I don't know if any of you have been following the hard work that he has done with his recruiting since he was hired recently but this man is relentless. I only know one coach to compare him to and it happens to be his best friend on campus, Coach Nick Saban.

When CNS came to Bama and his team got kicked around that first year, he immediately put together the best recruiting program in the NCAA. Well CAJ seems to be smarter than the average Joe because he wasted no time in introducing himself to CNS and hasn't left his side since he signed his contract. CNS schooled his staff of coaches on how to be the best recruiting assistants in college football and it looks like Coach Johnson is using the CNS logic to the nth degree.

There was something that happened at our REC meeting Tuesday night that I just had to share with all of you. Three years ago when Coach Grant was struggling so much with his program I sent an email to one of the officers of our REC asking why the REC doesn't invite CAG as a guest speaker one month. There are a lot of highly recognized members in our club that can make things happen and I thought the coach needed some big time help. I received an email back stating that our REC was basically about football and the speakers had already been selected for that year. Oh well, I thought it was worth the effort but I got their message. Before our guest speaker, Houston Nutt, spoke the other night our president of the club spoke for a few minutes and gave us a heads up as to who some our guest speakers would be this year. As to my amazement, he stated that the club usually invites a couple or three out town guests each year but this year that wouldn't be the case as our new basketball head coach Avery Johnson would speak twice this year. My jaw did drop but I was excited to hear the news.

Now the point that I'm making with this news is that this is exactly how Nick Saban operates, he doesn't take no for an answer and he deals only with the big guns in getting what he wants accomplished. This summer CAJ went with CNS on all of his Crimson Caravan luncheons and this wasn't just by accident. I feel that CNS can see a lot of himself in Coach Johnson and just loves the drive in him so that is why he is so available to him.

If this is the case and I feel it is, Bama basketball will grow back to the higher level that we are all wishing for much quicker than what most of the experts expected. There will be some bumps in the road as it is with all sports and all teams but Nick Saban has proven that perseverance, hard work, and dedication is the most solid foundation possible to build any program or your own life on. Coach Avery Johnson seems to be more than just a smart man and I think he picked the best mentor possible for himself and he has been using his guidance extremely well. His bandwagon started out with a lot of ifs and buts when he arrived but not anymore, all he needs is some quality wins this year because he is getting the quality players, something that rarely happens with Alabama basketball. 

It's strange how you can dislike someone until you meet them and you find out that maybe they aren't so bad after all.

Tonight Houston Nutt, ex football coach, was the guest speaker at our Red Elephant Club (REC) meeting and I must say, he had everyone laughing. The introduction got everything off to a good start as Kirk McNair had dug up every bit of information that he could find on Nutt from his high school days to his present job as a sports analyst for CBS.

He was introduced to the sports world by his father Houston Nutt SR who himself was a very good athlete. His father graduated from Fordyce High School in 1951 and then attended the University of Kentucky on a basketball scholarship playing for Adolph Rupp.  He transferred to Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State) where he played for Henry Iba.  Upon graduation from Oklahoma A&M in 1956, he began a 31 year coaching and teaching career at the Arkansas School for the Deaf. At the school of deaf is where his father taught him about all about sports.

Nutt was actually recruited by Bear Bryant and had a wonderful story about it. He detailed every moment of how his recruitment and how overwhelmed he was when Bear came to his home for a visit. The one part of the story that stood out was how much Bear enjoyed the meal that his mother had prepared and before leaving, Bear wanted the recipe for the peach cobbler that she had prepared.

He had many stories about some of his players that we all are very famillier with McFadden being one of the most talked about. He was also asked which game stood out the most that his team had lost and the one that they had won. The Tennessee game, where a fumble at the end beat them, was the game that hurt the most but the game that stood out the most that they won, was anytime that they could beat Bama which wasn't very often.

There were many stories about the rigors of being a coach and how he so admired Nick Saban for his work ethics and how he coaches his players for the game itself but most of all for their life after football.

He was asked about the ineligible receiver rule that everyone is complaining about these days and he explained that he is an offense minded coach but the rule, the way it is being enforced now, is totally wrong. He said the same as so many coaches have said, it's impossible to defense the play the way the officials are ruling on it. Naturally that brought a big round of applause.

After the meeting I had a chance to meet him and chat with him for a few minutes and I couldn't help but think about all of the nasty things that I had said and thought about him in the past when he was coaching against Bama. He seemed to be a very nice guy and no doubt he is but when you're coaching against Bama, there's not many good things that can be thought or said about you. RTR!!!

Yesterday's game wasn't what the fans wanted to see from Bama's standpoint but it was another win. Bama has historically been a team to play down to the lesser teams after a big game and yesterday was no exception. The offense seemed to be in a trance for most of the game but the defense did all of the exciting things by totally shutting down the La Monroe offense.

Offensively, Bama is struggling as the line play is horrendous and the receivers are nowhere near the receiving corp of last year which can be undstood because Amari Cooper is gone. The line play of the offense does not compliment the ability of the running backs on the team and until they improve, this will permit the opposing defenses to better play the passing game. There has been some moments where the running backs made some big runs but not on a consistent basis. The receivers really need to step it up. Most of them came to Bama highly rated but they aren't running good routes and drop way too many passes and that shouldn't be happening with 4 and 5 star players. The QBs seem to still struggle but I think the bad line blocking is having a lot to do with that. They are having to operate under way too much pressure from the defensive line and until that improves, the QBs will struggle and in other words, the whole offense has a lot of improving to do.

We all knew the defense would or should be the marque of this years team and so far that has been the case. There are times the secondary has looked very questionable as some of the teams have had good success with the short quick passes and so far it has been a bend but don't break defense. Yesterday that seemed to change as they played more of a smash mouth defense and had something to prove. La Monroe is not a UGA or LSU but still I thought the team played with more intensity than they have been playing and the results seemed to show that.

In the kicking department and the special teams, there still are problems there. Scott is still struggling some and I'm hoping these shanked punts go away. I watched him in pregame warm ups and he just doesn't seem to have the pop on the ball that he had last year. He would be booming them 60-65 yards with a nice spiral then but the ball looks different this year with more wobble to it. Griffith has had better success since the season started and that is good news. He is kicking the ball into the endzone on kickoffs and making some field goals. There has been some comments made by some observers that Bateman is placing the ball down for him where his is kicking the laces of the ball and that isn't good, the ball will dfo carazy things when that happens. Bateman was out early in the pregame warm ups with the snapper and they worked for quit some time on taking the snap and placing the ball. Hopefully his good kicking will continue. The special teams still look a little scary on their coverage so hopefully Griffith will continue to put the ball in the end zone on the kick offs.

So off we go to Georgia next Saturday and they have been awaiting this game. They haven't forgotten the playoff game a couple of years ago they lost to Bama at the very end of the game and I expect an all out war from them. Whatever mistakes Bama has been making in the previous games, they better improve them this week. Bama can and should win this game because they are Bama but the players have got to realize this and play like this if it is to happen.

Well here's my 2 cents worth of the game yesterday so maybe some of you have some opinions to add to this. RTR!!!!

First:   Congrats to the Bama players and coaches on the victory.  However, I consider this to be a lackluster performance from the offense.   On defense they showed what a dominating game it should have been when you have a bunch of 4 and 5 star athletes vs 2 and 3 star athletes.

Offense:  Bama had the lowest total yard output since, I think, the Arkansas game.  Bama put up 303 yards of total offense.  They had 166 passing and 137 rushing.  They never seem to be in any type of rhythm the whole game.  The offense gave up 6 negative plays.  There was an interception, 3 tackles for losses, and 2 sacks.  I will say on one sack I thought ULM was offsides.  They had 4 three and outs and 2 four and outs.  They also wasted field position.  The offense started drives on their on 48 and 46 and came away with no points.  They also started drives on ULM’s 47 and 44 and came away with no points.  This is where great teams put others away.  Their scoring drives for touchdowns were 55, 15, 60, and 19 yards.  As far as plays over 10 yards, Bama had 6 pass plays and 4 running plays.  One of the main problems I saw yesterday was ULM did not feel threaten downfield since many times you could see all 11 defensive player within 15 yards or less from the LOS.

QB:   I am not sure what to think anymore.  On one play Cocker looks great then the next it looks like his first start ever at QB.   He completed 55 per cent of his passes but was hurt by at least 5 drops.  The deep ball that the announcers called a drop was underthrown which allowed the defensive player to make a play.  It looks to me like Cocker comes off to late at times to find a secondary rec or he locks on to a player where he tries to force the ball.  Also, it looks like his throwing motion is getting longer which slows the delivery of the ball.

RB:  They ran hard when they got the chance.  The top 3 backs averaged 5 yards a carry, but they were getting hit quickly by the defense most of the time. 

REC:  Eight different recs caught passes yesterday.  Four different recs had drops yesterday and Ridley had 2.  I know they are young and trying to make plays, but you have to catch the ball first.  Some of these drops led to the lackluster offense since they were drive stoppers.  I also don’t see a lot of separation on deep balls. 

OL:   There are too many mistakes here and I am also talking TE’s here.  There were missed blocks and they didn’t pick up stunts.  I went back and looked and Bama had about 13 plays where they gained 3 yards or less.  Part of the problem here is that most of the time, ULM had at least 7 in the box.  They also had their safeties up tight and they played games with their DL and linebackers..  Most of the successful runs come when Bama goes left.  I just don’t feel real confident if it is 3rd and 2 for Bama to get the first on a running play.  I saw way too much standing around yesterday. 

Defense:  They played great.  ULM had 92 total yards for the day, 83 passing and 9 rushing.  They started the game with 6 straight 3 and outs and ended up with 8 overall.   If my stats are correct ULM only had 1 play for over 10 yards and that was a pass.  The defense had 7 sacks, 7 tackles for losses and 2 interceptions.  This was total domination.  They only had 10 first downs and I think 4 of those were from penalties and one from a trick 4th down play. 

DL:  They dominated here.  The continued to get their hands up and bat passes down.  They affect the QB in ways that benefit the defense.  I think they lost contain once which allowed a first down. 

LB:  They played well.  All were making plays and again you could see where Bama had the superior athletes when the LBs were in coverage.   

DB:  They played a solid game, especially the safeties.  There was not much room after the catch.  The corners did bust at least one on the pump fake but ULM was not able to connect. 

Penalties: One of the biggest penalties of the day was the block in the back on the punt return.  It moved the ball from what would have been ULM’s 32 and put it back to Bama’s 47.  The PI call was questionable.  After watching the replay on the lineman downfield it was border line.  A false start stopped Bama from going on 4th and one and ended up kicking the field goal.  I really don’ mind this because AG needs the confidence.

Special teams:  There was a big missed block on the opening kickoff by Harris which I believe would have allowed a decent return for better field positon.  The first punt was a terrible shank and Bama’s defense held for no points.  A couple of kickoffs were low but covered well if not in the end zone.  On  the second kick off there were a couple of missed tackles, trying to kill the runner and not wrap up, which allowed for better field position for ULM. 

Finally:  The offense has to play better.  The OL has got to get to the point where it is 3rd and 3 they know they can get it on the run.  The defense can only do so much.

Please feel free to comment.

Good Luck and Roll Tide Roll 
15 and counting

Whew, it's bad enough when you lose but when it's 1:30 in the morning before you get home from the game and you only live 10 miles from the stadium, you know it's been a bad night.

Where do you start when you want to write/talk about what were the reason(s) for the bad loss to Ole Miss last night? I know that everyone that watched or listened to the game has a list about the size of a grocery shopping list of the reason(s) that possibly/probably knocked Bama out of any championship consideration this football season. With Bama's tough schedule, you would have to think though that this one loss shouldn't keep them out of any consideration but the media world isn't in love with the team as the Bama fans are and only time will have the answer to Bama's fate. There are many games to play yet in this season and I'm sure there will be more of the things happen that happened to Bama last night.

Now, where do we start? I saw a team last night that seemed to waiver on the line of being a decent team and one that was very average. Mistakes, and it doesn't take many, can make any team look very average or below average. Also, there is the ole horseshoe adage as well, having some good luck.

I'll start with the mistakes reason. This game started with a serious mistake and it ended with mistakes. You can't give a good team any kind of an advantage and expect to win and Bama started the game giving Ole Miss a golden opportunity and Ole Miss took full advantage of it. The game ended pretty much like it started with Bama, down by less than a touchdown, having control of the ball with enough time on the clock to win the game but again a big mistake ended that drive and the game.

Now let's talk about the luck factor. Say what you want about luck but I thought there were two lucky plays in the game that ended up costing Bama the game. The first play was an Ole Miss pass that was no more than a Hail Mary pass caused by a Bama tackler that ended up in the hands of an Ole Miss receiver and was somehow knocked loose from the receiver by a Bama defenders helmet into another Ole Miss players hand and he raced untouched for a touchdown. The other lucky play was near the end of the game when Ole Miss threw a pass for a touchdown that seemed to show the QB was over the line of scrimmage when the pass was thrown. I must say that I had seen a play just like this one earlier in the day in the Auburn and LSU game. In that game, the QB was past the line of scrimmage except for his back foot and the rule states that the whole body has to be past the line of scrimmage and his foot was not. When they showed the replay of the Ole Miss QB and his back foot was on the line of scrimmage I knew then that it would be ruled a touchdown which to me sealed the victory for Ole Miss. I always thought that if the ball was past the line of scrimmage when thrown it was illegal but I learned something yesterday, it's not.

There were many, many more reasons why Bama lost the game but I tried to find the "nail in the coffin lid" type situations that I felt happened when Bama still had a good shot at winning the game. A true championship caliber team will overcome adversity and find ways to win the close games and now Bama is faced with that very situation. The big question is can this team grow from this experience and become a championship caliber team or will they regress and falter to the tough schedule ahead of them. I saw nothing to give me a good feeling about the teams future for the rest of this season as there were so many mistakes in every facet of the teams performance last night, something that is very unusual for a Nick Saban team. I'm not abandoning the ship by no means but just stating that this team's play needs a lot of heavy duty improvement to survive the difficulty of what's ahead for them. Can they do it, sure but it's going to take more than just coaching, it's going to take some players playing up to what they are capable of playing and that's not just happening right now.

I'll be there next Saturday rooting them on as though they were still undefeated, I'm not a quitter and I hope the players feel the same way. "Mother Luck" will surely need to find her way to help our team in the games ahead because we are going to need some. RTR!!!

First:   This is a game of shoulda, coulda, and woulda.  They should have won.  They coulda won if OM hadn’t gotten such a fluke touch down.  They woulda won if they didn’t commit 5 turnovers where 4 led to points. 

Offense:  The offense had to fight an uphill battle all night. Bama had 503 yards of offense which included 288 passing yards and 215 rushing yards.  Crucial times in the game they just couldn’t get that first down that would keep the drives alive.  As far as negative offensive plays Bama had 3 interceptions, 2 of which were turned into touchdowns.  They gave up 1 sack and had 7 tackles for losses.  As far as 10+ plays, Bama had 18 pass plays for 10 yards plus and 5 running plays for 10 yards plus.  They put 37 points on the board and had scoring drives for TD’s for 75, 69, 46, 75, and 30 yards.  They also had a 69 yard drive for a field goal.  They got into the red zone 6 times and scored touchdowns on all but one.  They had two 3 and outs and one 2 and out because of an int. 

QB:   It was a surprise to see Bateman starting.  I don’t think he did a horrible job except for the interception that was thrown.  After the play, on the sidelines, it looks like the rec was expected to do something else.  A couple of times on the sideline it looked like they were expecting something else from the recs.  Bateman did lead them on a scoring drive for a field goal.    I don’t want to sound like I am blaming Bateman, but they didn’t get in the end zone.  He did have a long way to go on 2 out of his four drives.  His drives started at the 25, 28, 7 and 10.  Coker came up and gave Bama a lift.  He also was not perfect.  He made some bad choices but he also made some good decisions with his arm and legs.  The problem I see is that sometimes it looks like he can’t understand the signals and gets confused.  He does try to force the ball and stares at his recs sometimes.  What I consider deep balls have not been hit this year and at times the QBs try to force the ball. 

RB:  Henry had another 100+ game.  He also blocked well in pass protection.  He seems to get better later in the game.  If turnovers had not put Bama in such a hole, I think he would have been even a bigger factor in the game.   Drake didn’t really seem to get much going.  I am not saying he played bad, just didn’t really seem to be a factor in this game like people thought.

REC:  The ball was spread around.  You have players with 8 (Stewart), 7 (Mullaney), 6 (Ridley), 5 (Henry), and 4 (Howard).  Also, Foster had 2 before he was hurt.  There were some drops this game. Again the problem here is there looked to be some confusion by some recs on the routes they were running.   One other problem and this isn’t the first time it has happened, the rec in motion didn’t block the DB over the rec on the wide rec screen.

OL:   They allowed Bama to put up 503 yards of offense.  The major problem I saw was when they were trying to block Nkemdiche.  At least once, the guard came off the double team too quick and the center couldn’t get enough on him to stop him. Another time, it seemed like the center was supposed to reach him by himself, not going to happen very often with a player snapping the ball.  Also, Robinson allowed him to come inside on a play run always.  He could have stepped flatter or cut him, but he made the play from the backside and I think it was a tackle for a loss.

Defense:  The defense did give up 433 yard, but they didn’t play that bad.  Here is why I say this.  One they had to protect short fields a couple of times and two, they had the fluke 66 yard pass play for a touchdown.  Next they had the play where the QB threw the ball right before going over the LOS.  This could have been eliminated if the officials had called the lineman downfield.  You take those two plays out and OM only has only 294 yards of total offense.  What are the chances of that football, the way it is shaped, taking a bounce like that and popping up in the air for another rec to haul it in for a touchdown.  I do think Bama tackled better this game than they did last.  As far as negative plays, the defense had 6 tackles for loss and 2 sacks.  OM had 9 pass plays for 10+ yards and 5 running plays for 10+ yards.

DL:  They played pretty well last night.  They clogged the middle up most of the night on running plays.  I think they had at least 4 passes that were batted down.  They may not have always gotten to the QB, but he was uncomfortable a lot of the night. 

LB:   I thought they played pretty well.  They did get hurt on a reception by the big tight end where it looked like the coverage was not there.  They had to play sideline to sideline because of the running attack of the Rebels. 

DB:  I don’t think they played that poorly.  The two fluke plays gave OM 139 yards of passing offense.  I will address this more later.  They were in position most of the night and OM didn’t hit all those back shoulder throws like they did last year.  The PI on Fitzpatrick hurt, but I have also seen that as a no call in game. 

Penalties: Bama had 5 penalties last night, but one was declined.  The two big ones were the interference and the face mask when Bama was trying to get the ball back for the last drive.  This cost them 15 yards of field positon. 

Special teams:  This was a disaster and put Bama in the hole from the beginning.  Two fumble kickoffs which let to 10 points.  On the first fumble, Drake got blown up and knocked into the return man.  The other was he just put the ball on the ground from the hit.  Punting was good and all the PAT/FG’s were good.  The kickoff coverage was good except for one.

Finally:   Bama just gave away too much last night.  Two fumbles on the kickoffs cost Bama 10 points.  Two of the three interceptions were turned into 14 points.  The fluke play, what can you say, I can’t even consider the odds of that happening if one tried to do it on purpose..  Every bounce went OM’s way. I also think the “committee” is going to have to look at the OL downfield rule.  We use to teach our safeties to come downhill when the OL showed run.  This is being exploited by the spread teams.   I was impressed with the way the Bama team didn’t give up.  I was disappointed when Coker threw the last interception.  I thought they would try to work the ball down the field and use more of the clock since they had the time.  I think LSU will beat OM and it can come down to who wins the Bama/LSU game.  This will only happened if Bama eliminates the turnovers and penalties the rest of the way.

Please feel free to comment.

Good Luck and Roll Tide Roll 
15 and counting

First:   Congrats to Bama’s players and coaches for the win against Middle Tennessee. 

Offense:  The offense was off and on all day.  It was a game where Bama started many times with good field position but failed to put the game away.  They had touchdown drives of 32, 75, 70, 55 and 97 yards.  As far as negative plays they had 5 tackles for losses and 2 interceptions.  To combine with the short fields they had they also had four 3 and outs and one 1 and out because of an interception.  Even with all this Bama quietly put up 532 yards of total offense.  The big stat here is they had 39 yards rushing in the first half and 181 in the second half.  Again they were not great on third down conversions as they were 4 for 13.   For plays over 10 yards, Bama had 9 pass plays and 5 running plays. 

QB:   Both made good plays and both made horrible plays.  One time they look great then another they look like it was their first game at QB.  Coker made bad decisions on at least 3 plays.  The worse was when he threw into double coverage which resulted in an int.   He also was slow coming off his first rec a few times and missed open recs.  Finally, he elongated his throwing motion allowing the defender to close on the rec.  Bateman was the same.  He threw into coverage which was picked off in the red zone, which should have led to points.  Again he made some good decisions and throw but what really stood out, were the mistakes.

RB:   They ran hard.  Probably the biggest thing here is the blocks that Henry made not only picking up blitzes but the lead blocks on the little pop pass that enabled Drake to get to the edge and make big plays.  Too me one of the best efforts of the afternoon came when Harris ran down the defensive back on the pick.  He could have just as easily given up on the play. 

REC:  Six different recs caught passes in the game.  There may have been a little miscommunication on a couple of passes, but I am not sure what they are told as far as routes.  There were a couple of drops this game, but overall I still like the way they catch the ball and look for yardage after the catch. 

OL:   There were a few mistakes here.  Bama busted on a couple of stunts/blitzes that should have been picked up.  Jackson did not have a good first half.  On one of the three and outs, he was responsible for a holding and he got beat and the QB had to scramble twice. 

Defense:  Even though it seemed, to me, that the defense was on the field a lot, they played pretty well yardage wise.  They gave up 275 total yards.  They gave up 181 in the first half and only 94 in the second half.  They missed more tackles this game than they did the last game.  As far as negative plays they had 4 tackles for losses, recovered 3 fumble, an interception and a punt block for a safety.  It seems the game plan is to attack Bama with short passes like last week and where the linebackers vacate.  They only averaged 4.1 yards per passing attempt but 7.9 for each completed pass.  As far as plays over 10 yards, they had about 5 pass plays over 10 yards.  The only run for 10 was called back.  They also had five 3 and outs and two 1 and outs. 

DL:  They played pretty well.  I thought the MT OL did a better job against them than Wisconsin’s.  They may not have gotten a sack, but they did get pressure and affected the QB. 

LB:   They were forced to play in space and did ok.  The pass coverage is about what you would expect from them in open space against a smaller quicker player.  We all know this is not Bama’s strong suit.

DB:  Most of the day they were in position.  There were a couple of completions where the QB made great throws and the recs made great catches on.  One point I noticed was Tony Brown was in the game and missed the tackle on the QB and he was taken out of the game.

Penalties: Bama did cut the penalties down, but they had crucial one.  A false start by Stewart put Bama in worse field positon.  As I stated Jackson did not have a great half and had 2 holding calls against him, one was declined.  Bama got caught substituting and then there was a delay on a punt.  Finally, Ridley interfered with the return man on the punt which gave them 15 yards and took them out of what was bad field positon. 

Special teams:  Punting was better and the kick offs were decent.  The coverage a couple of times on the kick off looked a little shaky.  Field goals are a problem.  The miss to the left was on the left hash and I think that is where he missed one against Wisconsin.   Again that looks like an alignment problem.  The second was on target, but it didn’t get there.  I am not blaming anyone here, but it looked like there was too much pressure on the ball from the holder. 

Finally:   Bama has got to get more consistent/smarter play from their QB’s.  Also, they have to play a complete game, not in spurts like this game. 

Please feel free to comment.

Good Luck and Roll Tide Roll 
15 and counting

The old saying that you should see more improvement from game one to game two probably leaves some of us feeling a bit cautious about what to expect in the games lying ahead for Alabama. Bama has a very tough schedule this year and some say it is rated the number one toughest schedule in the NCAA.

I'm not going to try and break down each player or position today but rather talk about the team as a whole, unit wise. Last week there was many observations on which player did this and which player did that but after yesterday, maybe we need to talk about the team as how do they play in units. I don't really see that many individual stars on this team as we have seen in the past that might change the lackluster effort by both the offense and defense. Henry and Drake have made some big plays for the offense so far but 3 or 4 big runs in a game from two players is very  small when you compare the number of plays the offense ran in the game. You can also count the big plays from the QB to the receivers and again, there weren't that many big plays in the game. I guess a better word or phrase to use in discussing the offense is consistency or maybe the lack of consistency. To me the offense looks very disorganized with their blocking schemes which in general makes each play look like a failure. The QB doesn't have much time to execute the pass plays and a lot of that problem could be the QB himself or maybe it's the receivers running bad routes and not getting open. Whichever the case, the team just doesn't look sharp in executing most of their offensive plays. The running backs find very few big holes to run through and in most cases on the long runs by Henry, he broke 2 or 3 tackles at the line of scrimmage and not through a gaping hole like we have seen in the past years.

Defensively, I'm disappointed in the pass coverage so far. Whether it is the pass rush or the DB coverage, it looks very vanilla to me. In the Wisconsin game I thought the D-line played much better in the second half with a lot of intensity which game me the inclination that this is what we should see every Saturday, wrong. There were a few plays where the pressure on the QB was good but as a whole, it was about like the first half of the Wisconsin game, very lackluster.

The kicking game was pretty much the same as the Wisconsin game, a lot to be desired. Scott dfid some better but he's a far cry from the punter that could change the end of the field like we saw last year. Our place kicker is really struggling and this should now be a very big concern of CNS. To me it seems to be a mental problem now rather than a physical one that he suffered through last year. I thought the return team did a better job that they did against Wisconsin, something that Bama really needs to get better on.

Overall I would grade the team with a C this week. I just don't think the team will be real successful in the games ahead playing at the level we have seen so far unless something really good changes their style of play. The Wisconsin game was a good win but they are in no way as good as most of the SEC teams and we know how many conference games that Bama has to play.

Hopefully the team will have a better week of practice and come out and play against Ole Miss the way that they are capable of playing. If that doesn't happen, oh woe is me because Ole Miss will have two wins in a row and it's been a long time since that happened. JMO and RTR!!!!   

First:   Congrats to Bama’s players and coaches for the first win of the season.  It was not some team used just for a warm-up game, like many teams do.   Wisconsin is supposed to be a legitimate contender for the Big 10. 

Offense:  The offense overall, played pretty well for a first game.  The Bama offense put up 502 total yards, 264 passing and 238 rushing. They gained more yards in the second half than they did in the first half, 199 to 303.   As far as negative plays they gave up 4 tackles for losses and 3 sacks.  The offense had 7 runs of 10+ yards while they had 16 pass plays for 10+ yards.  They also had only 1 three and out.  I thought it was a good balance of pass and run for the first game.  Also, it looked like Bama wanted to establish the run early and use play action off of this.  Even though this was the first game they didn’t have many “confused” times which usually lead to wasted timeouts or delay of game penalties.  They did leave at least 6 points on the field with missed field goals.  They are going to have to do a better job on third down conversions as the year goes on.    They were 4 for 11.   One of the best stats is there were no turnovers by the offense.

QB:  For a first game, I thought Coker played well.  He was not perfect, but he really only made what I consider one bad throw.  He threw the ball in a crowd in pressure on a screen.  The only other knock was he underthrew at least 2 deep balls, one of which would have been a touchdown.  I really couldn’t tell if he was able to check many plays at the LOS.  He completed 71% of his passes and it looks like he was able to come off his first read and find a secondary rec. a couple of times.  Bateman, I thought did a solid job.  He completed 7 of 8 and had one throw that should not have been made.  That was the incomplete.   I did think his feet may have been a little happy at times and still had a little time to stay in the pocket.

RB:    They ran well and blocked well most of the time.  Henry is a bull and most of the time gets positive yardage with a little push by the OL.  He picked up the blitz once last night and could hear the pop on TV.  He also stayed with this block and allowed Cocker to scramble for a first down.   Drake also ran hard and he is a threat to go the distance from anywhere on the field.  Harris I will be interested to see more of when he gets a chance with the first team. 

REC:  I really like the way these recs catch the ball.  They shoot there hand and snag the ball and don’t wait for it to come into their body.  Not counting backs 6 different recs had catches last night.  They also did a pretty good job after they caught the ball.  There were a couple of missed blocks, like on the first wide rec screen.  However, I think it was Mullaney, he was wide open down the field.  I also think the tight ends blocked better this year, especially Howard.

OL:   The OL was dominant at time.  There were many instances where they had successful combo blocks and came off to the next level.  There were a few missed assignments, but overall they did a pretty good job especially with 3 new starters in the game. One of the best blocks came on a first ant 10 with 7:27 left in the third quarter where Robinson blocked his man for 10 yards plus and actually pushed him off the field.  On the same play you can see Foster crack and destroy a linebacker or safety.

Defense:  The defense played a solid game especially in the second half.  They gave up 171 yards in the first half and only 97 in the second.  Also, in the 3rd and 4th quarters there were some back-ups in.  This team was use to running the ball and Bama held them to 40 yards, which was 280 less than last year’s average.  It looked like they planned on attacking Bama with the back out and quick throws, which they had a little success with.  They also tried to exploit the areas vacated by the LBs on play action.  As far as negative plays, Bama had 3sacks, 1 tackle for loss, and 1 interception.  It also looked like they played fairly plain last night.  Things that impressed me were the open field tackling and getting lined up with the new faces on D.  They had three 3 and outs all in the second half.   They did give up one run of 10+ yards and 10 passes for 10+ yards.  Their longest run was 25 yards and the stud running back longest run was5 yards. 

DL:  They did a great job handling the front of Wisconsin.  They dominated the LOS.  This allowed others to make plays.  They put enough pressure on the QB so he couldn’t really get comfortable.   So many played well it is hard to name them all.   

LB:   I thought they all played well and made the plays when the DL didn’t allow the OL to get to the next level.  Again this year it looks like Ragland is up for some big hits.  Foster made some big hits and plays in open space.  It also looks like Hamilton can contribute.

DB:  They were not tested that often, but seem to be in pretty good position when they were thrown at.  I like the move of Jackson to safety.  I thought for a first game he played well here.  The freshman Fitzpatrick is not scared of mix it up and play pretty good coverage.

Penalties: The main concern is the number of penalties.  Bama had 11 penalties and some of them were costly.  They took Bama out of good situations on offense and put them in bad situations on defense.  There were 4 holding calls against 4 different linemen.  There were back to back false starts that took Bama out of very good field position.  There were 3 pass interference calls 2 on the defense and one on the offense.   These penalties need to be cleaned up because of the toughness of the schedule which can mean the difference in a game.

Special teams:   The kickoff coverage was pretty good except for 1 where players got out of their lanes and allowed the runner to get to the outside.  I don’t know if there are 2 number 7’s but if that is Sims going down on the kick off team he was delivering a blow to whomever he hit.  Field goal left 6 point on the field.  On the first miss he looked like he tried to hit it too hard.  On the second it looked like an alignment problem.  Punting was not what we have been custom to from Scott.  This needs to be fixed before they get too deep in the season.

Finally:   I thought Bama looked better in the opener this year than they did last year.   I think they are ahead of last year’s team at this point.  I hope they don’t read their press clipping and understand there is still improvement that needs to be made.  Some of the 2nd teamers got some good playing time and needs to improve if they are called upon this year.

Please feel free to comment.

Good Luck and Roll Tide Roll 
15 and counting

The first game is here and gone and we all know who the starting QB is now so it's time to give all of our highly regarded opinions of last nights game. I'm not going to pick out every aspect of the game to mention but some of the plays or players that I thought were worth mentioning.

To me it was a typical first game with a lot of mistakes but yet with a lot of drama as to some of the big plays made and some big plays almost made. It didn't take long for Derrick Henry to remind all of us fans as to how good he really is. His running was at it's finest last night but there was one thing that he did that really caught my attention, his blocking. I thought he did a really good job picking up the blitzes and on one particular play he must have hit the rushing LB 5-6 times in protecting the QB.

The highly publicized QB battle for the starting job went off okay. Coker got the start and he showed to have a few jitters but I think he settled in as the game progressed and did a decent job. Sure he made some mistakes but the more he plays the better he should get. Bateman came in and gave a contrasting difference in how he plays the position. He is very mobile and I think he will give Coker a run for the QB job as the season progresses which can be really good for the team. I'm not counting out Morris either, it will be good to see him get a chance for some extended play. I know I feel better about the QB position right now than I did at this time last year. I'm not knocking Sims, I thought he did an amazing job last year and he was really the only QB that we had.

The running game seems to be as good as last year before Drake was injured. I'm hoping that they can stay healthy and continue where they left off last night. To me they are the key to Bama getting into the championship picture again.

The offensive line had some good moments but had way too many penalties. Holding is usually the result of the lineman getting beat on the play and Bama had their share of holding calls. I'm sure the coaches will get that corrected.

Bama has a stable full of receivers and we got to see some of them last night. We all hated to see Cooper graduate but it has now given all of the other receivers that were standing in his shadow the chance to show their game. The QBs should count their blessings in having so much talent to throw to.

Defensively I thought Bama had a lot of ups and downs in the game. In the first half I thought the defense played somewhat cautious and it made them look soft. There was no push coming from the line and Wisconsin was winning the battle on the line of scrimmage. The defensive backfield was playing soft as well and giving up a lot of receptions. In the second half I thought the defense did something that we haven't seen in a long time, They came out and played with a lot of aggression and it changed the whole game for Bama. They were stopping them on third down and had the Wisconsin QB running for his life.

And now the kicking game. It sure was a contrasting difference in what we saw last year and what we saw last night. The place kicking seems to be where it left off at the end of last season, very unpredictable. I know Griffith has a back issue but he may be the weak link in the chain again this year. Scott on the other had had a tremendous year last year and was up for the Ray Guy Award. If you remember I posted in the scrimmage thread earlier this year that he had only one good punt all day. I left there thing he just had a bad day but I'm not so sure now. Has he injured himself or has he changed his way of punting to try and better himself from last year. If he's trying to better himself, I think he made a bad decission because it would be very hard to top what he did last year. If you weant to blame it on coaching them we would have to go outside of Saban's staff as these kickers go to kicking clinics or have their own private coach to help them. This isn't to say that the Bama coaches don't try and help them some but Bama does not have a kicking coach to my knowledge, only a special teams coach.

I might add too that there were way too many penalties and I'm sure CNS and staff will take care of that.

Well there it is, my version of what I saw and I'm sure that most of you have much better opinions of what you saw and will share your opinions. I can't wait for next Saturday to get here and see where and how much we improve. RTR!!!