goal.  Special team had 2 for kicks out of bounds.

Finally, I think this was the least amount of yards Bama has given up this year.  They still are making mistakes that against good teams could be costly.  Overall, I do think they are improving.  Finally prayer to Waddle for a speedy recovery.

Feel free to comment:

17 and Counting

Some of these games have been closer than people have expected.  I think, Bama goes with the hot hand/reliable hands of Harris.  Both he and Robinson are game tested.  Hopefully, they can work some of these guys in in the next few games.