The Commissioner's Blog

Cecil Hurt

noreply@blogger.com (Woody Woodruff) — Fri, 26 Nov 2021 22:54:00 +0000

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In the summer before the 2020 college football season, I decided to stop publishing The Commissioners Blog. Y'all will remember what life was like then. It seemed as if the country was coming apart, whether there would be a college football season was an open question. And social media was one of the many dumpster fires blazing away every day. I decided not to swim in that pool any longer...... gosh, I hope mixing my metaphors didn't trigger someone into raising a Twitter mob against me.

In any event, I decided given what I do for a living, to give up writing The Grades was the prudent thing to do. I don't regret that decision, but I do regret not experiencing the fun of grading the performance of the 2020 Crimson Tide football team, and sharing that with the readers of this blog.

I have no training as a journalist, or sports writer. I've always admired people who are good at that difficult endeavor, and the sports writer I admired most was Cecil Hurt.

I never had the pleasure of meeting Cecil. But, I do have the privilege of being friends with some folks who knew him well. Readers of this Blog know one of those friends as The Correspondent From The Tire Store. The Tire Store Correspondent was my law partner for two decades and has been my friend for nearly three.

I called The Tire Store, and asked Our Correspondent if he was willing to post a memorial tribute to Cecil Hurt. He was, and I am proud to share it with you:

I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving.

In case you missed the news over the holiday week, it is my sad duty to point out that the long-time Tuscaloosa News beat writer for Crimson Tide athletics, Cecil Hurt, has passed away. He was 62.

I met Cecil when we were undergrads. In addition to being in the same program (and at a time when the University student population was less than half its current size), for a time the young woman Cecil was dating happened to be best friends with the young woman who had made the questionable decision to go out with me. Cecil and I spoke occasionally over the years. Knowing of my connection, the Commissioner asked if I would write a little bit about Cecil. I am honored to do so.

If you are an Alabama fan, then even if you never met Cecil, you probably somehow feel as if you knew him anyway. Through his writing, podcasting, Twitter work, appearances on radio and television -- you felt like you knew who he was. And you were right.

Cecil Hurt was exactly as you would have expected if you followed his work, even just occasionally. I remember him as delightfully unpretentious. He always looked like he had forgotten to comb his hair, was carrying a few extra pounds (that he wasn't worrying about), and his clothing was sort of comfortably rumpled. He was a bit surprisingly soft-spoken. But if you were smart enough to shut up and listen to him, you would find a sharp mind, a deep knowledge of Alabama sports (especially football and basketball), and a set of sources whose trust he had earned the hard way. Cecil was a gentleman. In my experience he was friendly, gracious, and above all, hard-working. On any given day he might report about a play in the last game you didn't notice, a walk-on who was making good in practice, or present an extended analogy comparing the current season to the Punic Wars. Sneaky-smart was Cecil.

Covering a program like Alabama seems like a dream come true to the average fan. The job is clearly in the "Careful What You Wish For" category. Most people only think of travelling to premier away games on the newspaper's expense account, writing and talking about football for a living, and eating free dinner in the climate-controlled press box with its premium view of the field.

The reality is a bit more harsh. Those were working trips. The press box itself is a newsroom with a work desk and except for the clatter of keyboards, a relatively quiet space. Watching the game and cheering on your team is a bit different than having to watch the game with detachment, notice the key details that people expect you to deliver, being there for warm-ups and hanging around till the end of the coach's press conference. Then making sure your work was complete in time to land in the reading public's driveway no later than 7 a.m. Those cool expense account trips also meant that on Sunday when a lot of people were relaxing with a cup of coffee and reading your work, you were slogging home from Baton Rouge, or Gainesville, or College Station, because there was an injury report and wrap up to write and the weekly press conference is always on Monday.... And for every thrilling LSU or Tennessee or Auburn game you get to cover, there's also a Southern Miss or North Texas State or Mississippi College of Cosmetology and Autobody Repair which requires the same effort and analysis.

Cecil's writing style set him apart. His dissection of a game or season was spot on. Lots of people could do that. Cecil, however, could present that material in a way that was accessible to seasoned football insiders as well the average 5th grade fan in Gordo or Moulton. Especially early in his career, people who do a lot of writing would just occasionally get to see the artifacts that crop up in work that has been thoughtfully written, but carefully rewritten, which is often the difference between good and great. For work on deadline that had several steps to undergo between the final punctuation and getting tossed out of a speeding car window at 6 a.m. you could occasionally catch an extra "of" or a noun verb agreement problem. Rereading would sometimes give a clue as to the original content of a splintery sentence that had been gone back over with plane, sandpaper, and shellac to get it where it needed to be.

Coach Saban, no particular fan of the press as you might have noticed, issued a heartfelt statement about Cecil's passing. You've probably seen it. More telling was a night I recall from his radio show when a caller had asked about press conferences. Cecil happened to be the special guest that night. Saban said, "Some people just don't have very good questions. They just feel the need to talk. And everyone only gets one question. I wish Cecil got to ask more questions. He's a smart guy." Let that simmer for a minute.

I am running out of room and still have not done my friend justice. Perhaps an example will help. When the NCAA decided to hand down some of the harshest penalties in its history for what were, relatively speaking, minor violations in the Alabama football program, Cecil asked what seemed to be an innocuous question. What, he asked the apparatchik from a backwater athletic conference who was pontificating about the punishments handed down, could the University have done to be more cooperative with the NCAA as it investigated the football program. The answer, in a moment of foolish candor was, "nothing." In fact, he allowed, Alabama had been a model of cooperation. Yet it still was hammered.

Cecil managed to build a series of columns around that concept. And, in my opinion, started the now nearly complete destruction of the NCAA's investigation and enforcement procedures. Other universities were watching closely. The message was clear and Cecil drove it home with all the subtlety of a toss sweep to Derrick Henry -- when the NCAA comes calling, hire lawyers, hide the records, shut up, and whatever you do, don't follow Alabama's example.

And so (to borrow a phrase) we say good-bye to our gallant friend. With all due respect to the current press corps, and there are many who cover Alabama well, I do not expect to see his equal in my lifetime. Cecil Hurt knew more about Alabama athletics than hundreds of the rest of us combined. He was never on the bleeding edge, but never backed away from asking hard questions or calling it like he saw it. On Twitter, he was never shy about unsheathing his wit like a stiletto to puncture some overblown gasbag hiding behind a screen alias.

A move is afoot to have the University name the fancy new press box after Cecil. Now, my alma mater has never missed a chance to put money in the coffers by selling naming rights. For example, for the last building added to the ever-growing business school, the kindly mother solicited me to sponsor a study carrel. In this case, however, perhaps the powers that be will understand the contributions Cecil has made over the years. He predates the vast majority of the current administration. It seems to me a fitting tribute. Cecil loved Alabama athletics so much that he was willing to tell the truth about it for nearly four decades. I'd say the honor has been paid for and then some. If you'd like to voice your support for that movement the University president is Dr. Stuart Bell, whom you can reach at president@ua.edu. The athletic director does not share his email address, but you can reach him through Twitter @greg_byrne or through J Batt Senior Deputy Athletics Direct at jbatt@ia.ua.edu.

Thanks for everything, Cecil. I'll miss your work. Rest in peace. Roll Tide, buddy.

The Correspondent From The Tire Store

Hurrah. Football is here at last.

noreply@blogger.com (Woody Woodruff) — Thu, 02 Sep 2021 18:47:00 +0000

Happy Football Season, everyone. From all of us down here at the Tire Store, we hope that you and your families are well. Please be safe. Hope to see you over in Atlanta on Saturday. It has been a long time since we last met the Hurricanes but I hope the outcome is just as satisfying.

In the meantime, please enjoy this annual reminder from the immortal Lewis Grizzard. Roll Tide. Beat Miami. RIP Lewis.

I was walking behind a friend and his wife as we entered the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans on January 1, 1981, to watch Georgia play Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl. If Georgia won, the Bulldogs would be the 1980 national collegiate football champions.

My friend, a fellow Georgia alumnus, was fraught with anticipation. He was pale. He was nervous. He was perspiring profusely.

***

His wife, noticing his condition said, “Calm down sweetheart. It’s just a football game.”

He stopped dead. He turned to his wife -- who had not gone to Georgia, and went to Bulldog games with her husband because she thought of it as her wifely duty -- looked her squarely in the eyes and said: “It is not just a football game. It’s our way of life against theirs.”

He meant that. I knew the man well enough to know he did, in fact, mean that.

It had something to do with Southerners against Northerners. Maybe it even had something to with his Methodist upbringing and the pope.

Whatever, it was clearly Us versus Them. Us won that day, tailback Herschel Walker leading Georgia to the national title….

You can go into all that stuff about the pageantry of college football, the fact the players are unspoiled kids and not a bunch of millionaires, and it’s a nice way to spend an afternoon and evening with friends.

But with me and mine, and with a lot of others, college football offers us an opportunity to circle our wagons and fight and kick and scream for our side against their side.

I suppose that’s also possible in politics and various cultural disagreements, but all that can get a little cloudy at times.

College football and allegiances are clear as an October Saturday afternoon. We haven’t had a war in 50 years that wasn’t tangled up in dissent and questionable motives…. But when Georgia meets Florida, when Auburn plays Alabama, when Ohio State gathers against Michigan, there are no such nagging annoyances.

Our way of life against theirs; clear as a bell.

And there is the opportunity to feel proud of something. Congress can waste your money, the president can lie to you, and your kid can wear an earring and watch MTV, but if your alma mater is 8-0, who’s sweating the small stuff?

And probably more than anything else, it also offers the opportunity to share in what is believed to be a noble cause, and such breeds friendships that can endure all else….

College football season is the best time I live. I once risked my life because of college football.

In late August of 1985 following two weeks in the Soviet Union, I found myself in a hospital in London with a deadly infection of the artificial aortic valve in my heart. The British doctor said it would probably be necessary for me to remain there for six weeks’ treatment.

Georgia was to open its football season on Labor Day night a week later against Alabama in Athens. I slipped out of the hospital, caught a cab to Gatwick Airport and flew back to Atlanta.

When asked later why I would risk my life in such a manner, I said, “I wasn’t about to stay in no foreign country during college football season.”

Us could win them all this year, or Us could lose a few. But, right or wrong, win or lose, always Us.

And Them can go to hell. Is there any part of that that isn’t absolutely clear?

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Hurrah. Football is here at last.

noreply@blogger.com (Woody Woodruff) — Mon, 21 Sep 2020 18:16:00 +0000

Well, that was a weird off season. We hope this email finds you and yours healthy and happy. In the face of so very many things changing for so very many people we are happy to have some things that stay everlastingly the same. One of those is the commitment to excellence and will to win (and to prepare to do so) evidenced by so many of the young men who play football for the Alabama Crimson Tide.

Just this week we saw a quote from Joshua McMillon. Josh, you may recall, is a linebacker who patiently waited his turn in Alabama’s always-crowded-with-talent linebacking squad. As a fifth year senior he was poised to be a starter on last year’s defense -- until he badly injured his knee in practice in August. He has already earned his engineering degree and no one could have blamed the young man for hanging up his cleats especially going into his sixth year of the grueling work that it takes to stay in shape at this level. Instead, he petitioned the NCAA for another year of eligibility. A reporter asked him about his decision to return as a graduate student to play this year. Josh said:

“It wasn't much going into the decision. It was just a bad taste left in my mouth, from the past year. Going 11-2, I don't want to end my college career on a bad note like that… It didn’t feel right leaving.”

Hurray for you Josh. We hope you love every minute of it. So long as we have that sort of character, judgment, and appreciation for whether 11-2 is a satisfactory season or not, we are in good hands. We are confident that attitude will make us proud of you without regard to what you do on the gridiron.

For those of you who may have joined late, the Commissioner indulges us each year in sending around the following work from the immortal Lewis Grizzard. Enjoy.

My friend, a fellow Georgia alumnus, was fraught with anticipation. He was pale. He was nervous. He was perspiring profusely.

***

His wife, noticing his condition said, “Calm down sweetheart. It’s just a football game.”

He meant that. I knew the man well enough to know he did, in fact, mean that.

It had something to do with Southerners against Northerners. Maybe it even had something to with his Methodist upbringing and the pope.

Whatever, it was clearly Us versus Them. Us won that day, tailback Herschel Walker leading Georgia to the national title….

But with me and mine, and with a lot of others, college football offers us an opportunity to circle our wagons and fight and kick and scream for our side against their side.

I suppose that’s also possible in politics and various cultural disagreements, but all that can get a little cloudy at times.

Our way of life against theirs; clear as a bell.

And probably more than anything else, it also offers the opportunity to share in what is believed to be a noble cause, and such breeds friendships that can endure all else….

College football season is the best time I live. I once risked my life because of college football.

Georgia was to open its football season on Labor Day night a week later against Alabama in Athens. I slipped out of the hospital, caught a cab to Gatwick Airport and flew back to Atlanta.

When asked later why I would risk my life in such a manner, I said, “I wasn’t about to stay in no foreign country during college football season.”

Us could win them all this year, or Us could lose a few. But, right or wrong, win or lose, always Us.

And Them can go to hell. Is there any part of that that isn’t absolutely clear?

This should be an exciting season. We have many returning starters at key positions, promising newcomers, a reconfigured coaching staff, and (we hope) a burning desire for a championship. Just like last year. I know, because I said almost the exact same thing last year at this point.

For those of you lucky enough to be traveling to Orlando for Saturday’s game (or anywhere else), we wish you Godspeed. This stands to be an exciting season. You don’t want to miss any of it. I’m proud to share in this “noble cause” with you, my friends.

RIP, Lewis. We miss you. Roll Tide, everyone. Beat Missouri.

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Iron Bowl Grades

noreply@blogger.com (Woody Woodruff) — Sun, 01 Dec 2019 17:59:00 +0000

Discipline.

According to Coach Saban, the central importance of discipline is the lesson to be learned from the bitter end of the 2019 Alabama football season. How having it is the key to being successful, and how the lack of it is an infection that will eventually contaminate all around you.

Lack of football discipline manifests itself statistically in penalties. The Tide’s lack of discipline was on full display in Alabama’s 45-48 loss to Auburn. Bama was penalized 13 times for a collective loss of 96 yards. Five Auburn first downs resulted from Alabama penalties, the most galling of which has to be the illegal substitution penalty at the end of the game allowing Auburn to retain possession instead of punting from its own 26 yard line.

That penalty kept Alabama from having one last chance to score and maybe win the game. But a much earlier penalty on Bama's first possession of the game-offensive holding on Alex Leatherwood-negated what would have been a 37 yard touchdown pass from Mac Jones to Henry Ruggs, III. The drive ended with a field goal, so the penalty cost Alabama four points in a game it lost by three.

So, how does the 2019 Crimson Tide stack up to its most recent predecessors in this critical measure of discipline?

Over the twelve games of this season, Alabama has been penalized 90 times for 830 yards, and has allowed opponents to convert a third down by penalty 31 times [Auburn accounts for 5 of those 31 possession-down conversions]. The 2018 team, over fifteen games was penalized 87 times for 796 yards, and surrendered 29 first down conversion by penalty. The 2017 squad-the last to win a National Championship-was penalized a total of only 69 times for 569 yards, and allowed only 25 first downs by penalty.

Discipline, or the lack thereof, is also reflected in the on-field behavior of team leaders. A disciplined leader separates his teammate from the fray to avoid a penalty. A leader lacking in discipline substitutes himself for the teammate and more often than not draws a penalty.

Yes. Alabama has been riddled with injuries. Yes. Alabama has lost key talent to the NFL [I wrote everything I have to say on that topic last week.] But Alabama lost the 2019 Iron Bowl, and forfeited any chance of returning to the College Football Playoff, because they lacked discipline.

Coach Saban was not referring only to discipline in games. His critique was much broader. He implied Alabama has not disciplined in practice, in the film room, in the weight room. Against teams of lesser talent, an undisciplined effort can still result in victory. Against better competition? Look at the record: the 2019 Crimson Tide was winless against their two best opponents.

What makes the 2019 Iron Bowl result even harder to bear is the undeniable fact Alabama ought to have won the game comfortably. The objective statistics tell the story: Total yards-Alabama 515, AU 354; First Downs-Tide 28, Tigers 23; Time of Possession-Bama 35:52, Barn 24:08; Touchdowns-UA 6, Auburn 5.

Alabama had one non-offensive TD-Jaylen Waddle’s kick return-Auburn had two-interception returns [one from the Auburn end zone]. In other words, Alabama’s offense scored nearly twice as many touchdowns as did Auburn’s offense.

Here are two more stats that tells so much about the course of this game: Squandered Points [scoring opportunities lost to error]: Alabama 11, Auburn 0; Points allowed off turnovers: Alabama 14; Auburn 7.

Because whatever post-season game Alabama is invited to will be meaningless, and the only benefit of an invitation at all is December practice to work on fundamentals, I have a suggestion for a better way to spend the time and reward the fans with a game Alabama is guaranteed to win: Instead of playing Virginia, or Boise State, why not have a December A-Day game? …. But I forget, doing something like that to actually help the team improve will violate multiple NCAA rules; and we all know the NCAA is all about the Best Interests of The Student Athletes.

I will forego any discussion of the extra time out awarded to Auburn at the end of the fist half. Dissecting what laughably passes for “officiating” is the special remit of Our Correspondent From The Tire Store. This post is about grading the performance of the team, and this game is challenging enough, I do not have band width to include a critique of the Zebras.

The statistics tell one story. The result of the game tells another. So, I will grade the game as objectively as possible, then adjust for results. With that in mind, here is how I grade the game:

Offense: C+ I’ve already recited the total yards and first downs. Mac Jones ran the offense quite well, completing 26 of his 39 pass attempts for 335 yards and 4 TDs [Jaylen Waddle (3); Henry Ruggs, III (1)].

Ruggs was Alabama’s leading receiver with 99 yards on 6 catches. Waddle gained 98 yards on 4 receptions. DeVonta Smith caught 5 passes for 80 yards. Jerry Jeudy also caught 5 passes gaining 26 yards. Six different receivers caught passes; officially Mac caught his own pass when one attempt was batted back to him by an on-rushing Auburn defender. I am not including his boomerang catch in the total for all receivers.

Najee Harris was fantastic. He gained 146 net yards rushing on 27 runs. Mac Jones showed his toughness and competitive drive gaining 32 net yards on 8 runs, including a 4^th down pick up of 18 yards to give Alabama a chance to tie the game late.

The offense had seven possessions that gained 40 or more yards [55, 75, 62, 74, 63, 90, 52] resulting in 4 TDs, 1 FG, 1 Int, and 1 Missed FG Att.

What would otherwise have been an A+ performance is downgraded to C+ to account for the turnovers. That C+ grade is further adjusted for overall results to: F

Defense: C Auburn gained 354 yards total offense [181 net rushing] and earned 23 first downs. The defense limited Auburn to only three drives of 40 or more yards [50,75, 77] resulting in 2 TDs and 1 FG. From a scoring perspective the Defense allowed Auburn 34 points.

Xavier McKinney was the co-leader among defenders with 8 tackles [7 solo]. Raekwon Davis-returning from injury-also made 8 tackles [7 solo]. Shane Lee made 7 tackles, and Anfernee Jennings made 6. In total, Tide defenders made 4 tackles for lost yardage and forced 3 fumbles. Christian Harris made Bama’s lone fumble recovery.

Auburn’s success in the passing game came, in part, from some outstanding plays by Tiger receivers making one-handed catches in tight coverage. At least three times, Bo Nix was rescued from bad throws by highlight reel catches.

What could have been an A-quality performance by the Defense is downgraded two letter grades for penalties, especially those allowing Auburn to extend drives. On two of Auburn’s three sustained drives, Alabama was flagged for a major infraction [Pass Interference; Roughing the Passer]. Therefore, the performance grade is the stated C. That grade is further adjusted for overall results to: F

Special Teams:

Kickoffs: A Joe Bulovas averaged 47 yards per kick on 8 kickoffs. The coverage team allowed 3 returns for a total of 48 yards. Jaylen Waddle’s 98-yard kick return for a touchdown was spectacular. He and Trevon Diggs combined for a total of 177 yards returning Auburn kicks.

Punting: C+ Ty Perine punted 3 times for an average of 45 yards per punt. Alabama had no opportunity to return an AU punt, and the coverage team allowed Auburn’s Christian Tutt two returns for a total of 47 yards.

Place Kicking: D Bulovas was successful on all PAT attempts and was 50% on FG attempts. He kicked the ball into the left upright at the end of the game thereby failing to tie the score at 48.

Special Teams aggregate grade of C is further adjusted for overall results to: F

Coaching: F Play calling inside the red zone, particularly in “and goal” situations was unproductive. Why we do not have a “Jumbo Package” remains a mystery. The coaches have to take responsibility for the 13 penalties, especially number 13 on the day; illegal substitution giving Auburn a first down and the opportunity to kill the clock instead of having to punt from the AU 26. I know there was some malpractice on the part of the officials but the only people in the Western Hemisphere who thought Auburn intended to run a play in that situation were members of the Alabama coaching staff.

Discipline is a good thing. With it, one can achieve a standard of performance from which good results follow. Without it, even one who possesses greater talent must depend on chance or fortune for success. Remember the fable of the Tortoise and the Hare. The speedy Hare sprinted ahead of the Tortoise, but lost the race because the Tortoise had the discipline to keep going, while the Hare took a nap.

In football terms, the team with players disciplined to execute their assignments will have the opportunity to defeat a team of more talented players who lack the discipline to play as a team. When Coach Saban arrived in Tuscaloosa in 2007 he famously told reporters at his introductory presser that he wanted Alabama to be the kind of team that “other teams hate to play.” Not because they will be chippy, dirty, or even more talented; but because they will be relentless, and disciplined competitors.

The three-year trend line of penalties indicates the 2019 class has been on a downward arc in discipline. Hopefully, that downward arc hit rock bottom on Pat Dye Field last night. I for one can imagine no loss more dispiriting. I genuinely do not care whether we outscore whatever barely bowl eligible opponent we face on New Year’s Day. The result of that game is meaningless. What matters is whether the men in crimson jerseys play with discipline. Let’s start with that, and let the results take care of themselves.

A return to discipline in The Process is essential. Coach Saban undoubtedly knows this, and anyone listening to his post-game remarks should pay attention. And if you work for Coach Saban, you need to match your personal work habits to the standard of discipline Saban expects from the players. Surrounding oneself with good, hard-working, disciplined people is part of The Process. Getting shed of those who are not, is in The Process as well.

This will be the last edition of The Grades for the 2019 season. I look forward to a final report from The Tire Store.

Until next season, thank you for reading this blog. And thanks to all the Correspondents whose valuable contributions, and willingness to step in when needed, I could not do without.

Roll Tide, Y’all.

The Commissioner

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Tires Store Report -- Western Carolina

noreply@blogger.com (Woody Woodruff) — Tue, 26 Nov 2019 13:58:00 +0000

Thanks, Commissioner, and we mean that in a lot of different ways.

We sometimes lose track of just how difficult it is to be as prompt and consistently crisp and clear as you are with your game reports. Yours of yesterday was as bracing as a sunny November afternoon. We know your task is especially tall when games are like the one on Saturday, with Alabama doing what a team like Alabama should do to a badly overmatched opponent.

All of the various ideas for topics to address that we had laying around the shop like so many air wrenches, you already described quite eloquently: a celebration of the seniors, check; a recounting of the game statistics, check; putting into context of the season just what this game meant, check; calling out a senior that even we have never heard of who has now proudly writ his name in crimson flame in the Alabama statistical record which will never be taken from him, check; an analysis of the coaching job done not just in this game and this season, but a sustained record of excellence that requires the occasional moment to stop and observe and just say “oh, my”, check; a quick look ahead at what the future might hold for the 2019 edition of the Crimson Tide, check….

Given your hard work we find little else to say about that contest or this season. Well done.

Instead, if the readership will indulge us, especially at this time of the year, we’ll pause to be thankful. Down here in the land of brake dust and grease pits we occasionally run into a slow afternoon where even though there’s no real cause -- pretty weather, not a state holiday, not too far from payday -- it’s just a slow day. Those days used to make us really anxious and wonder whether scattering a few roofing nails an intersection or two up the road might at least get us a few flat fixes, just to pass the time, you understand.

Given a little more age, we have learned that sooner or later the slow days will give way to some much busier days when there hardly seems room for all the cars to fit on the lot and everyone needs four plus an alignment. So, we have learned to be a little more relaxed, to sit back in the chair, watch out the window as the cars go whizzing by, and be careful to give thanks for what we have.

One of the things we are thankful for on the slow days is this, whatever this is. We appreciate the fact that we are part of the Alabama community. In a day when civil discourse on issues where reasonable minds might differ too often quickly devolves into name-calling and worse, we, like Lewis Grizzard, are happy to have something we can rally around with confidence. We are thankful for those who take a few minutes out of their very busy lives to join us here each week. We have made life-long friends by virtue of this blog for whom we are everlastingly thankful. Occasionally someone will take an extra minute out to send us an email -- we are appreciative of that, even when it starts with something like: “Hey, chucklehead, your pre-dementia is showing, that play you were talking about was in the ’78 season, not ’79.”

We have already rambled on longer than we intended this week. Follow whatever traditions you hold to. Ours is to remind ourselves that the blessings we have are not a product of what we have earned, but what we have been given. We hope that you and your families are able to gather safely this week. We hope you find a slow time to stare out your equivalent of our plate glass and contemplate the things in your life that you hold dear and make you truly happy. And if you need a starting point, go ahead and put your allegiance to your team on that list. As the Commissioner has documented, Alabama has enjoyed a sustained level of excellence the last several years that is the envy of the college football world. But, again with a nod to Mr. Grizzard, win or lose, always us.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Let’s beat them like they stole a cow.

Roll Tide.

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Western Carolina Grades

noreply@blogger.com (Woody Woodruff) — Mon, 25 Nov 2019 00:38:00 +0000

Fifty-one and counting. That’s how many games the seniors in the Crimson Tide class of 2019 have won so far during the last four seasons. When you include the 2015 season to account for red-shirted players, the total wins increase to 65.

Since the 2016 season, this senior class has added hardware to the trophy cabinets in the Mal Moore Center for three SEC Western Division championships, two Conference championships, and a National Championship. Include the red-shirts and you have to find shelf space for another SEC Western Division and Southeastern Conference titles, as well as another National Championship. If Alabama moves from fifth to fourth place in the College Football Playoff standings on the strength of a win in the Iron Bowl, these seniors will have the opportunity to claim three national championships over five seasons; a record set by the 2015 senior class.

Whether or not the 2019 seniors scale those lofty heights, they have already secured a place of honor in the Alabama pantheon. It is safe to say there has not been a group of Alabama players since Ears Whitworth was run out of town, who have overcome more adversity in their playing careers.

Every program has to deal with injuries. Alabama is no exception. As a partisan fan I think we have suffered more than our fair share. But no team has suffered a higher number of experienced players departing early for the NFL. I suppose losing talented leadership to the pro ranks is a foreseeable consequence of having the nation’s best recruiting classes year after year. I am glad players are able to monetize their sacrifices and hard work; good for them. At the same time, however, I like the game of college football, and I do not believe early draft eligibility is good for the college game. I particularly do not think it has been good for Alabama.

You may disagree. But do you think we would have played so miserably on defense against Clemson last January if Minkah Fitzpatrick, Ronnie Harrison, and Da’Ron Payne had been on the field? And this season, do you think we might have been able to keep LSU from converting on third and 10 to keep a scoring drive alive if Deionte Thompson, Q. Williams, and Mack Wilson had been on Alabama's side of the ball?

I’ve written before that Alabama does not have an elite defense this season. Early departures are a major part of the reason why. So, fans got to say an appreciative farewell to the players who stayed; DB Shyheim Carter, DL Raekwon Davis, DB Trevon Diggs, LB Anfernee Jennings, DB Jaren Mayden, LB Josh McMillon, DL Matt Womack.

This is another reason why Senior Day is something special: defensive stars Raekwon Davis, Phidarian Mathis, and DJ Dale were held out of the contest to heal up before Auburn, and Christian Barmore,, Tevita Musika, and Byron Young, got their first starts. In all, 71 players saw action in the game. Players who have toiled in obscurity on the practice squad got onto the field.

The final chapters of the book on the 2019 Crimson Tide have not yet been written. But there are potentially three more games to evaluate. A one-grade deduction for the level of competition would typically be applied in a game against an opponent from the FCS. Never in my memory has a Bama game against a non-conference foe been as fraught as yesterday’s tilt against Western Carolina. Without deductions or curves, here is how I grade the game:

Offense: A+ Alabama gained 541 yards of total offense [231 net yards rushing] earned 23 first downs, and converted 5 of 8 third downs…..and most importantly scored 59 of Alabama’s 66 points. The only blemish on the day was a lost fumble at the Catamount goal line that resulted in a touchback. It was at worst an “effort” mistake. Trying to score from the three-yard line, the runner attempted to break the plane by extending the ball, when it was knocked loose.

Mac Jones started a little tentative. His passes were not quite a crisp as Tua’s, and he seemed to hold the ball just a wee bit longer than necessary. But after the opening drive, he settled in and became much more confident in running the offense. As a result, he completed 10 of his 12 pass attempts for 275 yards and 3 TDs. Taulia completed 2 of 3 attempted passes for 35 yards and a TD.

DeVonta Smith gained 94 yards and scored 2 TDs on 4 receptions. Jaylen Waddle caught 3 passes for 101 yards and a TD ….. By the way, it is a good thing they have big TV screens at BDS that show replays, otherwise I don’t think I would have believed what I witnessed on Waddle’s touchdown. He broke the ankles of so many would-be tacklers, it is a miracle those guys were able to walk again…… Jerry Jeudy caught 2 passes for 66 yards. Six different players caught passes.

The Tide’s leading rusher was Keilan Robinson [Fr.; 5-9, 184; Washington D.C.] who gained 92 yards on only 8 carries. He is going to be something special before his career at Alabama is celebrated on Senior Day 2022. Najee Harris carried the ball 14 times and gained 66 yards. RS Fr. Jerome Ford added 24 yards on 5 carries and The Pride of Tanner, Al, Chardarius Townsend [So. RB; 60-194] gained 24 yards on 6 runs. Columbia, Tennessee’s De’Marquise Lockridge [R. Sr.; 5-11, 216] made the most of his playing opportunity gaining 12 yards on 2 runs.

The Offense engineered seven drives gaining 40 or more yards [46, 79, 63, 65, 54, 73, 63] achieving a FG and 6 TDs. Alabama was forced to punt only once.

Defense: A+ The Catamounts were held to only 179 yards of total offense [67 net yards rushing] and 10 first downs. They only converted 2 of 12 third down opportunities.

Shane Lee led all defenders with 7 tackles [3 solo]. Christian Barmore made tackles [3 solo]. Christian Harris and Byron Young each were credited with 5 stops. The Bama Defense made seven tackles for lost yardage [4 sacks]. Xavier McKinney made two interceptions, one of which he returned for a touchdown. Not to be outdone, Jaren Mayden also had two picks.

The defensive play-of-the-game has to be McKinney breaking up a pass he batted back to the WCU QB, who caught his own pass [he is credited with a reception in the official stats]. Xavier was no outraged by this reversal of fortune that he forced a fumble recovered by Patrick Surtain.

Special Teams:

Punting: B Bama’s only punt was kicked from its own endzone following a false start penalty. The kick traveled only 33 yards. Jaylen Waddle returned 2 punts for 66 Yards and came within three yards of scoring a TD after a return of 49 yards.

Place Kicking: A+ Joseph Bulovas made a 22 yard FG and was successful on each of 9 PAT attempts.

Kickoffs: A+ The Tide allowed no return yards.

Coaching: A+ Alabama was penalized only 4 times. Seventy-one players saw action in the game. The team was mentally ready to play after the disruption and adversity caused by devastating injuries in last week’s game against Arkansas.

Tua received a sustained cheer from the crowd when he arrived on the Tide sideline in a golf cart. His future is uncertain. Will he pursue the NFL draft after he recovers from his hip injury? Or will he return to Tuscaloosa? Whatever he decides, people who love Alabama football will support him. But just imagine for a moment how special it would be for a healthy Tua Tagovailoa to lead a victorious Crimson Tide to a national title in the 2020 season. The final home game next year will be the Iron Bowl. What a Senior Day that would be!

Senior Day 2019 is in the books. Alabama did what it had to do: play well in all phases of the game. Dominate an opponent. Give Mac Jones the opportunity to gain confidence. Prove to the skeptics the roster remains stocked with talent regardless of injury and early departures for the pros.

Winning the Iron Bowl is a good thing whether the contest is the annual charity food drive, or the football game. This year, beating Auburn is an absolute prerequisite to Alabama securing a spot in the playoffs. At least one team in the current top four will suffer a loss. My money is on Georgia losing to LSU in the SEC CG. It is possible Ohio State will also lose at least one of its final two games. In my opinion, a two-loss Georgia drops out of the top four, and Alabama, with a decisive victory this coming Saturday in the Village moves into the number 4 slot. Whether the rematch with LSU comes in the semi-finals or the final remains to be seen. Two weeks ago, Alabama demonstrated it was very capable of beating LSU.

Here’s hoping the Tide earns the opportunity.

To earn that opportunity: Beat Auburn. For all that is right and true: Beat Auburn. Because Arkansas has suffered enough without the coach it really wants: Beat Auburn.

Roll Tide, Y’all!

The Commissioner

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Mississippi State Grades

noreply@blogger.com (Woody Woodruff) — Sun, 17 Nov 2019 20:10:00 +0000

The loss of Tua Tagovailoa for the remainder of the season is a crying shame. I can think of no Bama player in the modern era who achieved as much, played as brilliantly, and served so well as the face of the program in such a short period of time. Whatever faint hope may have flickered for Tua to come back in two weeks and lead the Tide to victory in the 2019 Iron Bowl was extinguished with a tersely worded statement from Dr. Lyle Cain late Saturday:

Tua Tagovailoa sustained a right hip dislocation that was immediately reduced at the stadium. He is undergoing further testing to determine the best course of treatment. He is expected to make a full recovery but will miss the remainder of the season.

Whether Tua’s football career at Alabama has come to an end remains to be seen. He and his family must work through a complex process to make the best decision for Tua and his younger brother. For any pundit to offer unsolicited advice, or speculate publicly based, is irresponsible.

There are two things the Alabama fan base ought to do. Celebrate the spectacular contributions Tua has made to the program we love. And encourage this team to finish the season by playing to the Alabama standard; trust The Process, be the best you can be, focus on making the right decisions and doing everything the right way.

Because there is no time like the present to get started, here is how I grade the Mississippi State game:

Offense: A Alabama gained 510 total offensive yards [160 net rushing], earned 24 first downs, converted 6 of 10 third downs, and controlled the ball for 27:57.

Despite playing only the first half, Tua completed 14 of 18 pass attempts for 256 yards and 2 TD’s. Mac Jones gained 94 passing yards on 7 completions on 11 attempts. Neither quarterback gave up an interception.

Jerry Jeudy was the Tide’s leading receiver with 114 yards on 7 catches. DeVonta Smith added 92 yards on 6 receptions, and Najee Harris gained 51 yards and scored a TD on three receptions. Jaylen Waddle also caught a TD pass. Six different receivers caught passes.

Najee Harris continued his dominance as a play maker with 88 net yards rushing and 3 rushing TDs. His four touchdowns in the first half tied DeVonta Smith’s school record for touchdowns in a half. Brian Robinson, Jr. averaged 7.0 yards per carry on 8 rushing plays for a net of 56 yards gained rushing.

The offense made seven drives that gained 40 or more yards [55, 70, 69, 70, 81, 43, 44] that achieved 4 TDs and a FG. The final two sustained drives were merely second-half clock killers.

Alabama scored a touchdown on each of its first five possessions of the game.

Defense: A The Bulldogs were limited to only 270 yards offense, 11 first downs, and 7 points. State was able to convert only 3 of 12 third downs, and 1 of 4 fourth down attempts. The SEC’s leading rusher entering the game, MSU’s Kylin Hill was held to only 35 net yards on 16 carries.

Freshman LB Shane Lee led all defenders with 10 tackles [2 solo]; he also intercepted a pass on MSU’s first offensive play of the game. Anfernee Jennings was credited with 8 tackles [3 solo], and Shyheim Carter logged 7 tackles [4 solo].

In total, the defense inflicted 6 tackles for lost yardage, broke up 4 passes, and hurried the State QB 4 times.

Special Teams

Punting: A Ty Perine punted twice for an average of 39.5 yards. Neither punt was returned. Jaylen Waddle returned two MSU punts for a total of 28 yards.

Kickoff: B+ Joseph Bulovas averaged 41.4 yards per kick. The coverage team allowed the Bulldogs to gain 60 yards on a total of two returns.

Place Kicking: A Bulovas was successful from 22 yards on his lone field goal attempt, and was perfect on PATs. The coaches substituted Mac Jones to hold on place kicks before Tua’s injury.

Coaching: B+ I do not attribute any fault for Tua’s injury to the coaching staff. Fans are free to do otherwise, but they do so with the advantage of hindsight. Tua was playing well, did not re-injure his ankle, and his previous injury contributed nothing toward his dislocated hip. Coach Saban explained that Mac Jones was slated to play the second half and he wanted Tua to get in-game experience running the two-minute offense before making the switch to Jones. The downgrade from an A-level performance is due to 7 penalties costing the Tide a combined 86 yards, and keeping alive MSU’s lone touchdown drive. The participation report lists 59 players who saw action in the game.

Twenty-one months ago, in January 2018, the Commissioner’s Long-Suffering Wife and I had the great fortune to be present in Atlanta’s Mercedes Benz Stadium when Tua Tagovailoa led Alabama to an improbable comeback win over Georgia to claim the Tide’s 17^th National Championship. I had also seen Tua play earlier in the year when the Tide visited Nashville to deliver a beating to Vanderbilt Commodores. Tua entered the game early in the third quarter and dazzled everyone with his skill. One play in particular stands out in my memory. He was flushed from the pocket, spun to avoid a sack, ducked to avoid another, spotted DeVonta Smith in the endzone and, off balance, falling backwards, threw a perfect spiral for another Bama touchdown.

I was also present for last season’s SEC Championship Game where Jalen Hurts came off the bench to rally the Tide for another conference title. A return engagement with the Dawgs to contest the Conference Championship is the longest of long shots this season, because LSU holds the tie breaker over Alabama. The Tigers would have to lose this coming weekend to the hapless Razorbacks to not settle the SEC West. Meanwhile, the Piggies are busy cleaning out the head coach’s office hoping the Gus Bus arrives in Fayetteville after Auburn loses the Iron Bowl.

The Jalen Hurts role now passes to Mac Jones, but he will not have to carry the team alone. Najee Harris has been playing like a man possessed. The Tide receivers can make plays out of any ball thrown within their zip code. The Defense knows bad injury luck; it has dealt all season with key players being hurt.

So, here’s to Tua Tagovailoa: come what may in your football future, in my opinion you are the best to ever play quarterback for the Crimson Tide.

And here’s to the team. It’s time to finish the right way. Fight on .... Fight on .... Fight on, men. Beat the Catamounts ... then the Barn. See you Saturday in Tuscaloosa!

Roll Tide, Y’all.

The Commissioner

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Tire Store Report -- LSU

noreply@blogger.com (Woody Woodruff) — Tue, 12 Nov 2019 22:14:00 +0000

Excellent work on a disappointing spectacle, Commissioner. You did such an outstanding job on the performance of the various units, that we have little to add. We'll spend our PSI on other issues.

Coaching: We are glad we didn’t have to grade this category. The second half adjustments were mostly very good. The problem was, they needed to be brilliant and perfect, which they were not, because of how terrible the coaching was in the first half. Alabama appeared to come out tight or flat or both, if that’s possible. Aside from the very first, unproductive, drive, the first two quarters we were out-schemed by the LSU coordinators on both sides of the ball.

Our redzone play calling has left some to be desired for a few weeks now. However, Coach Sark has done a good job of playing to his team’s strengths and did a great job with Mac Jones in the Arkansas game. Saturday afternoon? Not so much. Defensively, we allowed far too many LSU receivers to find empty spots in the field for uncontested catches. On one touchdown, it appeared to us that two LSU receivers were wide open for the score. Sometimes it is difficult to decide whether the issue is the scheme or the players. The coaches can draw it up correctly, however, it is up to the players to be in the right spot and execute. So you can attribute a few missed plays to players making errors, being in the wrong spot, tackling poorly, dropping a pass, etc. It happens, especially in the college game. A whole half of players out of position? Nope, that is on the coaches.

Now, admittedly, this game may have actually been lost in fall camp as player after player was injured or chose to play and/or on the third Saturday in October and/or on the very strange injury to our best tight end. Once it was obvious to everyone that Tua was: 1. Rusty; 2. Less than 100% healthy; and 3. Very unlikely to run or scramble, Alabama’s options offensive options became more limited in the game where that was least affordable. Full credit to LSU for having a great plan, recognizing limitations, and executing their schemes. Alabama turned the ball over three times a/k/a three times too many in what was essentially the Conference Championship play-in game. And usually, when a team fumbles the ball, you credit the other team for a hard hit or the like. No defender was within three yards on Tua’s fumble or the muffed punt snap (which appeared to us to be perfectly on target). So you are right, Commissioner, Alabama helped LSU beat Alabama. You correctly point out that the punting issue was the same as a straight fumble. And LSU converted both turnovers into points, as well as Tua's interception. This team should have been better prepared.

Broadcasting: F I’m in favor of one of those fancy Go Fund Me campaigns to buy out the rest of the CBS contract. Alabama probably cannot do it alone, but with 14 teams in the league, we ought to be able to make it happen. Shoot, we’ll throw in a free balance and rotate for the first 50 people to sign up. The commercials are still our major complaint. No overtime and this game ran to nearly four hours long (aided by an awful lot of LSU player injuries from which most players recovered in a couple of downs). Gary seemed particularly grating this time. For example, no, Gary, Tua was not carrying the ball in his “non-dominant” hand on the first quarter fumble. Tua is pretty famously right-handed; he just throws with his left. Or at least we think a lot of people know that. Gary doesn’t. Good thing he isn’t being paid big bucks to know details about the teams he covers or anything like that. And if we had a player make a reception like Moss’s at the goal line, do you think Gary wouldn’t mention that “controversial” call about 16 million times during the remainder of the game? As well as next year? “You know, Alabama wouldn’t really be ahead right now if that call on the sideline had gone the other way”; or “Alabama won by 5, but really that touchdown before the half should have been a penalty….” Maybe before next season CBS will “promote” Gary to their NFL lineup. We may ask Santa for that.

Officiating: F. These guys were truly, truly awful. And with how low the SEC Bar for average officiating is currently set, that is saying something. We’ll mention three things in particular.

First, it is a tribute to the Alabama conditioning program and the marvelous construction of the human body that Jalen Waddle was able to leave the game Saturday night with his head still attached to his body. We cannot really recall a more obvious uncalled facemask infraction since, well, ever. It wasn’t that his head moved, Waddle’s whole body turned around to face the official, opposite the direction he had just been running full speed. The official was maybe 10 yards downfield. Perhaps, in his infinite wisdom and experience he realized Waddle was going to take that one to the house so no reason to have to lean his overweight self over to pick up the flag from the turf. But in a league that has supposedly gotten obsessed with player safety, ignoring a potential career-ending blow like that seems out of step. Unless, of course, you weren’t watching the game.

Second, the little noticed targeting call on Barmore could have been a serious problem. Barmore seemed to be our most effective player in the middle of the defensive line on Saturday. Barmore has been called a couple of times this year for targeting -- one seemed legitimate, one not so much. But this wasn’t even a particularly hard hit. We understand that the officials are supposed to throw the flag on the field and let the booth sort it out. As bad a night as they were having, we are very lucky he stayed in the game. This is especially the case if you noticed that Tua was subject to several late-ish high hits in the pocket.

Third, the spots were an issue all night. We are complaining about this only as part of a failure to meet a standard of competence, because it was bad for both teams.

Fourth, the Moss sideline catch was just incomprehensible (not taking anything from LSU, it was a perfectly placed ball and an athletic effort -- no angle we saw showed if he was in bounds at the time of the actual catch or not). Otherwise, this has gone from ridiculous to ludicrous, or some such thing. Words would fail Monsieur Roget himself.

The SEC knows it has a serious officiating problem. Now, we think they believe it is just an incorrect impression shared by fans and that they are actually doing a bang-up good job. Rather than attempt in any public or demonstrable way that they are trying to improve the officiating, the League Office has embarked on a campaign to get people to not criticize its officials. This campaign has included letting newspaper reporters pretend to be officials in a scrimmage or the like so they can see first-hand how “hard" the job is. Well, that’s a fine exercise I guess, but no one is disputing that the task is difficult – the issue is that a difficult task is being performed poorly. We suspect most of the reporters knew this and also knew this was nothing more than an opportunity to try to influence their reporting.

Next was an unprompted, longish vote of confidence from Conference Commissioner Sankey in response to, well, to nothing more than another lousy half season of officiating from his crews of blind mice.

Then, CBS and ABC/ESPN adopted “rules experts” that they call on for interpretations in-game. These are mostly retired officials, as far as we can tell. The fairly obvious purpose is for them to be apologists for the on-field officiating to the viewing public. Unfortunately, they are often in the spot of defending the indefensible. We have never heard one consulted on a completely missed call, like the facemask on Waddle. You might be interested to know that SEC Officials even have their own social media outlet to defend themselves. Saturday evening their responses on Twitter about the sideline catch ruling was a sad and unintentionally hilarious montage that was somewhere between “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” and “There are no American troops anywhere in Iraq”. The CBS expert was so perplexed that he talked with someone to get an explanation that he lamely trotted out several minutes after the fact. Wonder who called whom?

The video replay booth appears to have joined the circle-the-wagons approach. All too often the replay officials seem to be casting about for reasons to let calls stand than to get them right. We have heard it proposed that the replay process in Major League Baseball be changed so that the officials in New York do not know what the umpire’s call on the field originally was. I’m not sure how you do this because the original call is often obvious from the video, but it’s a great suggestion – that is, if what you are really focused on is getting the calls right rather than just making yourself look better than you actually are.

No help for any of that. LSU played well and Alabama lost a winnable game. The negative effects of that loss are far-reaching (though we think Coach O standing at mid-field and proclaiming that BDS was now "our house" was a bit over the top). The coaches likely have a major task ahead in getting this team prepared to play on Saturday morning. We are interested to see how they and the players respond. That game will tell a lot about the character of this team.

Roll Tide. Beat the Bulldogs.

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LSU Grades

noreply@blogger.com (Woody Woodruff) — Sun, 10 Nov 2019 21:07:00 +0000

Our correspondent in the Faculty Lounge points out that nobody beats Alabama except Alabama. It is certainly true that Alabama made a generous contribution to LSU’s 46-41 victory before a capacity crowd at Bryant-Denny Stadium yesterday. With awful play in every phase of the game, the Tide put itself in a 20 point hole at half-time, and did not play well enough on defense in the second half to climb out and win.

In case someone who attended the game wants to comment on it, I think that last sentence might fit into a tweet.

Readers of this blog will know that I am a “glass half full” sort of person. I agree with Coach Saban that a loss is an opportunity to learn and improve. In order to do that, one must first look objectively at what went wrong. Identifying problems with the Tide’s play in the first half is like hunting on a baited field; there were more errors than I can mention. So, let’s just look at the more costly:

The offense turned the ball over with a lost fumble, and an interception, both of which resulted in touchdowns. Special teams “failed to execute” a punt and turned the ball over on downs; LSU kicked a field goal. The defense surrendered first half touchdown drives of 92, 75, and 61 yards. The coaches made their contribution as well; a take-away interception that would have ended LSU’s second drive was nullified by a substitution penalty. The drive resulted in a successful field goal.

In all, miscues led directly to 16 LSU points, and Tua’s fumble at the LSU 5 yard line on the game’s opening drive squandered at least a chance at 3 Tide points. When you play that badly in the first half, to end up losing by only 5 is remarkable. Lesser teams would have packed it in after surrendering 14 points in the last 30 seconds of the second quarter; not the Tide.

LSU’s opening drive of the second half ended with a lost fumble. The Tide was forced to punt. Both teams exchanged punts, then Alabama changed the game with a 10 play, 95 touchdown drive. The defense forced another punt, Bama drove 78 yards on 9 plays for another TD and 00:27 into the final stanza the LSU lead had been cut to six.

Neither team punted in the 4th quarter. The Tide defense allowed LSU to drive 75 yards in 12 plays, followed by another 75 yards in 7 plays, each for touchdowns. The defense had LSU in 3rd down and 10 and 3^rd down and 5 during the first drive, but could not contain Joe Burrow and LSU’s bruising running back, Ed.-Helaire. Tua and the offense answered each LSU score with a touchdown. The defense stopped an attempted two-point conversion, so the final margin was only 5 points.

Because I try to implement my own piece of The Process, here is how I grade the game:

Offense: C+ The Tide offense gained 541 yards of total offense (123 net rushing), made 22 first downs, converted only 6 of 15 third downs, but did convert 3 of 5 4th downs (the botched punt attempt is counted as a 4th down conversion failure), and held the ball for 25:26 of game time.

Tua completed only 21 of 40 pass attempts, but completed passes accounted for 418 yards and 4 TDs. He was intercepted once and lost a fumble at the LSU 5 yard line.

Najee Harris was the difference-maker on offense. He gained 146 net yards rushing and scored a rushing TD. He also caught 3 passes for 44 yards and a touchdown. Najee ran the ball with guts and determination. He is a fierce competitor.

DeVonta Smith was Alabama’s leading receiver with 213 yards on 7 receptions. His longest reception was an 85 yard touchdown catch in the game’s final minutes. Jerry Jeudy made 5 catches for 71 yards and a TD, Henry Ruggs, III, Najee, and Jaylen Waddle each had three receptions.

The offense had six drives that gained 40 or more yards [63, 90, 95, 78, 75, 85]. Four of those drives came in the second half. Each drive ended in a touchdown, except the first which ended with Tua’s fumble inside the Tiger 10 yard line. Four Alabama possessions ended with turnovers [fumble, downs, downs, interception], however the first turnover on downs was committed by the punt team.

Again, it is impossible to say too much about what a great player Najee Harris is. He was the offensive workhorse of the second half. It is also impossible to say too much about what a great competitor Tua is. He played through adversity with grit and determination. He got better as the game progressed and his last play from scrimmage was an 85 yard touchdown strike to DeVonta Smith that gave his team the chance to win if he could get the ball back. There is no doubt in my mind that if Alabama had recovered the on-side kick, all of America would be talking about how the Tide came back to win.

Defense: F Yes, it’s true the defense made 5 sacks, forced a fumble [Xavier McKinney] and recovered the loose ball [Terrell Lewis], hurried Joe Burow 7 times, and stopped a two point conversion attempt. But that was simply not enough, and the Stop Troops failed to stop LSU in the 4^th quarter when the Offense was in a position to win the game.

LSU gashed the Bama defense for 559 total yards, that netted 29 first downs. The Tigers converted 8 of 15 third down attempts.

Xavier McKinney was the leading tackler with 13 stops [9 solo]. Jaren Mayden recorded 11 tackles [4 solo], and Treyvon Diggs was credited with 10 tackles [5 solo].

Special Teams:

Punting: F Ty Perine punted the ball 3 times for an average of 48.7. Two of his punts sailed more than 50 yards. So why the failing grade? Bama attempted 4 punting plays. The punter only kicked the ball 3 times. The return game, gets an A+ for Jaylen Waddle’s 77 yard touchdown return.

Place kicking: F Joe Bulovas missed a PAT.

Kickoffs: A Joe Bulovas averaged 43.2 yards per kick, but most of his kicks had enough hang time that the LSU returner was forced to call for a fair catch. The Tide kick return game executed 5 returns, 4 of which gained plus yardage beyond the 25 yard line.

Coaching: D Alabama was penalized for a substitution infraction that reversed an interception on a drive that led to LSU scoring points. The participation reports lists 49 players who saw action in the game. It’s hard to give the coaches any grade higher than the average of how the players grade out. Special consideration however must be given to the second half performance to cut the deficit to 5 points.

If you didn’t care who won, this was a highly entertaining football game. Because readers of this blog care deeply who wins when Alabama plays, this loss is a great disappointment. LSU is an excellent football team. Alabama did not play to Alabama’s standard. The SEC West Championship is now only a remote mathematical possibility; with the tiebreaker over Bama, LSU only must beat two of Ole MIss, Arkansas, and Texas A&M to claim the West’s spot in the SEC CG. Whether Alabama played itself out of the CFB Playoffs in the first half, or played itself back into the mix in the second half remains to be seen.

Number 4 Penn State lost to 17^th ranked Minnesota 31-26. Number 9 Oklahoma struggled to a one point win over 5-4 Iowa State. Top ranked Ohio State crushed Maryland 73-14 while number 5 Clemson whipped NC State 55-10. Georgia beat Missouri 27-0 on the same day South Carolina-UGA’s only loss this year-fell to Appalachian State!

If I was doing the CFB Playoff rankings, this week’s line up would be:

1 LSU

2 Ohio State

3 Clemson

4 Alabama

5 Georgia

6 Penn State

7 Oklahoma

8 Florida

9 Baylor

10 Wisconsin

But I’m not doing the rankings. This is just my opinion what they should be for this week.

Ohio State and Penn State still have to play each other. Wisconsin may yet play a spoiler role. Georgia will lose to LSU in the SEC CG. Clemson will not play anyone capable of beating them until the playoffs. So, Alabama is vying for the number 4 spot. Maybe outplaying LSU in the second half will have some cache with the selection committee. Who knows?

What is certain, is none of this matters if Alabama does not win out. The margin for error is 0.0 and the most important game of the season so far is this coming Saturday against Mississippi State. Those obnoxious bell ringers have been spoilers before. They would like nothing better than to be so again.

I agree with the Professor; nobody beats Alabama without Alabama helping. The Road to 18 is starting to look like a narrow country lane barley one-car wide, and there is two-way traffic.

Buckle up.

And Roll Tide, Y’all.

The Commissioner

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Arkansas Grades

noreply@blogger.com (Woody Woodruff) — Sun, 27 Oct 2019 15:19:00 +0000

As the Commissioner and his bride continue their swing through a whole bunch of European countries that we’d have trouble finding on a map for their well-deserved vacation, it falls to us to document Saturday evening’s homecoming roasting of an overmatched bunch of Hogs in Tuscaloosa.

Let us tell the truth right up front -- Arkansas is not a good football team. They have lost their last two games by a combined score of 99-17, and neither game was really as close as the scores would indicate. Ever since Coach Petrino’s motorcycle crash with benefits, the Razorbacks have just not been able to recapture the form that their once-proud program could boast. Alabama last lost to Arkansas in the 2006 season. We’ll give you a minute to think about what you were doing 13 years ago, but the quarterback who took the majority of the second-half snaps for Alabama on Saturday was busy facing his first set of kindergarten mid-terms.

Frankly, most of the drama in this game was about how backup quarterback Mac Jones would perform in his first start for the Crimson Tide. The answer was “admirably”. By the end of the first quarter the issue was no longer in doubt. By the end of third, everyone except the always laser-focused Nick Saban’s thoughts had turned to end-of-evening homecoming celebrations. Shoot, we didn’t even get upset enough to scare the dogs to their usual hiding place under the coffee table.

We will not impose the usual letter grade deduction for quality of competition -- that would disrespectful to a division opponent, even one that sits at 2-6 on the season. Here is how we grade the game.

Offense: A- The offense manage 459 total yards and possessed the football for nearly 35 minutes of the game. They earned 23 first downs and converted 8 of 13 third down opportunities. The quarterbacks managed to complete 24-30 passes with no interceptions. Najee Harris left the game early but had 86 yards on 13 carries and Brian Robinson, Jr. had 67 yards, also on 13 carries and also left before the contest ended, though not for injury. Jerry Jeudy led all receivers with 7 catches for 103 yards and two touchdowns. Henry Ruggs III also had a TD catch. Jones played quite well and his long TD pass to Jeudy was beautiful. The down grade is for critical penalties, some high shotgun snaps, and loss of focus on downfield blocking a few times. The offense did not turn the football over. But for a conference game with the second-string quarterback starting, this performance earned an excellent grade. Frankly, if Alabama had wanted to score in the 60s, it would not have been a challenge.

Defense: A The defense appears to be rounding into shape. Alabama held Arkansas to only 213 total yards, divided almost equally between rushing and passing. Individually Shane Lee led all tacklers with 6, five solo, including a sack and two tackles for a loss. There were three interceptions, including a beautiful Trevon Diggs 84-yard pick six before the half plus a fumble recovery. Holding any conference opponent to 7 points earns an A, and their touchdown drive was aided by a mental mistake on special teams. The Hogs did move the ball at times, but the middle of defense, manned by so many freshman, appears to be firming up. Arkansas was 3 of 12 on third down and the Stop Troops scored as many tds on the night as the Piggie offense. We did not recognize it till we saw the drive chart today, but it appears that Arkansas had only three drives in the second half, two of which totaled six plays. That will lose you a lot of football games.

Special Teams: A-

Punting: We like the new punter. Even his “poor” line drive punt on Saturday got a nice bounce and roll and was unreturnable. Two punts with a 47 yards average is more than serviceable. In an odd statistic, neither team had any put return yards, though if we were faced with kicking to Jaylen Waddle, we’d do everything we could to make him fair catch it our kick it out of bounds. The lining up in the neutral zone penalty on the Arkansas punt nearly cost us our head coach to exploding head syndrome. The neutral zone is only 11 inches wide, let’s stay out of it please, gentlemen.

Kickoffs: Both teams had stupid fielding plays, catching kickoffs that were headed out of bounds and then stepping out deep in their own territory. That cannot happen in a competitive game. We expect the point will be made.

Placekicking: Bulovas was 2/2 on field goals with a long of 31 yards and 6/6 on PATs. That all deserves high marks especially on a field that had absorbed about three inches of rain in the past 24 hours. We did not watch any of them.

Coaching: A- The coaches did an outstanding job this week. It is hard to keep college players focused through the long grind of a college season, especially for a game against an overmatched opponent like Arkansas, sandwiched between the annual tussle against a bitter rival and an off week -- not to mention with perhaps the toughest game on the schedule looming after that.

The offensive coaches called a good game for Jones and put him in a position to win. Issues related to the offensive and defensive lines appear to be shoring up. Lighting up players for boneheaded special teams mistakes in the second half send a message that is sure to be received.

The downgrade comes with quibbles that we have (for the second week in a row) with regard to goal line play-calls. That recurring issue must be fixed.

Officiating: D. This was Mark Curles’s crew -- we dare you to not think of Moe, Larry, and Curley. The incomplete signal on the touchdown in the back of the end zone was so puzzling that not even the booth apologists for the officials could explain it. Despite being a not-very-good team, Arkansas is a fine bunch of gentlemen and technicians. In fact, the zebras did not observe them to commit a single rules infraction all night, despite facing the #1 team in the country. SEC officiating is so bad that this week the Conference Commissioner, addressing exactly nothing, felt compelled to issue a statement about just how terrific SEC officiating really is. The dreaded vote of confidence. What is likely to change? Nothing.

They bye week falls at a good time. Lots of players were nicked up Saturday, Neal, Harris, Smith, etc. left with various bumps and bruises. We hear a rumor that the elder Tagovailoa has an ankle issue. It’ll be good to have everyone rested and healthy for LSU.

It is not out of bounds with a bye week coming up to take a gander around the rest of college football, which is head-scratchingly odd this season. Ohio State has a very solid team on both sides of the ball and with Wisconsin having lost two in a row, seems the class of their conference and playoff bound. Clemson is undefeated, though with a conference schedule softer than the bucket seats in one of those fancy Italian cars that JD hates to work on because they use a different sized bolt for every fitting. Seriously, how many SEC teams would go undefeated against Clemson’s conference schedule? We are guessing at least five. The Pac-12 is so impossible to predict we cannot imagine who is betting on them. Oklahoma managed to lose a game on Saturday to an unranked opponent despite gaining over 500 yards of offense. With the door open to climb back into the conference championship fight, Texas then managed to lose to TCU. No word on whether they first said, “hey Sooners, hold our beer and watch this.” Notre Dame, the traditional standard-bearer of the independents, now has two losses and appears to be out of contention.

We plan to take next weekend off from game-day stress and enjoy some football games not including Alabama. We urge you to do the same. The following week Coach Language Mangler and his Bayou Bengals come to town for the battle that likely determines the SEC West Champion. It promises to be a tad more hotly contested than last week’s game. We are so looking forward to it.

Roll Tide. Beat the Tigers.

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Tennessee Grades

noreply@blogger.com (Woody Woodruff) — Mon, 21 Oct 2019 13:44:00 +0000

The Commissioner is out of the country. (You have to wonder why he’d take a trip like that on the third Saturday of October, but he did.) His Son and Heir, who usually does the grades in his absence, was in T-Town for the game and wasn’t able to get home in time to prepare the grades before his day job called him. Our Correspondent from the Tire Store was on the East Coast for a wedding. (There ought to be a rule that you can’t get married during the season). So, we’re down to the Correspondent from the Faculty Lounge. We’ve gone about as deep in the depth chart as Tennessee went to find a QB. But here at the Commissioner’s Blog, we all play to a standard, even the 3’s and 4’s.

Sometimes a win doesn’t really feel like a win. Sometimes a win is ugly. Sometimes a win is costly. That’s kinda how we feel about last night’s game. Sure, the new lights were awesome and the haze from the cigar smoke in the stadium added to the surreal atmosphere. We beat the Vols now 13 times in a row. We got a 100-yard scoop and score. We enjoyed the booming punts by freshman walk-on Ty Perine. (Though we’d prefer drives ended with a score instead of punts). We marveled at Jason Waddle’s return game. And we saw Najee Harris chalk up his second straight 100-yard rushing game. We even saw a Bama wide receiver throw a touchdown pass.

Things started out pretty well. A quick TN three and out, a short punt, and a 13-yard return by Waddle gave us the ball at the TN 35. Four plays later Harris ran it in, and folks were already pulling the cellophane off their cigars. An interception by Jared Mayden on the third play of TN’s ensuing possession set us up first and ten at the TN 38. The blow-out was well underway and folks in the stands were clipping the ends of their cigars and testing their lighters. Two receptions by Harris and one each by Jerry Jeudy and Henry Ruggs, III, set us at the 2-yard line first and goal. Then things sorta went sideways.

On first and goal from the 2, Tua was flushed from the pocket (why we didn’t just pound it in is still under investigation. Some have suggested that OC Steve Sarkisian mistakenly picked up Lane Kiffen’s old playbook, but that’s just a rumor). He rolled to his left and just before stepping out of bounds he threw a bullet . . . to Nigel Warrior, who was wearing an orange hat. Tua’s second INT of the season. Warrior returned the ball 59 yards to the Bama 41. Six plays later, the Vols knotted the score at 7 all, aided along the way by a Bama defensive holding penalty.

Bama started its next possession at the 35-yard line. Four Harris runs, and a pass to Ruggs set us up for Robinson’s 9-yard TD run. OK, we got this. That interception and TN score was a fluke. A 14-point swing fluke, but a fluke, nonetheless.

TN drives 55 yards in 11 plays, aided by the first of four pass interference penalties, and kicks a field goal to make it a 14-10 game with 11:54 to play in the 2d quarter. On Bama’s next possession, Tua came out slinging it. Obviously, the INT didn’t hurt his confidence. Miller Forristall, Ruggs, Robinson, and Jeudy caught 77 yards worth of passes to set up Harris’ one-yard TD run. 21-10. TN’s next possession ends after 5 plays netted only 27 yards, aided by the second Bama pass interference penalty. A fair catch of the punt gave Bama the ball at their own 21. We got this. Wonder if it’s OK to smoke a cigar at the end of the first half and at the end of the game?

Then, the football gods turned their backs on us. Tua was sacked for a 5-yard loss on the first play. He completed a pass to Robinson to get back to the original line of scrimmage and then left the field for the medical tent. He then left the medical tent for the locker room. Then he left the stadium for a trip to the hospital. Reports are he underwent a surgical procedure for a high ankle sprain and will be out for 2 weeks. He told his teammates that he’ll be back for LSU on Nov. 9. Here’s hoping he’s right about that.

Mac Jones took over and hit Waddle for 13 yards and a first down. A 3-yard run by Harris, an incomplete pass to Major Tennison, and a sack left us with 4^th and 17 at our own 27. Will Reichard, who had been out with a pulled hip flexor for several weeks came on to punt. He limped off after kicking a 33 yarder, ne’r to return.

TN went three and out only gaining five yards and punted out of bounds at the Bama 17. Eight plays and 60 yards later, Harris running for half of those on three carries and Jones throwing to Harris and Forristall for the rest, Joe Bulovas came on to try a 41-yard field goal. TN Head Coach and former Saban assistant, Jeremy Pruitt, then began playing head games. He called three timeouts to ice Bulovas before the long field goal try. It worked as Bulovas pulled the kick left. Some might say that Pruitt didn’t have to use all three timeouts to accomplish his goal, but, they don’t give you any extra credit for going into the locker room with timeouts in your pocket. The half ended with Bama up 21-10.

Bama received the KO to start the 3d quarter and went 3 and out, gaining only 4 yards after starting on their own 9-yard line after being penalized for a personal foul on the KO. Ty Perine, the walk-on freshman, punted 42 yards to the TN 45 and received the loudest cheers from the crowd since Tua left the game. TN then went 40 yards in 11 plays and kicked a 32-yard FG to make it 13-21.

Mac Jones answered by engineering a 76-yard drive in 10 plays, aided by a TN personal foul penalty that extended the drive, ending in WR Slade Bolden, who played QB in high school, throwing a 6-yard TD pass to Forristall. Bama up 28-13.

Both teams went three and out on their next possessions. A high point of Bama’s 8-yard drive in 3 plays was Perine’s 51-yard punt. The low point was that TN returned the kick 22 yards and Perine had to make the tackle at the TN 34.

Thirteen plays and 66 yards later, aided by yet another Bama pass interference penalty, TN lined up at the Bama one-yard line on 4^th and goal. Jarrett Guarantano, TN’s back-up QB who came in after starter Brian Maurer left the game in the 1^st quarter with a possible concussion, stepped under center, took the ball, and tried to leap over the line. He didn’t make it. In an attempt to break the plane of the goal line, the ball was knocked loose and fell at the feet of Trevon Diggs. Diggs scooped it up, scooted 100 yards down the right sideline, and scored. The PAT was good, and Bama took the lead 35-13. Another 14-point swing, but this time the other direction. The cheers in the stadium were the loudest since Perine’s last punt.

TN went three and out on their possession after the KO. Waddle returned the punt 22 yards and Bama took over on the TN 38 with 5:00 minutes to play. Five runs by Brian Robinson, Jr., and three by Keilan Robinson moved the ball 31 yards and bled all but 30 seconds off the clock. On 4^th and 1 at the TN 7, Keilan Robinson was stopped for no gain and TN took over. The Vols took a knee and the game ended with a final score of 35-13.

The stadium lights went crazy, the cigar smoke was thick, another SEC win was in the books, and the third Saturday in October still belonged to the Tide. But it still felt off. We didn’t cover the spread (34.5points). We lost Tua and the specter of last year’s November doldrums hovered over Bryant-Denny Stadium. Reichard, our answer to the pitiful kicking game of the last couple of years, is still not healthy, though Perine was a high point on the punts. Our defense gave up 231 yards to a TN offense that was playing with second and third string QB’s most of the game. On top of that, our DB’s were called for four pass interference penalties against a crew of fair to middlin’ receivers who were thrown balls by a second string QB. With that in mind, here’s how I grade the game:

Offense: B-

We put 35 points on the board with 373 yards of total offense (233 passing; 140 rushing). Najee Harris accounted for 105 of those rushing yards on 21 plays for a 5.7 average. Brian Robinson, Jr., gained 40 on 7 tries, averaging 5 yards. Keilan Robison ran the ball 3 times for 6 yards. Tua was 11/12 passing for 155 yards and one INT. Jones was 6/11 for 72 yards. WR Slade Bolden was 1/1 for 6 yards and a TD to Forristall. Six different receivers caught balls thrown by the three QBs. Ruggs led the bunch with 4 catches for 72 yards. Harris also caught 4 passes and added 48 receiving yards to his 105 rushing. Jeudy pulled in 3 passes for 41 yards. Forristall caught 3 balls for 28 yards and a TD. Devonte Smith, who sat out the first half due to a targeting suspension from last week, caught one pass for 18 yards. Brian Robinson caught 2 passes for 18 yards. We converted 6/10 third downs. To state the obvious, our offense is not as productive without Tua. Mac Jones will get plenty of practice this week and game experience next week. He will need it in light of the November schedule and Tua’s health.

Defense: B-

We gave up 231 yards of total offense to the Vols who were operating with second and third string QBs for over 3 quarters. Of that, 114 were rushing yards and 117 passing. We did have one interception and Diggs’ 100-yard scoop and score. But we folded like a cheap suit on TN’s 41-yard drive after the interception. Four pass interference penalties at crucial times extended TN drives. But more importantly, the need to foul the TN receivers in order to cover them raises some concern when we face the likes of Joe Burrows and the LSU receivers.

Punting: A-

Perine’s punting was a high spot in the game. The down grade comes from giving up a 22-yard return after a 51-yard kick. Reichard’s 33 yarder was a result of his injury, even though he was kicking pretty well in warm up.

Kicking: C

We’re back to where we were. Bulovas made all the PATs, but just can’t nail the FGs when they’re needed. It doesn’t matter whether Pruitt called one or three TOs before the 41-yard attempt. Bulovas has plenty of leg, he’s just a bit off on direction. We either have to get him sorted or the offense has to put up enough points so that FGs don’t matter.

Coaching: C

Eight penalties for 93 yards is way too much, especially against teams we face down the road. I’m sure when the Tire Store opens after the wedding, the boys in the grease pit will have something to say about the penalty situation and the quality, or lack thereof, of the officiating. Whatever the defensive back coaches are doing to teach how to cover receivers without fouling them needs to be reevaluated. Plus, with a new QB under center the chances for miscommunications and timing errors are multiplied. I understand that we’re talking about games called by SEC officials, but that’s what we’re facing down the road. That’s why the coaches get the big bucks.

A win is a win. An SEC win is an important win. A win against the Vols is really a big win, regardless of their record coming in. So, we’re happy, proud, and grateful for notching #13 in a row. But, it was not a very impressive performance. We showed some character and determination over the course of four quarters and had some big plays but letting the Vols hang around until the 4^th quarter does not reflect good execution, focus, or intensity.

We face the Hogs next week. Arkansas hasn’t won an SEC contest since. . . oh, well, I can’t remember when. But they’re still an SEC opponent and we can’t lose focus. Next week is the most important game of the season. Tua will be watching from the sidelines. Slinging it for over 400 yards ain’t gonna happen. As Jermaine says, “Run da bawl!”

Roll Tide, y’all. Let’s cook up some pig!

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Texas A&M Grades

noreply@blogger.com (Woody Woodruff) — Sun, 13 Oct 2019 19:19:00 +0000

Noted philosopher Forrest Gump once said: “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get.” His observation on the surprises life offers applies to the 2019 Crimson Tide football team.

For instance: in each of Bama’s games this season a different offensive player has been an unstoppable play-maker. Jerry Jeudy was the offensive star in the win over Duke. When opposing defenses schemed to limit Jeudy’s opportunities, Henry Ruggs, III and DaVonte Smith swapped honors as leading receiver and set records for touchdown passes against South Carolina, Southern Miss, and Ole Miss. Against Texas A&M it was Jaylen Waddle who electrified Tide fans (and stupefied their Aggie counterparts) with 128 yards on 4 punt returns and three receptions for 48 yards and a touchdown.

The Offensive Line has been another pleasant surprise. Play along the offensive front has grown more consistent each week as the rotation seems to have stabilized. Yesterday, Alabama showed its best offensive balance of the season gaining 155 yards net rushing and 293 yards passing.

It is certainly true the Tide Defense is not at this moment an elite unit. But as the players gain experience, and more seasoned players return to action after injuries, their performance has produced some surprising results. The Stop Troops inflicted on the Aggies 7 tackles for lost yardage (5 sacks), forced and recovered a fumble, broke up 10 passes, and blocked a punt recovered for a touchdown.

Even place kicking delivered some surprises yesterday. Have we actually been practicing a bank-shot where the ball ricochets off the up-right and clears the cross bar?

Because I’m trying to lose some weight, the lid is going back on the chocolate candy and here is how I grade the game:

Offense: A Alabama gained 448 yards of total offense setting a new school record for consecutive games with 400 or more offensive yards. Those yards produced 25 first downs, 30:56 of possession time, and 40 points.

Tua played the entire game, completing 21 of his 34 pass attempts. On a pass intended for Jerry Jeudy in the Aggie end zone, he threw his first interception of the season. A completion would have given the Tide a three TD lead over the Aggies with less than two minutes to play in the first half. Instead, the Aggies were able (with the assistance of two personal foul penalties) to kick a field goal and complete a ten-point swing right before half-time. Bama received the second half opening kickoff and answered the Aggies’ FG with a 27 yard Joseph Bulovas three-pointer.

Davonte Smith came one-yard short of setting a new school record for consecutive games with at least one receiver earning 100 or more yards. He caught 7 passes for 99 yards including a 47 yard catch and run good of a touchdown in the second quarter. Jerry Jeudy gained 50 yards on 4 receptions. Waddle, Ruggs, and Najee Harris each caught TD passes. Seven different players caught passes.

Najee also posted his second 100+ rushing performance of the season gaining 114 net yards on 20 attempts (5.7 avg). Brian Robinson, Jr. gained 51 yards on 10 carries and scored a rushing TD.

The Tide scored on its first four offensive possessions, and did not have to surrender the ball with a punt until the third quarter. Bama’s offense engineered five drives of 40 or more yards [73, 57, 46, 51, 55] producing 3 TDs and 2 FGs.

Defense: B+ The Aggies were able to gain 389 total offensive yards, make 24 first downs, convert 5 of 12 third downs and score 28 points. Kellen Mond completed 24 of his 42 pass attempts for 264 yards, and rushed the ball for 90 net yards. Otherwise, the Aggies’ other running backs were held to 35 yards on 12 rushing plays.

Anfernee Jennings led all defenders with 8 tackles [6 solo] including 2 TFLs [1 sack]. He also broke up a pass. Shane Lee made 8 tackles [5 solo]. Shyheim Carter was credited with 7 tackles [5 solo]. He also broke up two passes and forced a fumble. Xavier McKinney made 6 tackles [4 solo] and recovered the fumble forced by Carter.

The most spectacular defensive play came when Ale Kaho [So. LB; 6-1, 228; Reno, NV] blocked an Aggie punt recovered by Tyrell Shavers [R. So. WR; 6-6, 205; Lewisville, TX] for a touchdown.

Special Teams:

Punting: A+. The excellent punting grade was earned by Jaylen Waddle and the rest of the punt return team. Skyler Delong punted twice for an average of only 29.5 yards. His longest punt was 36 yards. The coverage team allowed the Aggies one punt return that gained 10 yards.

Place Kicking: D Joe Bulovas was good on both of his FG attempts, but he had a PAT blocked.

Kickoffs: A+. Bulovas averaged only 47 yards per kick, but the coverage team allowed only a single return of 14 yards and the point of the tackle was inside the Aggie 20. The kick return team gained 159 yards with Henry Ruggs, III leading the way with 4 returns for 131 yards.

Thanks to excellent special teams play, the Tide Offense's average starting field position was the Bama 47 yard line.

Coaching: A The Tide were penalized 11 times for 91 yards. The Aggies were flagged 5 times for 55 yards. This may have been one of the worst performances by an officiating crew I’ve seen this season. Two of Bama’s penalties were tick tack personal foul calls, imposed on TAMU’s final possession of the first quarter. A strict application of the black letter of the rules against roughing the passer might…..and again I say “might” … justify calling an infraction on those plays. But to penalize Alabama players for hitting Kellen Mond as he is still in the process of thrown the ball, and ignore hits on Tua several steps after the ball is in the air is changing the strike zone when the visiting team comes to the plate.

And don’t get me started on the ejection of DaVonte Smith. Coach Saban was asked about it in the post-game presser. He pointed out DaVonte was wrong to retaliate in kind to being punched by the Aggie DB after the whistle. He implied the League Office would be reviewing the call this week. At this writing, I am not sure what exactly that means.

When officials do not call a game with an even hand, one of the consequences is increased chippy play by the team benefiting from the double standard. That was certainly the case yesterday. At the end of the game, there appeared to be some extra-curricular chatter between the Tide offensive line and representatives of the Aggie defense. Coaches and other players defused the situation quickly and nothing seems to have come of it. I have not been able to find any references to the dispute in published reports. So I don’t know what exactly was going on. My guess is the players were NOT debating whether the Earl of Oxford is the real author of the plays of Shakespeare.

On the subject of coaching: is there any question that Nick Saban is a far better coach than Jimbo Fisher? Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure when it comes to Xs and Os Coach Fisher is better than most of his professional peers. There is no doubt he is a good recruiter. But don’t you think there was a time in the 4th quarter that Fisher ought to have given Kellen Mond a curtain call and let his obviously injured quarterback take a well deserved seat? I wholly endorse the concept of leading by example, but if the TAMU players need the example of the guy who accounts for 90% of their offense playing injured in a hopeless game with half the season still ahead, then somebody needs to re calibrate the Aggies’ priorities.

Apart from his deep thoughts on the meaning of existence, and receiving the Congressional Medal of Honor for gallantry in Vietnam, Forrest Gump is best known for the punt he returned for a touchdown against Tennessee when he played for Coach Bryant. It is once again time to focus on the Volunteers.

UT is struggling. May it ever be so. Their win over Mississippi State probably tells us as much about the Bulldogs as it does the Volunteers, however, I believe Jeremy Pruitt was safe in his job regardless of the outcome of yesterday’s game. Phil Fulmer did not want his first game as Interim Head Coach to be against Alabama.

The Tide have enjoyed an unprecedented win-streak over the Vols since Nick Saban became head coach. There is no objective reason to think the streak will end this coming weekend. It is a measure of how far Tennessee has fallen as a program that broadcasters slotted the Alabama -Tennessee game for an 8:00 pm kickoff.

Nevertheless, Tennessee is now the most important game of the season so far. So Roll Tide, beat the Vols, and “run Forrest, run!”

Roll Tide

The Commissioner

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Rebel Landshark Black Bear Hotty Toddy Grades

noreply@blogger.com (Woody Woodruff) — Sun, 29 Sep 2019 16:03:00 +0000

So the Commissioner was busy giving away a bride on Saturday and asked if we could get Pee Wee and Big Willie to handle busting down the tires and running the alignment machine to write The Grades this week. We are happy to do so, though a little nervous -- the Commissioner leaves a big keyboard to fill and, well, Pee Wee is still a little scared of the fancy computer-controlled alignment machine. Best wishes to the happy couple, Commish.

Saturday was another blazing hot day in Tuscaloosa, with the on-field thermometer needling over to near 110 degrees. The other thing that was scorching hot was the Alabama offense that lit up the scoreboard the way a lightning strike sometimes lights up entire counties out in California. The defensive performance left some to be desired given usual expectations. Nonetheless, a blow out win against a divisional opponent is never to be taken for granted, especially this divisional opponent.

Look at it this way if no other -- Alabama beat Mississippi 31-0 in the second quarter. Did the players seem to lose a little focus and energy in the second half? Yes, they did. Although we’d have been happier to win every quarter by a score of 31-0, we understand that in that heat and with those levels of success, yeah a group of 18-22 year olds may have a little trouble staying in the game. More below.

As CBS and Gary Danielson found no end of reasons to reference, Mississippi defeated Alabama two seasons in a row, including one game where they had enough lucky breaks to equal walking into your kitchen on a stray Saturday evening and finding a unicorn standing there. A red and blue unicorn. With a striped horn. Wearing a bow tie.

So Saturday was satisfying in that Alabama logged another blowout win against an over-matched opponent, maintained its undefeated season, and perhaps by the time it returns to the field in Tuscaloosa in a few weeks, the weather will be a little more temperate. We hope, however, that the team is hotter than a set of drum brakes on a Plymouth Roadrunner.

Here is how we grade the game

Offense: A+ Let us not mince words. This was an excellent offensive performance. A few years back we told the lug nut crew to pay special attention to Julio Jones, because he was such an excellent wide receiver we probably did not have enough football watching years left to see his equal. And then Amari Cooper. And then Calvin Ridley. And now? OK, Jerry Jeudy was generally considered to be the best WR on the team in August and we think he still is, frequently drawing double team coverage and still getting plenty of catches. Saturday, apparently having become the all time rock, paper scissors champion, DeVonta Smith caught 11 passes for 274 yards, setting records for TD receptions in a half, game, becoimg the all time receiving TD leader in Alabama history (at least for now), etc. Neither of those guys is as fast as Henry Ruggs, III. On perhaps 100 of the top division college teams, Jalen Waddle would be the best receiver by a good bit…..

Tua Tagovailoa passed A.J. McCarron for TD responsibility in a career, in fewer games. His six TD passes was a career and program high. Overall, he was 26/36 for 481 yards. Let us be realistic, Mississippi’s pass defense is somewhere between atrocious and putrid, but these numbers are difficult to achieve against air.

The Mississippi run defense, however, was relatively respectable coming into Saturday. The running game showed signs of life, with 30 carries for 155 yards and Harris and Robinson combining for 19 carries for 131. And if you haven’t yet seen the video of Jedrick Wills, Jr. tossing a hapless Mississippi defender backwards like a rag doll, look up the video -- it’s worth 10 seconds of your life for sure. In all Alabama tallied 573 yards of offense in the contest.

In short, the offense was basically unstoppable and could easily have scored in the 70s. That’s at the top end grade of an excellent performance

Defense: C A “C” grade represents a fair performance. Which this was. Coach Saban said, rather tellingly, after the game: “The players we have are the players we have.” Terrell Lewis was a force to be reckoned with -- on the downs he was in the game. The same was true for D.J. Dale. The injury losses have been, perhaps, over-documented elsewhere. Mississippi rushed for 279 yards and passed for 197. Mayden had a nice pick and return. Plumee rushed for 109 yards on 25 carries but managed a QBR of only 34. In his post game press conference, Coach Saban mentioned that the officials failed to give Alabama a chance to substitute after Mississippi did so. We don’t know why Williamson’s crew didn’t do a better job at this. Oh, wait, they are SEC officials. Never mind.

The problem is that this is a game where you’d like to get a good bit of experience for your second team players and a number of snaps for your third string. At some positions, Alabama is starting its second string and the third is pressed into service early in the game for standard relief. Again, the defense was on the field for over 80 plays, which is unsustainable. Some of that is due to an offense that is a threat to be in the end zone on every play. However, some of that is due to not being able to force a three-and-out. However, when the game seemed competitive near the end of the first quarter, Alabama forced (we think) five straight short scoreless possessions by Mississippi until things were out of reach.

To our eyes, it looked like the defense got hot, tired, and bored with the contest. Such is youth. The coaches have work to do here.

Special Teams: ?+/- Well, we really wish the Commissioner had to issue this grade. Normally, a game with a blocked punt recovered in the end zone for a touchdown would earn an automatic A. Fumbling a punt that lead to the other team scoring a touchdown would earn an F. A game allowing blocked punt -- we still aren’t sure if it was blocked or not because CBS was too busy showing us some graphic about how much better Y.A. Tittle was than Sonny Jurgensen or something equally less relevant should also earn an F. But Waddle was otherwise electric on kick returns and will eventually take one all the way this year so that deserves a good grade. Except that one kick return was called back to inside our 10 because of a block in the back.

With the backup handling place kicking you are inclined to grant some extra credit, but this kicker is an upperclassman who was the starter last season. (And, we hope Reichard gets well soon after he hurt his leg by kicking the kicking tee. Perhaps we should get rid of the cast iron model and/or not nail it into the turf with a spike from here on.) Most kickoffs forced fair catches and coverage was generally excellent. But we kicked off out of bounds one time -- an automatic low grade. We made a 36-yard field goal, which is great. But we hit the upright on a 28-yarder that was probably attempted just to help the kicker’s confidence because at that time we didn’t really need the points. We don’t know the conference and overall NCAA record for most uprights hit in a season (we are guessing someone does) but with 3 or 4 that we recall in just four games, we have to be getting close. Though, is that really the record you want to have writ in crimson flame? We think not.

And for all of you who took our grade above to be characters representing a swear word, well, if the kicking tee fits….

Coaching: B-. The offense was well-prepared and handled the not very good Mississippi defense with ease. New wrinkles appeared in the offensive play calling. Defensively, this team was not well prepared for the quasi single wing style of ball Mississippi was playing. Not to mention their special technique where the tackle or tight end was permitted to Bear hug on the edge till the runner was around the corner. In fairness, Plumee played a very good game and having only had about two series of tape on him before Saturday, most of the coaching had to be done in game. It was somewhat like playing one of those pesky triple option teams late in the year with an offense you see about annually.

The markdown is more for the way the team, particularly the defense, seemed to lose interest in the contest after the lead stretched out to about five touchdowns. Maybe that is human nature. Unfortunately, this is the opposite of what the Process ™ teaches -- each play has a life of its own and you play for success and excellence on every play. In short, win each play. Then the game outcome takes care of itself. It is a process and there is work to do with this team. Good thing we have such an excellent staff.

Because of a little quirk in the calendar, every SEC team will have two open weeks this season. Alabama’s first is next Saturday. We think it falls at a good time. Players are getting dinged up. Some fundamentals need work. A long trip to College Station is next.

We encourage you to get some household chores done next week. The next three games are all against SEC opponents. We’ll see you in two weeks.

Roll Tide. Beat Texas A&M.

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Southern Miss Grades

noreply@blogger.com (Woody Woodruff) — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 15:07:00 +0000

Nearly fifteen years later, it is still one of the most amazing things I have seen in a football game. Heck, it’s one of the most amazing things I’ve seen anywhere, including a county fair and a ride on the New York City subway.

I’m referring of course to The Catch.

I was there September 10, 2005 in Bryant-Denny Stadium with Alabama trailing Southern Miss by two scores facing 4th down and 13 from the Golden Eagle 43 yard line and only :29 seconds to play before the end of the first half. Brodie Croyle launched a deep ball to the Tide’s most explosive play-maker, Tyrone Prothro, who was covered and being interfered with by the Southern Miss safety. The interference was so bad, that the only thing keeping the ball from hitting the defender in the back of the head were Tyrone’s hands, as he reached completely around the safety’s head, caught the ball, and hung on as they both flipped upside down and crashed, into the end zone.

Prothro landed on his head, which bent at such an angle it is a miracle he survived the play, much less that he maintained possession. The crowd went crazy as the official nearest the play signaled touchdown. Then the crowd went even crazier when the call was overruled and the ball was placed down at the 1 yard line.

Bama scored on the next play to go into the locker room with the score 21-17. Bama whipped Southern Miss in the second half and won the game 30-21, and The Catch took its rightful place along with “The Run In The Mud”, “The Sack”, “The Kick”, “Rocky Block” and “”Second and 26” in the pantheon of famous Alabama football plays .

The 2019 edition of Alabama’s series with Southern Miss did not produce any plays for the ages, but it did generate a number of spectacular touchdown passes from Tua to Henry Ruggs,III, and Jerry Jeudy. It also featured the reappearance of Alabama’s running game, missing in action through the first three games.

As good as the offense played, there is still work to do. Late in the second quarter, the offense seemed to have looked at the scoreboard which showed a 28-0 lead. At least that would explain why we had two lackluster possessions back-to-back as time expired in the half.

The defense played better than last week against South Carolina. Tackling for the most part was crisper. Again, much work remains. There is only one cure for inexperience: playing time. The good news is we have plenty of games to play before LSU on the first weekend in November. The bad news is one of those games is a trip to College Station.

Our kicking game’s performance did not go backwards this week. That’s a good thing. But we still do not punt the ball very well, and placekicker Will Reichard did not play for most of the contest after suffering an injury to his”lower leg”.

A 49-7 win over Southern Miss is a good win. Because this blog is about taking a dive that is a bit deeper than the score, here is how I grade the Game:

Offense: A The Offense gained 514 yards of total offense (the fourth time in four games this season the Tide has gained 500+ offensive yards) achieving 24 first downs, and converting 6 of 10 third down opportunities as well as converting its lone attempt on 4th down. More significantly, the Tide running game has begun to emerge. Bama gained 176 net yards rushing, primarily on the legs of Najee Harris who gained 110 rushing yards, becoming the first Tide player to rush for more than 100+ in a game this season. Alabama ran the ball on 35 plays. Brian Robinson, Jr. and Jerome Ford both scored rushing TDs

Tua completed 17 of 21 pass attempts for 293 yards and 5 TDs. This game was the ninth time Tua has completed at least four touchdown passes in a game and sets a new Alabama record previously held by AJ McCarron. Tua was sacked once, but suffered no turnovers.

Mac Jones subbed for Tua late in the third quarter. He attempted 3 passes, completing 2 for 25 yards and a TD. He threw an interception. Taulia Tagovailoa replaced Jones in the fourth quarter and completed his lone pass attempt for 20 yards.

Henry Ruggs, III was Bama’s leading receiver with 148 yards and 2 TDs on 4 receptions. Jerry Jeudy caught 6 balls for 96 yards and 2 TDs. The Other Jaylen [Waddle] gained 43 yards on 3 receptions. DeVonta Smith caught 2 passes for 26 yards. A total of 9 players caught passes. Najee Harris added a receiving touchdown to his game stats on a play from the So. Miss 5 yard line where he was so open he could have paused at the goal line to sing the fight song, and still scored before a defender could get to him.

The offense had ten meaningful possessions. It engineered sustained drives in 8 of the 10 [54, 91, 91, 56, 77, 68, 43, 43] resulting in 7 TDs and an interception. Bama’s last two drives of the first half gained only 19 and 2 yards respectively, and the Tide was forced to punt on both possessions. On the plus side, Bama mounted three offensive drives that ran 9 or more plays, and collectively accounted for nearly 15 minutes of game time. The Tide’s quickest possession was a 3 play drive that covered 91 yards and scored a TD in :59 seconds.

Defense: B+. Southern Miss was held to only 226 yards of total offense [52 net yards rushing], and limited to only 15 first downs. The Golden Eagles were only able to convert 3 of 12 possession downs. The defense yielded only two drives that gained more than 40 yards [74, 55] the first resulted in a TD the second ended with a turnover.

Jared Mayden led all defenders with 8 tackles [5 solo]. Christian Harris had 6 tackles. Xavier McKinney, Anfernee Jennings, and Shane Lee were each credited with 5 stops. Defensive Lineman Phidarian Mathis [RS Soph. 6-4, 312; Wisner, La.] forced a So. Miss fumble that Jordan Battle [DB, Fr. 6-1; 201; Fort Lauderdale, FL] recovered. Trevon Diggs made an interception to give the Tide defense two take-aways on the game.

In addition, Tide defenders made 7 tackles for lost yardage, broke up 2 passes and hurried the Golden Eagle QB twice.

Special Teams:

Punting: A- Skyler DeLong averaged 37 yards per punt on two punts. Jaylen Waddle returned one So. Miss punt 41 yards, and the coverage team allowed only 1 return yard.

Kickoffs: B+ Will Reichard and Joseph Bulovas shared kickoff duties [Reichard suffered an injury on his second kick off of the game] and averaged 51 and 59 yards per kick respectively. The coverage team surrendered one long return [25 yards].

Place Kicking: A. Reichard and Bulovas were 7 for 7 on PATs. Bama did not attempt a field goal.

Coaching: A- Alabama was penalized only once. The participation report lists 66 players who saw action in the game. Five true freshmen [Evan Neal, DJ Dale, Shane Lee, Justin Eboigbe, Joseph Battle] started the game.

The 2019 contest between Alabama and Southern Miss may not have produced a play to join The Catch on the all-time highlights reel, but I think it provided Alabama with what it needed at this point in the season: an opportunity to improve as a team in a game against a competent opponent. We came out of the game relatively healthy. DJ Dale left the game in the first half, but Coach Saban did not seem too concerned about the talented freshman being back in action soon.

Around the league, the Villagers held off the Aggies in the second half to win 28-20 in College Station. Speaking to reporters about the play of Auburn freshman QB Bo Nix, Gus Malzahn said “It’s going to be a lot of fun to have him around in the future, I’ll tell you that.” This is Coach-Speak for: “As long as Nix is starting, there is no way Pat Dye and the rest of that bunch of cut-throats will dare to fire me.”

The Tide notched its second win of the season over the Fighting Chickens. That’s right. After losing to Alabama last week in a game where they gained 459 yards of total offense, made 31 first downs, and scored 23 points, the Yard Birds got turned into Chicken Pot Pie by Missouri. South Carolina barely managed to score two TDs in a game where they gained only 271 yards total offense and gave up 421. I have not been able to confirm whether the South Carolina training staff had to restrain Will Muschamp with a straight jacket.

In Athens, Georgia defeated Notre Dame 23-17. The six-point loss by the Irish was immediately declared to be a moral victory by the nation’s elite sports media. …. If you think I’m exaggerating check out the game summary on the CBS Sports app which contains this sentence in the second paragraph: “For No. 7 Notre Dame, it was another big-game loss but a performance that should bring more respect.”

In what might be called The Battle of the Bears …. or maybe not …. the Golden Bears from Cal beat the black variety from Oxford 28-20. Which means it is time to start thinking about The Most Important Game of The Season So Far for Alabama: this coming Saturday’s contest against Ole Miss.

The Commissioner will not be available to write The Grades next weekend as we solemnize the nuptials of The Commissioner’s Middle Daughter. Our Correspondent From The Tire Store has graciously agreed to grade the game. Over the next few days, I will be working on figuring out how to get wedding bells to play “Yeah Alabama”, and trying to convince the Commissioner’s Long Suffering Spouse that leading the reception guests in a chorus of “The Rammer Jammer” is a time-honored tradition.

Roll Tide, Y’all

The Commissioner

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Tire Store Report: South Carolina

noreply@blogger.com (Woody Woodruff) — Thu, 19 Sep 2019 17:48:00 +0000

Offense: Not too much to add to your excellent report, Commissioner. Watching the game, we did hark back to a question Coach Saban asked rhetorically a few seasons ago. Namely, is this what we want football to become? For good or ill, the trend right now is to do what Alabama did Saturday -- prove it can score at will (Alabama punted once in the game and took a knee once -- otherwise, we think all the drives ended in scores or FG attempts) and otherwise try to occasionally generate a turnover or force the other team to kick a field goal. We think of it as the boat race strategy. Is it what we would prefer? No. Is it what we have? Looks like. Are we good at it? Darn right we are. Perhaps the return of our suspended lineman will improve the traditional running game. If not, we will just have to get comfortable with thinking of 8-9 yard swing passes and screens as really long handoffs.

Defense: The growing pains attributable to losing two talented upperclassmen at the inside linebacker spot became apparent on Saturday. Credit the USC staff for finding ways to try to use those players' inexperience against them. The good news is that on the job training works. The more those players are exposed to those schemes and matchups, the better they will defend against them. It will be interesting to see who takes the field for the first snap on defense the next couple of weeks. We are not, however, wringing our hands over whether Saturday's effort would be enough to beat some other team appearing later on the schedule. It was more than enough to beat USC and they were the opponent. Whether that effort would beat Team X won't matter till our game with Team X. We'll see then.

Special Teams: Sorry we mentioned it last week. Totally our fault. Back to covering our eyes on kicks. To be honest, we thought the 13-yard punt was the result of a pretty favorable spot by the official. That was the functional equivalent of a turn over. Seriously, we know we have readers all over the country. If you live in Baton Rouge or New Orleans or roundabout, we are willing to see if we can't take up a collection to bury some chicken bones or get a reverse voodoo doll or some other ritualistic program underway to try to undo whatever it is that happens to great kickers when they put on an Alabama uniform. We tend to not be all that superstitious, but as J.M. Keynes put it, "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"

Broadcasting: We were surprised to hear from Gary about all the good things that Najeeh Davenport did during the game. We'd have thought that having already won a National Championship at Miami and playing for three or four NFL teams (not to mention being about 40 yeras old) he'd not be eligible. I guess it's just more recruiting genius from Nick Saban. The only good thing about the broadcast is that CBS has one fewer chances to show our games this season. They picked up the Mississippi game week after next. Perhaps we can hear what Terrell Owens is doing for our defense or how Brian Russell is shaping up in our backfield in his second turn in college. Sheesh.

Officiating. OK, you saw the game. Though Gary Danielson will still be harping on whether the USC running back's knee touched the ground before he crossed the goal line when your grandkids are in college, he really did miss the point. If there was an error on that call, it was USC deciding to run another play before a review could be called. And despite Coach Exploding Head blaming bad officiating, that was a stupid coaching mistake. Admit it, Coach, you ran the play because you were certain you'd score on the next snap if you rushed it. You might be right to be angry, but not at the officials. To be honest, I couldn't tell from the super slo mo or the zoomed in view whether the runner's knee touched the ground or not -- too much shadow. We did not see light between his knee and the ground. Is it down if he touches the grass but not the earth underneath it? The supposed expert for CBS made some remark about not seeing dirt fly up, which was definitely a rule interpretation we had never heard of before Saturday. I'd say if we are down to that level of argument, whatever was called on the field would stand. Lousy calls were the order of the day on Saturday. We could see green grass between our tight end's shoe and the sideline from the overhead view, but he was ruled out of bounds even after review. The officials were equally terrible both ways. And before you take any guff from other fans about Alabama always getting favorable calls, we stand at a proud 108 in the NCAA rankings of teams with fewest penalty yards (out of 130). So the other team always feels that way, but the math doesn't support their feelings.

Based not just on our game (though the targeting call on Barmore has been widely-criticized, including outside the SEC) but on several calls from the last two weeks (see Kentucky vs. Florida as the prime exhibit) it doesn't appear to us that there is any consistency or really even a shared understanding of what targeting is. Comments from various officials out there make it clear that different strokes apply to different folks. Quarterbacks appear to be particularly protected. And while we are at it, we are not fans of this rules expert in the booth concept. We get that the networks, probably at the insistence of the conferences, want someone to speak "for" the officials. Networks do not want to be in the middle of that. However, this has started to seem like nothing more than an on-screen apologist defending whatever the officials at the game have decided. On a couple of occasions Saturday we could hear them as the great Chico Marx: "Who you gonna believe? Me or your own eyes?"

Unfortunately, before we leave this topic, we have some worse news for you. That was Hubert's crew doing the game. That crew is generally regarded as the best the SEC has to offer. Let that sink in for a minute....

Roll Tide. Beat Southern Miss.

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South Carolina Grades

noreply@blogger.com (Woody Woodruff) — Sun, 15 Sep 2019 16:44:00 +0000

Alabama’s 47-23 road victory over South Carolina provides quite a lot to write about:

Win Streaks? Bama has now defeated every other team in the SEC in the most recent games played; in other words, the Tide’s conference winning streak is now an astonishing 27 games. Coach Saban’s undefeated streak in games against his former assistants is now 17-0.

Individual Records? Tua set a personal record with a career high 444 passing yards. This was Tua’s eighth career 300+ yard passing performance; the most in Alabama history. By completing five passes for touchdowns, Tua became the first Tide QB to throw for more than 400 yards, and five TDs in the same game. Najee Harris accounted for 87 receiving yards against the Gamecocks; the most by a Tide running back in a single game since Shaun Alexander had 110 receiving yards against Mississippi State in 1998.

Will Muschamp? Well you’ve got me here. I’m not a licensed psychotherapist. If ever there was a head coach more in need of having his head shrunk I cannot name him, much less come up with a treatment plan. Maybe the South Carolina training staff could carry a roll of duct tape to wrap Muschamp’s cranium. Then again, maybe that idea has been rejected because of the effect it has on game officials when his head explodes.

SEC Officials? I will defer to Our Correspondent From The Tire Store to give this crew the review they justly deserve.

The Good? Alabama won its conference opener on the road in a hostile environment. Playing in Williams-Brice Stadium before a crowd of nearly 82,000 is the farthest thing from a road game at Vanderbilt where visiting fans have a 5:1 advantage over the home crowd and the students don’t show up until the second quarter. The Tide passing game shredded the Gamecock defense, which played with great intensity, is loaded with good athletes, and schemed effectively to neutralize the threat of Jerry Jeudy.

The Bad? The offense lacked balance; three games into the season the running game is yet to appear. The defense could not consistently contain the Chicken’s offense. Untimely penalties [some deserved, others not] extended South Carolina drives.

The Ugly? The kicking game took a step backwards; a 14 yard punt, a missed PAT. Some worrying injuries might contribute to the existing lack of depth on the defensive line.

Because there is a lot to write about, here is how I grade the game:

Offense: A- Alabama gained 571 yards of total offense [only 76 net rushing], earned 25 first downs, converted 8 of 14 possession downs [6 of 12 on third down] and controlled possession of the football for 32:37.

Tua completed 28 of 36 pass attempts for 444 yards, 5 TDs, and threw no interceptions. He was sacked twice. Mack Jones was a perfect 3 of 3 passing, for 51 yards. DeVonta Smith was the Tide’s leading receiver with 136 yards on 8 receptions. He scored 2 TDs. Henry Ruggs, III caught 6 passes for 122 yards and a TD. His longest reception covered 81 yards and resulted in his touchdown. Najee Harris was highly effective catching passes out of the backfield; he caught 5 passes for 87 yards and scored 2 of the Tide’s passing TDs. His longest play [41 yds] came on a slant route across the middle, where he threw a linebacker to the ground, leaped over the corner, and broke an attempted tackle by the safety on his way into the end zone. Jerry Jeudy, although double covered most of the day, still managed to catch 6 passes for 68 yards. Nine different players caught passes.

Najee Harris led all running backs with 36 net yards on 7 attempts. Brian Robinson, Jr. added 33 yards on 8 carries, and true freshman Keilan Robinson ran the ball 4 times for 12 yards. Mac Jones scored the Tide’s lone rushing touchdown with a QB keeper on 4th and goal. Alabama attempted only 22 running plays. The two sacks and an intentional knee on the final play of the game accounted for (-13) lost yards charged against the rushing statistics. In my opinion, we need to run the ball more, and to do that we must have better play along the offensive line.

The Tide offense mounted eight drives gaining 40 or more yards [65, 96, 70, 65, 75, 50, 40, 80] that achieved 6 TDs and 2 FGs].

Defense: B- Alabama surrendered 459 total yards [135 net rushing] to the Gamecock offense, allowing 31 first downs. Four of the Chickens’ drives were extended by penalties on the defense. South Carolina was able to convert 10 of 22 possession downs [8 of 18 on third down, 2 of 4 on 4th down].

Xavier McKinney was the Tide’s leading tackler with 9 total stops [5 solo]. Patrick Surtain, Josh Jobe, and Shane Lee each recorded 8 tackles. Tide defenders made 7 tackles for lost yardage [3 sacks], forced [Anfernee Jennings] and recovered [DJ Dale] a fumble, and intercepted a pass [McKinney]. The defense also gets credit for a turnover on downs when South Carolina came up a yard short on 4th and goal at the end of the first half. In all honesty, Muschamp should be credited with an assist due to his incompetent play calling and clock mismanagement.

The turnovers justify raising the defensive grade out of the C range, but readers of this blog should take no comfort from the Stop Troops’ performance against a good-but-not-great South Carolina. Coach Saban told reporters after the game the Tide defense could not afford to be on the field for 80+ defensive plays in future games and expect to come away with a win.

Special Teams:

Punting: F Jaylen Waddle returned one punt for 18 yards. That effort, as good as it is, cannot overcome Skyler DeLong’s 14 yard punt; the only punt the Tide attempted in the game.

Kickoffs: A+ Will Reichard averaged 64 yards per kick on his 9 kickoffs, five of which were touchbacks. On the four kicks South Carolina returned, the coverage team limited the Gamecocks to only 62 yards [13 yds avg] and tackled the return man at the SC 14, 20, 19 and 14. That amounts to +29 yards of favorable field position for the Tide defense.

Place Kicking: C- Reichard attempted 3 field goals. He was good from 23 and 21 yards. He missed from 37 and he missed one PAT.

Coaching B- A road win in the conference ought to be an automatic B. The minus however reflects the penalties [11 for 92 yds], one of which was a substitution infraction that allowed South Carolina to extend a drive. The participation report lists 58 players who saw action in the game.

Around the league there is also much to write about.

Kentucky’s win streak over Florida ended at 1. Climate computer models suggest the next Wildcats victory over the Gators will come only if the entire planet achieves zero carbon emissions for at least a decade.

Up on Rocky Top, Phil Fulmer’s press conference announcing his return as Tennessee’s head coach has been delayed for at least one week by the Vols beating Chattanooga 45-0. Can you imagine what the negotiations between Fulmer as AD and Fulmer as aspiring head football coach are like? Do you think he conducts them by looking into a mirror, or does he use some Super Agent as a facilitator? I guest time, and a few conference losses, will tell.

Mississippi State lost to Kansas State 24-31. Neither team is very good. State had as many turnovers [3] as touchdowns. Ole Miss beat Southeast Louisiana 40—29 but allowed 309 yards of passing. It could well be that Southern Miss is the best college football team in the State of Mississippi. We will find out this coming Saturday when the Tide plays The Most Important Game of the Season So Far. The Golden Eagles average over 260 yards per game passing, and 103 yards per game rushing. They always bring their best when they come to Tuscaloosa.

On a slightly different topic: let me give a shout out to three entertaining and informative fan sites available on social media: SEC Shorts, Jermaine Funnymaine Johnson, and The Unofficial Assistant Coaches. Treat yourself to some good laughs, it's a welcome respite from the typical Alabama fan's favorite pastime: fretting about things we cannot control.

Roll Tide, Y’all!

The Commissioner

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New Mexico State Aftermath

noreply@blogger.com (Woody Woodruff) — Tue, 10 Sep 2019 17:28:00 +0000

Thanks for your efforts in the unpleasant heat of early September, Commissioner. An interesting report of a game where the imperatives beyond winning the game, of course, did not include things like “revenge” or “conference standings” and instead focused on things like “don’t let anyone get hurt”.

New Mexico State was clearly physically overmatched, but not intimidated. The offensive line continued to struggle, though those struggles were mostly in the run game and in part can be attributed to shifting roles on the line. We also note that D. Brown is still out serving a suspension related to (we read in the papers) a PED. Six games seems like a lot for that, but four games of that suspension are now served. Whether he works his way back to the starting line up is a question, but if he is as effective at run blocking on his return as he was last year, we’d expect him to be in the game(s).

The first defensive unit played a solid game and the youngsters there seem to be learning quickly on the job. We will see about that as the quality of competition goes up. The 2s and 3s on defense, well, we expect film review was noisy and unpleasant.

We are still cheering every time a kick off goes through the end zone. Even more encouraging were two field goals of nearly 50 yards each which got up quickly, sailed high, had several yards to spare, and split the uprights like an A+ answer on a geometry problem. We are still at 50% on field goals for the season, but they have all been longish and we are hoping the trend continues in the positive direction. All of our PATs (and there have been plenty) have been true enough that we may go back to watching them instead of sitting with our eyes shut.

Otherwise we don’t know that there is much else to say about this game. Credit to the training staff that despite the triple digit temperatures on the field, we only noticed one player coming out for treatment of cramps. That was probably pretty amazing by itself.

Speaking of, we are inclined to weigh in a little bit on the Athletic Director’s very public complaint to the SEC about Alabama’s repeated day time scheduling in September.

We won’t try to repeat all the particulars, but you can look them up. The bottom line is that over the last several years, Alabama and its fans have been subjected to more day time starts in September than any other SEC team. And it continues. Alabama will have the 11 a.m. start against Southern Mississippi a week from Saturday. And no, it is not the “quality of the competition”. Stretching well back into last century all of the SEC teams played at least two and maybe three “tune up” games at the beginning of the season. That really only changed somewhat when Coach Saban started trying to organize a marquee opening game at a neutral site every year to open up the season. Saying "Alabama should play harder games and it will get better timing" is just reinforcing how unfair things are.

Part of the issue is television ratings. If you’ve never done it, take a gander at the ratings when Alabama is on television. Those are routinely highly-rated broadcasts; in fact, is not unusual for the Alabama game to be the highest rated game of the weekend. ABC/ESPN/SECN, in particular, knows that the 11 a.m. start is a stinker. It reassures advertisers that Alabama fans will be tuning in to see those ads, I mean the game. Also, in this particular case, they also know that Alabama fans tend to be football fans in general. They were NOT, under any circumstances, going to schedule Alabama’s game opposite Notre Dame vs. Georgia. To some extent, we are victims of our own enthusiasm. This reminds us of when everyone in the conference managed to schedule the week before Alabama against OPEN. The difference here is that CBS and ESPN were willing to report on that issue and embarrassed the conference into doing something. That will not be the case here.

Speaking of victims, however, we have lost track of how many people were treated for heat-related issues at the stadium last Saturday. We understand that many fans retreated to the shade of the concourses to try to beat the heat. This is to say nothing of the players on the field who are enduring even higher temperatures in full gear. Without a lucky rainstorm, this weekend’s contest in South Carolina will not be better. Kickoff forecast is for 93 degrees.

Tuscaloosa merchants are also victims here. Tourism related to Alabama football is a driver of the Tuscaloosa city and county economies. If a game begins at 11 a.m. few people arrive before dinner time on Friday night if they are traveling from out of town. In fact, we’d bet most people get up way too early and fight the traffic to get to town. They skip tailgating entirely and head straight to the stadium, because they basically have no other choice. What food and drink they buy is in the stadium. Leaving, they do not return to their cars, fetch their gear, and set up on the Quad before spending the night in Tuscaloosa, of course. They trudge back to their cars, often before the game ends, and head back home because: 1. They are broiling in the sun; and 2. The issue has long since been decided. I wonder if anyone has done the economic comparison of the difference in an 11 a.m. kickoff and a 6 p.m. kickoff in Tuscaloosa.

Recruiting suffers because recruits are also experiencing what they will be subjected to as an Alabama player. People arrive late because of traffic and leave early because of the same reason plus the heat. A half empty wok-like stadium is not a good look for recruits. The head coach gets testy about this. However, we expect he’s pretty realistic about what this experience is like for, say, a family who has had to jump through this many hoops to please the TV and Conference Overlords.

The primary beneficiary of this has been LSU, which claims a “tradition” of playing at night and therefore gets their wish. For example, LSU started the season with Georgia Southern, kick off at 6:30. This Saturday LSU plays Northwestern State, kick off at 6:30. I guess scheduling that sort of superior competition lands you evening kickoffs in Baton Rouge. (At least we can name Southern Mississippi's mascot.) Reminds us of the Mississippi State “tradition” of ringing those stupid cowbells but if any of their opponents show up with artificial noise makers, they can be ejected. The standard is apparently: “If you can describe it as a tradition, the SEC will give you an unfair advantage against other teams.”

Most worrisome for us, is that the Athletic Director decided to go public with his complaint. This indicates a few things, we think. First, it indicates that people are complaining and he’s hearing it. That’s probably fans, players, the head coach, etc. and more than a few of them. People are going to start staying home for a lot of very valid reasons. Second, it means he has approached the conference privately and he’s either been ignored or politely told to “shut up.” Third, it means nothing is changing any time soon. Our guess is maybe Mr. Sankey will manage to arrange for one Alabama game next September to be at night. He’ll claim the conference cares about Alabama and its fans, and we’ll promptly go back to business as usual after that.

I guess we can just pray that it’ll pour down rain on Saturdays in September; that’s a better option. Right?

Roll Tide. Beat the Gamecocks.

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New Mexico State Grades

noreply@blogger.com (Woody Woodruff) — Sun, 08 Sep 2019 20:34:00 +0000

The official temperature in Bryant-Denny Stadium at kickoff was 94 degrees. That’s hot, but all evidence suggests it felt hotter. The media events room is airconditioned. All evidence suggests the press conference got hotter than the playing surface at kickoff when some reporter asked Coach Saban why Alabama played teams like New Mexico State. “We will play anybody who will play us,” Saban replied, then invited the reporter to “call around” and see if he can find a team willing to play Alabama. “We’ll play anybody you find who will play us!”

Among current coaches, Saban is alone in advocating for a regular season of 10 conference games and 2 from other Power Five conferences. He listed the advantages: more excitement for fans, greater competitive challenge for players, and a clearer path to the playoffs for teams suffering a loss during the season. Because his is a solo voice on this topic, Saban has to coach within the system as it exists. This means New Mexico State, The Citadel, Charleston Southern, and similar FCS teams get to play Payday Games before 100,000 fans of FBS schools.

This is not to suggest such opponents provide no benefits for the host teams. As Saban pointed out while roasting Saturday’s unwary reporter, the host team has an opportunity to get better and younger players have the chance for game-time experience. Saban was clearly frustrated with what he perceived to be some missed opportunities by his team in the game just completed.

The 62-10 score is a little misleading. Yes, Alabama compiled over 600 yards of total offense, including 318 yards rushing, but the play of the offensive line was inconsistent, and the running stats were skewed by 75 yards gained by Henry Ruggs, III who took a swing pass for a touchdown on the game’s opening play. The play was classified as a run, because the pass was completed one yard up-field from where Tua threw the pass.

Both the first and second team centers were unavailable for the game, and it showed. Several times a high or wide snap disrupted the timing of plays, and blocking assignments did not always appear to be clearly understood.

The defense played well-enough for more than three quarters. When less-experienced players were substituted into the game however, Tide defenders had trouble executing. Consequently, the Aggies scored more points against Alabama than they did against Washington State on week one.

Special teams were a bright spot. Every kickoff was a touchback, and Will Reichard kicked two absolutely perfect field goals [49, 48] that would have been good from a much greater distance. Jaylen Waddle had a punt return touchdown nullified by a legitimate blocking infraction, but he is a spectacular player.

In once sense it was a perfect game. Alabama won convincingly, showed some improvement in a few critical areas, but made enough mistakes to give the coaching staff lots to work on.

The quality of the opponent requires a full letter grade deduction on offense and defense. So, with that in mind here is how I grade the game:

Offense: B The offense gained 603 total net yards [318 rushing], earned 23 first downs, converted 8 or 15 possession plays [14 third downs], possessed the ball for 27:57, and did not suffer a turnover. Tua completed 16 of 24 pass attempts for 227 yards and 3 TDs [Jerry Jeudy (2); Henry Ruggs, III]. Early in the game, it appeared to me that Tua’s passes were a bit late, and slightly less accurate than we have become used to. Because Bama’s receivers are the best group of their kind in college football, some passes that might otherwise have been incomplete were salvaged. At any rate, from the second quarter on whatever might have been affecting Tua’s passing seemed to have been corrected. Mac Jones attempted 9 passes, completing 5, for 58 yards and a TD [Jeudy].

Jeudy led all receivers with 8 catches for 103 yards and 3 TDs. Ruggs caught 4 passes for 66 yards. Jaylen Waddle gained 52 yards on 2 receptions, and DeVonta Smith caught 5 passes for 47 yards. Six different players caught passes including walk-on TE Giles Amos [Sr. 6-4, 245; Perry, GA].

The Tide’s leading rusher was true freshman, Keilan Robinson [5-9, 184; Washington, D.C./St. John’s] who scored a 74 yard touchdown on his first play in the contest. Henry Ruggs, III’s 75 yard TD was scored as a rushing play. Najee Harris gained 68 net yards rushing on 12 runs and scored a rushing TD. Brian Robinson, Jr. carried the ball 11 times for 57 net yards. Tua scored a rushing TD from 25 yards out and totaled 33 yards rushing on his two total carries.

Alabama mounted eight drives that gained 40 or more yards [75, 89, 50, 72, 84, 55, 70, 74] and each resulted in a touchdown. Bama made three trips into the red zone and scored touchdowns each time.

Both of Alabama’s 4^th quarter offensive possessions resulted in punts following only 3 plays. Likewise, the first-team offense suffered two “three-and-out” possessions in the first half. Consequently, the + is simply not an available grade.

Defense: B- The Aggies were able to gain 262 yards of total offense [101 rushing], made 14 first downs, and converted 4 of 15 possession downs. In the fourth quarter, State dominated the Alabama defense, gaining 99 yards on 20 plays, and controlled the clock for 9:47 of the quarter. Coach Saban was none too happy about this. In post-game remarks, he singled out the defensive performance in the 4^th quarter as an example of players not playing the way they have been taught in practice.

Xavier McKinney was the Tide’s leading tackler with 6 stops [5 solo]. Raekwon Davis also recorded 6 tackles [1 solo]. Jordan Battle [Fr. DB; 6-1, 201; Fort Lauderdale, FL] and fellow true freshman Shane Lee each recorded 5 tackles.

In total, the defense made 7 tackles for loss [31 yds]; forced 3 fumbles, recovered 2 fumbles [Shane Lee, Josh Jobe] intercepted a pass [Patrick Surtain] broke up 3 passes, and hurried the Aggie QB 8 times.

Special Teams:

Kickoffs: A Will Reichard kicked off 10 times for an average of 64 yards per kick. Nine of his kicks were touchbacks, one sailed out of bounds. Joseph Bulovas kicked off once for 40 yards. Henry Ruggs, III made one kick return for 19 yards.

Punting: A- Skyler DeLong punted 3 times for an average of 41 yards. Reichard punted once for 39 yards. The coverage team allowed only a single return for 1 yard. The return team was penalized for a blocking infraction that nullified Jaylen Waddle’s TD return. Otherwise, Waddle returned 3 State punts for 28 yards. His longest return gained 23 yards, but involved running from outside the numbers where he made the catch, completely across the field to the opposite side line, then reversing his field and crossing back over to the original side of the field and going out of bounds 23 yards down field from where he caught the ball in the first place.

Place Kicking: A+ Reichard was good from 49 and 48 on his two FG attempts and perfect on each of 10 PATs.

Coaching: A The participation report lists 66 players who saw action in the game. Alabama was penalized 4 times for 35 yards. I almost gave the coaches a minus for the decision to play Tua to start the second half with the score 38-0. I understand the importance of game time experience, but the risk/return equation eventually signals that the person getting experience in the game ought to be the back-up QB.

Much like last week’s contest against Duke, Bama soundly defeated an inferior team. The outcome of the game was never in doubt. Still, the offensive line is unsettled, and inconsistency of execution resulting from a lack of attention to detail are things to worry about.

With two weeks in the books, there are some things around the league coming into focus: LSU is a much-improved football team with a potent offense. The Bengal Tigers have found the QB they have been looking for and he is a stone-cold competitor. In the SEC East, Tennessee is …. Uh …. The Vols are …. Well, Georgia is certainly playing well so far.

But the most important game of the season is this coming Saturday in Columbia, South Carolina. We have not played the Fighting Chickens since 2010. Readers of this blog will remember that game. It is seared into our memory. Stephen Garcia had the game of his life leading South Carolina to a 35-21 victory over Alabama. It was the first loss in the season following the ’09 BCS Championship triumph over Texas in Pasadena. A victory this coming Saturday will place Alabama in the unique position of having won the most recent meeting between every other school in the SEC.

While Alabama was beating New Mexico State on Saturday, South Carolina was dispatching Charleston Southern 72-10. The Yard Birds’ opening week loss to North Carolina may not be as big an embarrassment as some thought at the time; the Tar Heels defeated the Miami Hurricanes 28-25 yesterday.

So, turn the heat up under a skillet of peanut oil. It’s time to fry some chicken!

Roll Tide, Y’all.

The Commissioner

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Tire Store Report -- Duke

noreply@blogger.com (Woody Woodruff) — Wed, 04 Sep 2019 00:27:00 +0000

It’s so nice to have college football back. Partly, the excitement of the return of the season is the return of The Grades. Nice to see you already in mid-season form, Commissioner.

For a long set of complicated reasons that I’m sure we down here at the Tire Store really couldn’t understand, the ACC decided that its representative in the Chick Fil A kickoff game this season would be the Duke Blue Devils. Now, we expect one of the factors was, you know, money, which we do like to think we have a handle on, but we’re sure there are others.

Without regard to the precise reason or reasons, Duke was the opponent on Saturday night. Alabama and Duke have some limited amount of football history, handled in a not very coherent fashion by ABC, more below. Duke’s coach, David Cutcliffe, is a wily old bird and how he has not managed to end up as head coach of a somewhat larger institution is sort of mystifying. He is a pretty good recruiter, a decent motivator, and an acknowledged leader in play-design and working to exploit his opponent’s weaknesses.

We will add a few comments to the Commissioner’s excellent review of the game.

Offense: The running game needs some work. Duke has a veteran defensive line that was in position to make plays in the running game most of the night. The Alabama offensive line was reportedly a mix-n-match operation throughout Fall Camp and some of that continued in the game. Shifting personnel certainly shoulders some of the blame for a weak run game. So does the fact that two of our running backs ended up suspended for the first quarter. And it did appear to us a couple of times that the offensive line actually did a good job blocking at the point of attack and the running back then chose to, um, adjust the play to a different point of attack of his liking, which didn’t help. In addition, one of last year’s starters will not be available for three more games and we are uncertain how his return will alter the picture. Whatever. We look for a lot of those things to be cleaned up over the next few weeks.

The passing game more than made up for weakness in the running game. Tight end, a position generally agreed to be a major question mark entering the season, accounted for two touchdowns. Tagovailoa mostly made excellent decisions all night and was only sacked once (he was pressured more than that, but made a nifty run to pick up a first down on a scramble -- an underappreciated part of his game). It appeared that Duke’s strategy was “we are going to make you beat us by Alabama beat us by allowing short passes and challenging you to make sustained drives and not letting your receivers beat us deep”. OK. Challenge accepted. And, we expect other defensive coordinators to try to follow suit. As long as this outstanding group of WRs stay healthy, the tight ends continue to be involved, and the quarterback is willing to take what the defense is giving them, that should work out just fine for Alabama.

Speaking of the first-string quarterback, we noted that his exceptional play has become so routine that it hardly merits a mention by the media any longer. In fact, we seemed to hear a lot more about Clemson’s quarterback this weekend, whose QBR was not in the top 50 on Saturday.

Defense: The defense played an outstanding game. In particular, the interior was manned by a true freshman nose guard and two true freshman inside linebackers. You wouldn’t have known it by their play. Even when Duke trotted out offensive formations/systems that Alabama could not possibly have prepared for, the defense was mostly solid. The stop in the red zone early in the game set a tone that continued throughout the contest. If this group can stay healthy we think it has the potential to be very special.

Special teams: WE KICKED OFF THE FOOTBALL INTO THE DADGUM END ZONE. That was enough to keep us happy down here at the Tire Store. Punting wasn’t perfect, but we only punted twice all night and we are ok if that is also a trend for the season. PATs were perfect, though having that particular holder out there gives us some indigestion. We did doink long-ish field goals off of both uprights (which ought to be worth something in scoring system, it seems like.) However, regular readers know that we think missed field goals over about 45 yards aren’t the fault of the kicker so much as the coaching and offense for not being a bit closer. It looked to us like in both cases the kicks would have been good where they crossed the goal line. And at least we are improved from the last couple of years where it was on PATs that we were shaking the poles. The jury, as they say, is out but we feeling some optimism.

Coaching: We had a LOT of new coaches on the field and in the pressbox Saturday afternoon. The team seemed ready to play and anxious to get into a game, even if the opponent was not the highly-ranked foe of previous seasons. Even so, it took some fortitude on the part of the coaches to suspend the #1 running back. And the #2 running back. With the #3 running back lost for the season to injury, that should send a good message to the team that no one is above the law. Throw in the team’s best edge rusher and a starting wide receiver and we expect the message came through loud and clear. Next time there is a team movie, we’ll expect that everyone will be in his seat before the previews of coming attractions begin. The in-game adjustments seemed effective, especially on the offensive side of the ball. The Defense appeared more coherent overall. A good day.

Officials: Well, it is nice to be reminded, I suppose, that incompetent officiating isn’t limited to our conference. The head coach got the first penalty flag we can remember being thrown on him. Supposedly this had to do with his displeasure at a sideline warning flag after an interception. Our guess is that his tirade was really not so much about the sideline warning as it was just cumulative. He was clearly unhappy when an Alabama touchdown was taken off the board on a review that stretched the boundaries of indisputable evidence thinner than a penalty flag. He was even more unhappy about a questionable holding call away from the play on a big run. The second pass interference call of the night was flagged from thirty yards away by the official with about the third-best look at the action. So, yeah, by the time that flag went up in the air, Coach was ready to give someone an idea of what he thought. Now, if he had known one of his assistants was the one who was called and that he actually did run into the official, he might have been a little less distraught, but we think that was just a 15-yarder over about five iffy calls, so at three yards per, that seems like pretty good value. The coach took responsibility for the penalty and more or less apologized. I doubt anyone reading this space much disagreed with him being upset, however. And, it can’t hurt to have your players reminded on national television in a very visible way that you have their backs.

Broadcast: We don’t have many games on ABC (not counting ESPN, which is sort of owned by ABC, or well, Disney, well, never mind….) After Saturday, I’m not too sad about that. A couple of examples should suffice. The sidelong remark that Alabama’s turnover belt was some kind of new invention copying Miami’s turnover chain was the sort of throwaway comment by an announcer that he thinks little of making, but for real fans of the team show how disconnected and ignorant he is of the team and its traditions. More importantly, we were disappointed that the last several minutes of game time devolved into completely ignoring the action on the field in favor of a bunch of banter and blather between the announcers about one of them, their NFL career, draft positioning, etc. Whoop de doo. We got used to the idea a long time ago that many football announcers have decided that their commentary was the primary reason the game was being held, rather than the other way around. But we feel sorry for the family, friends, high school coaches, and others who are cheering for second and third string players who enter the game at the end, are fighting just as hard as those ahead of them in the starting rotation, and who deserve to have their names and numbers called for their efforts.

So, on to game two. We’ll be honest, when the 2019 schedule was announced, this was the opponent that most left us scratching our heads. On paper, this is a major mismatch. However, it is unnecessary to hark back to Coach Stallings’ warning about a game not being big till you lose it. The coaches can just show the players a few clips from this past Saturday in Knoxville.

Roll Tide. Beat the Aggies.

Duke Grades

noreply@blogger.com (Woody Woodruff) — Sun, 01 Sep 2019 17:24:00 +0000

In January, 1849, the French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr wrote about the University of Alabama football program: “plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose”. .. OK, OK, for all readers of this blog who are hung up on things like “facts” and “stuff that really happened” I will admit Monsieur Karr probably was not writing about Crimson Tide football since William G. Little would not bring the game to Tuscaloosa for another 43 years.

He could have been. Or at least the inherent truth of Karr’s observation certainly applies to the Tide football program. The more the program changes, the more it remains the same.

Just consider some of the changes we have witnessed over the last few seasons: Wholesale turn over in the coaching staff. Record-setting departures of players to the NFL. Six true freshmen were on the field in the championship winning overtime play against Georgia in January 2018. In the game to open the 2019 regular season, ten Alabama players made their first career starts, five of whom were freshmen. Through all this change though, Alabama football remains the standard to which all other programs aspire.

To be sure, Alabama’s performance against Duke, particularly on offense, and especially along the offensive line, left much to be desired. Nevertheless, Alabama’s defense looked better than last year, and the offense played well enough to amass 512 total yards, and score 42 points. Although kickoffs appear to be much improved, the rest of the kicking game is a “wait and see” proposition.

Because the season opener is in the books, and our Correspondent From The Tire Store has circulated his annual homage to Lewis Grizzard, here is how I grade the first game of 2019:

Offense: B Alabama gained 512 total yards of offense, earned 30 first downs, converted 8 of 12 possession downs (2 on 4^th down), and possessed the football for 36:37. Tide QBs combined to complete 30 of 36 pass attempts for 367 yards and 4 TDs. The ground game accounted for 145 net yards rushing.

Tua played almost three full quarters, he was replaced by Mac Jones late in the 3^rd. Tua attempted 31 passes, completing 26 for 336 yards and each of the Tide’s passing TDs [Jerry Jeudy, DeVonta Smith, Miller Forristall, Major Tennison].

Jeudy was Alabama's leading receiver with 10 receptions for 137 yards. Jaylen Waddle gained 90 yards on 5 catches, and DeVonta Smith contributed 54 yards on 5 receptions. Nine different players caught passes.

RS Fr. Jerome Ford led all Alabama rushers with 64 net yards on 10 carries. Najee Harris gained 52 net yards on 12 rushing attempts. Brian Robinson, Jr. added 9 yards on 9 runs. Robinson and Ford each scored rushing touchdowns. Ford started the game while Najee Harris and Brian Robinson sat out a first quarter suspension for missing a team event earlier in camp. They were joined in the offensive doghouse by DeVonta Smith.

The offense mounted seven drives that gained 40 or more yards [62, 80, 76, 65, 90, 57, and 49] producing 5 TDs and 2 missed FGs. After opening the game with a punt, a fumble, and a missed field goal, the offense settled down and the remainder of its opportunities generated 6 TDs, another missed FG and a single punt. Disregarding Ford’s lost fumble on Bama’s second possession of the game, the Tide only had two offensive “3 and out” possessions. Five drives ran 9 or more plays [12, 12, 9, 9, 13]. In the third quarter, the Tide scored three TD’s and never faced a third down. In the post-game presser, Tua complimented Duke for making the Tide offense “work for it”.

Defense: A+ The Defense played exceptionally well. The season ending injury to Dillon Moses and the disciplinary suspension of Terrell Lewis were serious worries going into the game. Could the Defense recover from losing so many 2018 key players to the NFL? Could the defensive secondary improve its substandard performance over the last few games of 2018? The Tide answered these questions and more with an emphatic statement. True freshman Shane Lee [6-0, 246; Burtonsville, MD] was stellar at middle linebacker, replacing the injured Moses.

Duke could muster only 204 total offensive yards. The Blue Devils made only 11 first downs, and converted only 3 of 12 possession downs.

Xavier McKinneny led all defenders with 8 tackles. Lee and fellow LB Anfernee Jennings each made 6 tackles as did Christian Harris [Fr. DB; 6-2, 244; Baton Rouge, LA] and Raekwon Davis [who actually looks bigger than 6-7, 312].

Collectively, the Tide Defense booked 2 tackles for lost yardage, forced a fumble, recovered a fumble, intercepted two passes [Trevon Diggs, Jordan Battle (Fr. DB; 6-1, 201; Fairhope)] and forced two turnovers on downs. For those keeping score at home, that’s 5 turnovers.

Five times, the Defense forced Duke to punt after only 3 downs. After Alabama lost a fumble setting Duke up at the Alabama 26 yard line, the Defense allowed the Blue Devils only 19 yards, and forced a turnover on downs. Duke’s offensive drives went: punt, downs, punt, punt, punt, FG, downs, fumble, punt, int, punt, int.

If The Grades named a game MVP the award would go to Shane Lee. He played like a veteran.

Special Teams:

Kickoffs: A Will Reichard [Fr. 6-1, 180; Hoover] handled all of Bama’s kicking duties against Duke. His seven kickoffs averaged 65 yards and all resulted in touchbacks. Henry Ruggs, III returned the opening kick of the game for 22 yards.

Punting: A Reichard averaged 40 yards per punt on his two punts. He dropped one punt inside the Duke 20 yard line and the coverage team allowed Duke only 3 return yards.

Place Kicking: D+ Reichard was called on to attempt a 49 yard FG which struck the right hand upright. His second attempt, later in the game from 48 yards struck the left upright. Both kicks would have been good from 55 yards if they had been 8 or 10 inches straighter. He was perfect on 6 PATs.

Coaching: B+ Alabama was penalized 8 times for 88 yards. Most of those penalty yards were assessed against the offensive line for holding. Coach Saban accounted for 15 yards for “unsportsmanlike conduct”. In another context I might say that Saban was merely “speaking truth to power”. But the guy with the power also had a yellow hankie in his pocket and he decided to pull it on Coach Saban. I think this crew is from the PAC 10, so it is certainly possible the particular official is just not used to the game day environment in the SEC. For whatever reason, it cost the team 15 yards of field position. It should not happen, as Coach Saban correctly acknowledged in his post-game comments.

The participation report lists 57 players who saw action in the game.

I think it is safe to conclude despite all of the changes Alabama has endured over the last few years, Alabama remains the premier college football program in the country. The 2019 Defense appears to be improved over 2018. The offense has work to do to achieve consistency of performance, but the pieces are all in place. Special teams are still a work in progress, but the potential for excellence clearly exists.

Most Tide fans are probably agonizing over the first quarter. Bama fans are never happier than when we have something to kvetch about. But the sun is shining. Monday is Labor Day. The College Football season is here, and you are not a Tennessee, Ole Miss, or South Carolina fan.

So check out Jermaine “Funny Maine” Johnson, and SEC Shorts. We all have lots to cheer us up. And remember: one more thing remains the same, the most important game of the season is this coming Saturday against New Mexico State.

Roll Tide, Y’all

The Commissioner

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Hurrah for the Return of College Football

noreply@blogger.com (Woody Woodruff) — Tue, 27 Aug 2019 16:29:00 +0000

Hello from everyone down here at the Tire Store. We hope you all had a good summer. When I was young, and would eagerly anticipate the big upcoming events of life -- Christmas, vacations to the Redneck Riviera, the end of the school year (especially the end of the school year) -- my parents would rightly warn me about the dangers of "wishing my life away". They were absolutely right, of course. Older now, I still try to make sure I'm enjoying each and every day the good Lord gives me on His green earth. But I have to admit, as the humid dog days of August pass slowly by, I find myself wishing that the clock would run just a little bit faster and bring on College Football Season. At last, at long last, it is back.

We hope you enjoy the following words from the late great Lewis Grizzard. This is an excerpt from a longer piece he wrote for a newspaper collection featuring individual writers' thoughts about the opening of college football season. Especially towards the end of his career as his health deteriorated, Grizzard's writing became a little forced, it seemed. Some of his analogies were a reach. We read other writers, Roy Blount, Jr. had interesting things to say, Rick Bragg was better at longer form serious journalism, Dave Barry could be utterly hilarious. But for us, Grizzard was the top of the heap in short form humorous journalism. Usually the statement that someone "writes like they talk" is a pretty serious literary criticism. This was not true with Grizzard; just the opposite. He had a keen eye for a good story and a keen wit to tell it, even when he was the main character.

In particular, the work below shows what can happen when someone who has the gift of written eloquence turns that power on something that they truly and deeply care about. His Bulldogs should be very good this year. We regret he is not around to see them play. Thanks for expressing what so many of us feel, Lewis. RIP.

My friend, a fellow Georgia alumnus, was fraught with anticipation. He was pale. He was nervous. He was perspiring profusely.

***

His wife, noticing his condition said, “Calm down sweetheart. It’s just a football game.”

He meant that. I knew the man well enough to know he did, in fact, mean that.

It had something to do with Southerners against Northerners. Maybe it even had something to with his Methodist upbringing and the pope.

Whatever, it was clearly Us versus Them. Us won that day, tailback Herschel Walker leading Georgia to the national title….

But with me and mine, and with a lot of others, college football offers us an opportunity to circle our wagons and fight and kick and scream for our side against their side.

I supposed that’s also possible in politics and various cultural disagreements, but all that can get a little cloudy at times.

Our way of life against theirs; clear as a bell.

And probably more than anything else, it also offers the opportunity to share in what is believed to be a noble cause, and such breeds friendships that can endure all else….

College football season is the best time I live. I once risked my life because of college football.

Georgia was to open its football season on Labor Day night a week later against Alabama in Athens. I slipped out of the hospital, caught a cab to Gatwick Airport and flew back to Atlanta.

When asked later why I would risk my life in such a manner, I said, “I wasn’t about to stay in no foreign country during college football season.”

Us could win them all this year, or Us could lose a few. But, right or wrong, win or lose, always Us.

And Them can go to hell. Is there any part of that that isn’t absolutely clear?

Alabama should have a very good team this year. Just about everything, coaching staff, players with experience, general talent level, should be better this year than last (and likely than next, but now I'm really wishing my life away). And last year's wonderful season and its bitter unlikely ending, will be supplanted with new memories of this new version of the Crimson Tide.

We are glad to have you to visit with about it. Roll Tide, my friends. Beat Duke.

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Tire Store Report -- National Championship

noreply@blogger.com (Woody Woodruff) — Thu, 17 Jan 2019 14:34:00 +0000

Thanks for this edition of the Grades, Commissioner. An excellent job of summarizing. As the great Houston Oilers coach Bum Phillips once said after a particularly nasty defeat -- “The film looked suspiciously like the game itself.”

Offense: Clemson had an outstanding game plan and executed it very well. Alabama helped by not calling or executing very well on offense. It seemed to us, frankly, that Alabama tended to go away from plays that were working pretty well to try to succeed at plays that didn’t go so well. One critical factor that we noticed was that Clemson had the football IQ and the players to change their defensive formations at or just before the snap. Tua has done a really, really outstanding job this season of knowing where to go with the football. On passing downs, at least, he is an excellent reader of the opposing defense. This dictates where the pass should be thrown. Simplistically, if the defense lines up in their “Apple” formation, he knows that means his receiver on the far right should have the best match up. Wherever he looks first, that is where he is going. If the defense is in “Banana” he is throwing it to the left. If they are in “Cherries” then he throws to the tight end or the running back.

Clemson was changing from Apple to Cherries right at the snap (or perhaps actually being in the Cherries defense but making it look like Apple). It sounds simple, but is very difficult for a defense to do. The players have to all know their assignments, not run into each other, get to where they are going, all in a split second. Furthermore, while this will work for a little bit, a good quarterback will figure this out and pretty soon wait for his patterns to develop and pick on the guy who has not adjusted quickly enough. Clemson was able to counter this by getting a solid pass rush from their defensive line of future NFL players. Alabama was not able to adjust, most especially near the goal line.

The good news is that there are very very few defenses in college football that can successfully emulate what Clemson was able to do. Even next year’s edition of Clemson might not be able to. The bad news is that the defenses we think can manage it, at least sometimes, (Clemson, Georgia, probably LSU, maybe Texas A&M or Ohio State), are all teams Alabama may see this year. Can our coaching staff and quarterback adjust? We expect they will.

Defense: Alabama’s offense did not help its defense very much, but there were long stretches of the game where the defense looked undermanned. It’s sort of like when we are trying to bust loose a rusty or cross-threaded lug nut. Sometimes the air gun won’t do it and we end up the old-fashioned way -- a 4-way with a cheater bar and a series of steady pulls. This works mostly (though one time we saw Big Willie twist a perfectly good steel 4-way lug wrench around as pretty as you please -- looked like some weird little piece of wrought iron fence). Anyway, the point is that it is not that last push that really broke things loose and got the lug nut off -- it was the cumulative effect of all those efforts. We think that is sort of what happened to Alabama’s defense -- the accumulation of very good athletes hobbled by injury eventually became too much to overcome against a great opponent with great athletes and things broke loose. Christian Miller having a hamstring injury was just sort of the last pull on the lug wrench. Buggs, Diggs, Lewis, Miller, Smith -- eventually it is not just “next man up” no matter how hard they try. Alabama struggled to get any pressure on the quarterback at any time in the game. Their receivers made some outstanding catches. Does a completely healthy defense change the outcome? We honestly don’t know, but it couldn’t have hurt.

Special Teams: Well, mostly they weren’t so special, with a poorly designed and more poorly executed fake field goal and a kick off out of bounds when momentum seemed to be changing for the good guys. We’d be remiss, however, not to tip our cap to gallant walk-on Mike Bernier, who came in to have steadying (if not exactly record-setting) influence on a punting game that had begun to exhibit junior high level inconsistency. He had his best performance on the biggest stage. We are glad he chose to wear Crimson. Good luck to him in the future.

Coaching: The team did not seem to be well-prepared for this game. Certainly, the in-game adjustments did not seem that good. To be honest, things had seemed a little out of synch ever since the Mississippi State game. We are not sure just what to do about all the coaches moving in and out of the program. Sometimes coordinators taking a new job before the season end seemed to work out just fine -- e.g. Pruitt and McElwain; sometimes not so much -- e.g. Kiffin. We get that the whole idea of being an assistant college coach is to someday run your own show. But we are going to trust Coach Saban to come up with a solution here. We just don’t think that having our coaches interviewing for and transitioning to new jobs at the same time we are in the heart of the new recruiting signing period and preparing for our hardest games of the year is fair to them or their players.

Alabama lost at the end of a magical season. The world didn’t end. The sun came up and everything, though we admit to peeking out the blinds a little early on Tuesday morning just to make sure.

The Commissioner’s chronicle of the game being so complete and so compelling, and the fact that continuing to dwell on the game might upset our dinner plans, we hope you will indulge us in a personal note.

The original owner of the Tire Store was Glenn Williams, referred to as Pop. He was a two-way player at Sidney Lanier back in the day, as he liked to tell it, when the coaches said that weight lifting made you muscle bound, drinking water in practice caused cramps, and facemasks had taken all the fear out of the game. He had a scholarship offer to play football at Maryland, but instead he married his high school sweetheart, settled down, and pretty soon bought the Tire Store franchise. Pop was as old school as things got. He carried customers on the books for months and never charged a dime of interest. From time to time customers paid him in tomatoes, cucumbers, and zucchini they grew in their own gardens. He retired a few years ago, and the Tire Store was never really the same.

He raised his kids right. In particular, he taught his daughter the finer points of football. You know you are on the right track when you are watching the game with your girlfriend and she says something like, “If the ball wasn’t in the air that’s just holding, not pass interference, you bonehead referee”. It’s the kind of thing that makes you want to marry her. And I talked her into it.

Pop passed away last week from complications related to COPD. He was a devoted father, husband, and grandfather. More than that, he was a Christian, a gentleman, and a lifelong Alabama fan. We don’t have any higher compliments that we can give. Like the Tire Store itself, for us things will never really be the same.

Rest in Peace, Pop.

A failure should never be wasted, according to the Head Coach, and we doubt this one will. There are various coaching staff vacancies to fill and reassignments to be made. National signing day is next month and recruiting for the last few spots is in full swing. Spring practice will start in March and the A-Day game will be held in April. On August 31, the reigning SEC Champions will kick the football off again in Bryant Denny Stadium. We hope to see you there.

Roll Tide. Beat Duke.

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National Championship Grades

noreply@blogger.com (Woody Woodruff) — Fri, 11 Jan 2019 04:19:00 +0000

Vol Calls:

Bill: We’ve got Travis from Crossville on Line 1. Welcome to Vol Calls bro, you still pumped up about that Championship Game:

Travis: [Bleep] yeah, I’m pumped up. I haven’t been this [bleep] since I [bleep] [bleep] at Bonnaroo!

Doug: Yeah, it was great to see Alabama finally get what it deserved. Am I right?

Travis: [Bleep] [bleep] [bleep] you’re [bleep] right. Hey, listen man, I got the best idea of my [bleep] life. I have invested in a deal making DVD’s of the game. It only cost me $5 to make each DVD, and I’m going to sell ‘em for $50. I’m talking [bleep] BANK. You want to be one of my first buyers?

Bill: Uh … Trav ….. you do know that you can watch the whole game for free on YouTube, right?

Travis: The [bleep] you say?

Doug: Yeah. I mean, I think everyone in Vol Nation has probably already watched the whole game at least twice since Monday night. I’m not sure anyone would pay $50 when they can watch it for free.

Travis: Five

Bill: Five? Five what?

Travis: [bleep] five [bleep] thousand [bleep] dollars.

Doug: What’s $5,000?

Travis: What I invested in the DVD deal. [bleep] I sold my car for the money, man [bleep]

Bill: You sold your car?

Travis: Well, I think I was my car ……

Tide Talk:

John: Ok, well let’s see …. Wade is on a cell phone….. Roll Tide, Wade …. Bad game, but give Clemson credit?

Wade: Yeah, I guess …. But I got to say, you know that horrible no-call on the pass interference on that third down pass to Irv Smith on the opening drive of the second half, that should have been a first down inside the Clemson 10, instead we have 4^th and 6 and…

John: Stop. Wade. Just. Stop.

Wade: But …

John: 44-16, Brother. 44-16.

Wade: Yeah. OK, then. Roll Tide

WSFA AM

Bert: ….. $4.50 a bushel, and soy beans are .25 cents a gross unit at the Lee County Co-Op. We’ve got a call waiting, all the way from Eufaula, good morning Jim, you got anything to sell, swap or trade?

Jim: No, I just want all your listeners to know, that the Costco in Columbus has restocked its inventory of toilet paper. Me and Bob have rented a truck and are headed there now. We should be in Auburn by 3:00 pm, so the celebration can pick back up again.

Bert: That’s great news, Jim. And, I’ve got to say, you, and Bob are great examples of what the Auburn Family is all about. Keep ‘em rolling big guy …. Keep ‘em rolling ….. Do you get it? Rolling, ‘cause we’re rolling?

Jim: Oh, yeah! Oh man, that’s really funny! War Eagle!

It is a privilege to be able to bring so much joy to so many people. You know the people I mean. The fans of the other SEC schools … and the ACC …. and Big 10 …. Big XII? Not so much, but they are laughing their faces off at Georgia’s expense.

Alabama fans have accepted the fact with stoic resignation: Clemson whipped the Tide in every phase of the game. The offense: Tua made more poor decisions (5) in the game than he has made all year; four trips into the Clemson red zone produced only one touchdown; five of the Tides’ ten meaningful possessions did not end with a kick [2 Ints., 3 Downs]. The defense: allowed Clemson to convert 10 of 15 third downs; surrendered 482 total yards; on takeaways, sacks, and QB hurries recorded 0-0-0. Special teams: a missed PAT; a kickoff out of bounds. Coaching: 6 penalties; fake kick on 4^th and 6 with Clemson playing defense; play selection failed to give the team the best opportunity to stay competitive; for the first time since 2008, the opponent appeared to be better conditioned. At game’s end the Tigers were on their way to adding 7 more points to the score, but Dabo Swinney mercifully took the Paw off Alabama’s neck and let the clock run to zero.

It was a dreadful performance.

Some individual performances deserve recognition. Najee Harris averaged 6.6 yards per carry. Damien Harris averaged 5.2 yards per run. Josh Jacobs averaged 4.3. It’s problematic, however, that our three stellar running backs combined for only 31 carries. Jerry Jeudy gained 139 yards on 5 receptions. DeVonta Smith caught 6 passes for 65 yards. Xavier McKinney was credited with 7 tackles [6 solo]. Isaiah Buggs and Mack Wilson each recorded 6 stops.

Each aspect of the team’s performance grades out an F. So there is an end to 2018.

But Coach Saban is absolutely right. One game does not define an individual competitor, nor a team. The Tide’s four touchdown loss to Clemson certainly does not define the body of work achieved by the 2018 Crimson Tide, and especially the 2018 senior class. No class of football players in the history of the greatest program the sport of college football has produced have ever compiled a resume to equal that of the seniors who have now played their last game in an Alabama jersey: Wins – Losses: 55-4; SEC West Championships: 4 (one co-championship); SEC Championships: 3; CFP Championship Game appearances: 4; CFP National Championships: 2.

Only Clemson compiled a comparable record.

I’ve been asking myself: How did Clemson do it? What was the secret sauce that produced such a stunning victory? I have come to a couple of conclusions.

First, and perhaps most importantly, Clemson won the 2019 CFP Championship Game in January 2018, when every player on the Tiger defense that could have left early for the NFL draft decided to return for a senior season. If Alabama is going to have a chance to beat Clemson for the national title in January 2020, it will require a similar commitment from the likes of Q. Williams, Josh McMillan, Terrell Lewis, and Isaiah Buggs. Raekwon Davis and Trevon Diggs have already announced they will be returning. Let’s hope their example will inspire others.

Second, I believe Clemson’s defensive coordinator, who has been on Dabo’s staff for a half dozen years, devoted time every week since the end of spring ball, to working on Alabama. It showed. Coach Saban will require a similar commitment from his staff, whomever is left once other schools have finished hiring away his assistants.

The final ingredient will be a universal dedication by players, coaches, staff, fans, and all who love the University of Alabama. Tua expressed it in just five words at the post-game presser: When asked his takeaway from the loss, the young man said: “Good is not good enough.”

Thanks for sharing this amazing season with me. The most important game of the season so far is Duke, on Labor Day weekend.

Roll Tide, Yall

The Commissioner

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Tire Store Report -- Orange Bowl / National Semifinal

noreply@blogger.com (Woody Woodruff) — Fri, 04 Jan 2019 17:41:00 +0000

Yet again the Crimson Tide took on an opponent, seemed to very quickly figure out that they were not a serious threat, and then sort of seemed to lose interest in the contest. This time, it almost cost them, but not really. It seemed like it might cost Alabama because of Oklahoma’s deserved reputation as a team that can put up a lot of points and do it in a hurry; and not really because of Oklahoma’s deserved reputation as a defense that couldn’t stop a runaway tricycle.

We were certainly nervous when Oklahoma clawed back, sort of literally, to within 11. The Comptroller kept saying, “I can’t believe y’all are nervous.” She works with numbers a lot and I guess that gave her more confidence than it gave those of us who bust down tires and do rotations instead.

This game did renew our faith in how football is supposed to be played -- a team that is only good on offense is going to be in trouble when it runs into an opponent that bothers to play well on both sides of the line of scrimmage. The Big 12ish seems to have agreed, as a conference, that defense is optional -- most all the best athletes should be put on the offensive side of the ball, and any team that can luck into a couple of turnovers or other mistakes by the other team’s offense will win on the last possession or two.

If they like that style, then fine. We just don’t think that is the way football is meant to be played. We hope this fad won’t have long-term success against teams from other conferences that are willing to play defense and it will go the way of the leisure suits and those creepy little troll dolls with green hair. In fact, if anything, we’d prefer to start with defense. Coach Bryant said something to the effect of: If we don’t score, they might win; if they don’t score, we’ll never lose. Maybe we are just getting old-fashioned. But we’d rather be out-of-style, undefeated and heading to the national championship game than fashionable and currently preparing for the Spring scrimmage.

Tagovailoa got a little redemption. By the end of this game, his season-long quarterback rating had climbed to 205.2. Kyler Murray’s is 199.2. Murray is a good athlete and deserving of a lot of respect for his leadership and ability. However, if he’d had to play defenses week in and week out like Mississippi State, Georgia, LSU, etc. we are not sure his success level would be quite so gaudy. And Tagovailoa’s stats from Saturday’s game were impressive (24/27 for 318 yards, 4 touchdowns and 0 interceptions) but seem to be totally lost in all the discussion about how wonderful Murray is. We have always wondered what Josh Jacobs could do if he stayed healthy for an entire season. We are now seeing that. His touchdown run with defenders bouncing off him like so many ninepins was the sort of thing that they play in the background during the first round of the NFL draft.

The defense was a little inconsistent. However, some of the Oklahoma statistics were inflated by the fact that Alabama went into anaconda mode a couple of times and traded yardage for time, like at the end of the first half. Patrick Surtain II, who has had an outstanding freshman year at defensive back, was pushed like a shopping cart by Oklahoma’s receivers -- maybe that is how they rack up the passing statistics they did. We expect him to play better in the championship, when we hope the rules will be a little better enforced and, frankly, he’ll be a little more aggressive if they aren’t. However, any effort that held this Oklahoma team to 34 points, given the Oklahoma defense, was a fine and almost certainly winning effort.

We have said enough about officiating this year. You covered many of the deficiencies quite well, Commissioner. A friend of ours who was at the game said there was a lot more pushing, shoving, and even punches thrown than were shown on TV. Apparently when Oklahoma’s coaching staff exhorted the team to “fight” during the second quarter, they took him pretty literally. How the fellow who jumped on Williams after his sack and started trying to punch him in the head didn’t rate an ejection, or even a flag, is beyond us. Maybe they just aren’t used to that sort of thing over in the ACC. Good riddance to that crew.

We do hope that the offseason sees some revisions to the rule about what is a pass reception. This whole thing of re-running the “catch” from 50 different cameras, enlarged, in super slow motion, just to see if the point of the ball moves an inch or two between the time a player possess it and is called down is not only delaying the games it is, well, stupid. The problem here is not, in our opinion, the officials who are being asked to see things in real time that are not able to be seen by anyone who doesn’t have Superman’s vision, but the rule itself. The calls in the Clemson / Notre Dame game were worse than ours, though we fear what this is turning into. If you have to watch it a dozen times, frame-by-frame, enlarged till it fills up a 55-inch screen, then that process itself ought to be enough to indicate that the call on the field was good enough.

Coach Saban is famous for comparing a college football season to a mountain climb. Once again, the Crimson Tide are at the last step of gaining the summit of the mountain. The higher you are, though, the further you fall if you make a misstep. It is time for Alabama to finish off the climb it started back in the heat and humidity of Labor Day weekend against Louisville.

On to the National Championship game on the west coast. Rumors are that the field was in terrible shape for last weekend’s NFL season finale. Pete Carroll made a point of complaining about it after the game and flat out said the terrible turf cost his team at least a field goal. There was talk of resodding the whole field before Monday night, if they could get it done in between predicted rain storms, which apparently didn’t happen. I expect the team would happily take the predicted mid-50s and rain showers over the drenching humidity of south Florida -- a sloppy muddy field is a different matter. Either way, it should be an exciting evening.

Roll Tide. Beat Clemson.

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Orange Bowl Grades

noreply@blogger.com (Woody Woodruff) — Tue, 01 Jan 2019 23:43:00 +0000

Y’all, this game was not a contest between the best football team in America and the fourth best. There is no way Oklahoma was a better football team than Georgia. Not that the Dawgs deserved to be in the playoffs, mind you, but nobody can honestly say Oklahoma was a better team than Georgia.

As I write these grades, the Dawgs have not yet kicked off against Texas. Perhaps the Canines will let Alabama beat them again and fail to show up for the Sugar Bowl. But I stand by my opening remark.The Orange Bowl was not a game between the number 1 and the 4 teams.

Alabama beat Oklahoma 45-34. Don’t let the score fool you. Also don’t get hung up on OU outscoring Alabama in the second half. The score of this game could very easily have been 60-27.

One team had the Heisman Trophy winner at quarterback. The other had the nation’s best quarterback. The Sooner offense was statistically the best in the nation. The Sooner defense was ….what’s the word I’m looking for?...Not. After Bama scored a touchdown on the game’s opening drive, Oklahoma never possessed the football with a chance to score and take the lead.

In reality, the game was another playoff semifinal mismatch; not as laughable as Clemson 30 Notre Dame 3, but Alabama was clearly better than Oklahoma. Special teams’ malpractice, penalties (called and not called), and errors in execution combined to allow the Sooners to get back in the game. What should have been a blowout ended up a 4^th quarter stalemate. A breezy, relaxed tune up for yet another rendezvous with Clemson became a slug-fest of cheap shots, and unsportsmanlike play from both teams.

Alabama’s fourth touchdown was a perfect metaphor for the Tide’s dominance. Josh Jacobs took a perfectly thrown screen pass 27 yards, and knocked an erstwhile tackler into next week on his way into the end zone. Fortunately, the OU player was not seriously injured, beyond whatever social or psychic impact he might suffer from video of the play going viral.

How the Tide mismanaged the opportunity to end the game in the second quarter, was a perfect example of the woes Bama has suffered all season on special teams. OU’s first scoring drive ended with two separate OU players flagged for personal fouls. So, with the score 28-7, Oklahoma had to kick off from its own 10 yard line. The Tide offense, which to this point in the game had been unstoppable, was assured of field position somewhere between good and excellent, assuming of course that The Other Jaylen, or Josh Jacobs didn’t score on the return.

So, what happened? The forward return man, for some reason, stuck his arm in the air. Maybe he was pointing to himself on the Jumbo Tron? He couldn’t have been calling for the ball, because it sailed over his head right into the hands of Josh Jacobs who was primed to return the ball behind a phalanx of blockers. Instead, the refs interpreted the raised hand as a fair catch signal, and spotted the ball at the Bama 21 yard line.

Three plays later, the Tide punted the ball 34 yards, and Oklahoma returned the kick 5 yards. So, instead of answering the Sooner’s TD with a decisive drive of its own, the Tide allowed OU the ball, first and ten at midfield.

The defense forced OU to grind out yards, and held the Sooners to a field goal. Alabama took the ensuing kickoff, and drove to the Oklahoma 15. On third and less and a yard, Bama was penalized three times. Each penalty was attributed to right guard, Jedrick Wills, Jr. [So.; 6-5, 309; Lexington, KY]. Of the three infractions, a false start was legitimate. The second flag, was a phantom holding call, and the third was a procedure call that nullified a touchdown pass. Alabama had to settle for a field goal and the score at the half was 31-10.

OU scored on each of its four second half possessions, but had to run 40 plays, and consume 13:43 of game time to do so. The Sooners found yards hard to come by, and were not able to run the up-tempo offense they grew accustomed to in the Big XII. Bama meanwhile continued to drain the game clock while scoring two TDs and taking a knee at the OU 10 yard line to end the game. An earlier drive was thwarted by the video official reversing a catch called on the field. If the standard is supposed to be “indisputable video evidence” the play should have stood as called. Bama would have had the ball first down in the OU red zone instead of punting. More on the disgraceful performance of the officials a bit later.

Because Alabama dominated OU in a manner that is not exactly reflected in the statistics, here is how I grade the game:

Offense: A Alabama gained 528 yards of total offense [200 net yards rushing], earned 28 first downs, converted 7 of 10 third downs, and controlled the ball for 36:08. Tua was nothing short of fantastic, completing 24 of 27 pass attempts for 318 yards and 4 TD’s. Jalen completed his only pass attempt for 10 yards.

DeVonta Smith was the leading receiver with 104 yards and a TD on 6 receptions. Jeudy and Jacobs each caught four passes for 73 and 60 yards respectively. Each made receptions for touchdowns. Henry Ruggs, III caught 3 passes for 14 yards including a spectacular TD catch while being interfered with. Nine different players caught passes.

Jacobs was the Tide’s leading rusher, gaining 98 yards on 15 plays (6.5 avg). Damien Harris gained 48 yards on 11 carries, and Najee Harris gained 45 yards on 6 runs. No Tide running back was tackled for lost yardage.

The offense gained more than 40 yards on 8 of its 10 offensive possessions [75, 55, 61, 48, 55, 87, 46, 49] resulting in six TD’s, one FG, and the end of the game.

Defense: B The defense surrendered 471 total yards to OU’s offense. However, the Sooners were only able to convert 6 of 13 third downs, and Kyler Murray was barely 50% in pass completions [19-37, 308 yds]. Murray also gained 109 net yards rushing, but 48 of those yards came on a single play at the end of the first half where the Tide was playing deep prevent.

Dylan Moses led all tacklers with 5 stops [4 solo]. Deionte Thompson and Isaiah Buggs each recorded 4 tackles. Xavier Mckinney was recognized as the defensive MVP for his 4 tackles and 4 pass breakups. All total Bama defenders recorded 4 tackles for lost yardage [3 sacks], broke up 6 passes and hurried the Heisman Trophy winner 2 times.

Special Teams:

Punting: D+ Mike Bernier only averaged 28 yards per kick on two punts. The return team recorded no yards. The coverage unit allowed 5 yards on one return.

Kickoffs: D Joseph Bulovas averaged 55 yards per kick. Only 1 kick was a touchback. The coverage unit allowed 92 yards on 5 returns including a long return of 23 yards. The kick return unit committed an incomprehensible error discussed earlier.

Place Kicking: A Bulovas was good on his lone FG attempt [38 yards] and perfect on 6 PATs.

Coaching: A Alabama was ready to play. Although penalized 9 times, that will not factor in the coaching grade. The participation report lists 53 players who saw action in the game. OU only played 46 different players.

A few words about the officials, borrowed from the ACC: Take them back and don’t lend them out ever again.

Those guys were pathetic. I suppose they came into the game intending to “let the players play.” At least that is the only thing that explains absolutely ignoring blatant pass interference by OU DB’s and holding by the Sooner offensive line. Apart from the two personal fouls called following OU’s initial score, the officials totally ignored cheap shots and late hits. Perhaps they saw how Alabama’s return team mishandled OU’s kick off from the 10 yard line and figured there was no point in punishing other fouls. The result was that as the game progressed, the quality of play deteriorated….on both sides.

But enough on this topic. Fortunately, Alabama will not have to play another game with these officials.

Notwithstanding the confetti shower, the big trophy filled with oranges, and the TV hype, winning this game was not a stand-alone goal. It was, however an essential step towards a goal. For Alabama, it was just the last milestone on the Road to 18. The finish line is now in sight: Alabama’s annual post-season game against Clemson.

Saturday’s Wall Street Journal has a feature story about how Clemson has been working to turn itself into Alabama. It is worth reading.

Alabama has the chance to make history. No college football team has ever won 15 games in a single season. No team has ever won six national championships in nine seasons. Alabama has those opportunities. Stay focused, everyone. Do your film study. Work on improving every day. Out work yesterday.

And most importantly: trust The Process.

Roll Tide Y’all.

The Commissioner

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