Crimson Red Sports

                                             Mercer vs Bama

These notes are going to be a little different, because this should have been a glorified scrimmage with Bama walking away easily.

Congrats to Bama and the players on the win vs Mercer.  This game should have been over in the first quarter.  However, Bama was unfocused and undisciplined yesterday afternoon. 

Last week Bama put up 501 yards against Miami and could only muster 424 against Mighty Mercer. Bama had 76 less total yard, 88 less passing yards, and only 11 more rushing yards.  I will give some credit to Mercer because they didn’t come in intimidated by Bama.  As a matter of fact, their DL was more physical than the OL at times.  Once on the 2nd drive 2nd play the Bama center got pancaked by the Mercer defensive lineman.   Bama also had 2 three and outs in this game.   I am not going to count the 10+ passes or runs, because they should have been plentiful, but were not.  Young had a decent game, but missed on a deep throw that was dropped, but it was behind the receiver.  His two best throws in the game didn’t count.  One was a deep ball that was negated by a penalty and the other was a throw that was the throw that was just out of the endzone.  The OL just didn’t create the push they did last week.  Mercer also seemed to give Bama problems in the passing game when they only rushed 3 and dropped 8.  To me there seem to be a couple of time where Young didn’t check down and allow the receivers to try to make plays.   

Defensively they seemed to be a little more focus until the 2nd half.   Out of all the Mercer drives 6 were 3 and outs.  I will say I don’t think the 2 inside LB’s were not focused as they seem to play well.  Mercer had a total of 216 yards and most of that came on 2 drives which covered 165 yards.  Of the 216 yards, 165 of that was passing and 104 came on 2 completions which accounted for their 2 touchdowns.  Both seem to happen against busted coverages.  Also, it looked like the throw back routes could have been a problem, especially with teams that have talent, like UF. 

Special teams, finally missed a field goal, but I will say on tv, it looked good.  They also scored a touchdown on special team.

They had more penalties this game than last game as well as yardage per penalty.  All phases of the game had penalties.  Many of the penalties, especially on offense, hurt the team.

I guess the biggest positives, they won as well as hearing the story of how really bad the wreck Sanders was in and he was able to come back.  I never knew the extent of the injuries and the severity of the wreck.

If they play like this vs UF the outcome may not be favorable.

Feel free to comment.

After watching the last Bama scrimmage, I had some uneasy feelings about how good the team would be this year. Today's game reminded me very much of the last scrimmage that I watched. Hopefully the season doesn't continue down the road it traveled today as the schedule gets much harder starting next Saturday.

Good write up hscoach. IF we play next Sat. like we did yesterday we will go down by 3 TD's. Fla has two running QB's that can also throw. RTR!

Good analysis coach.  As Coach Saban said "If it stinks, it stinks!"  Looking for better focus next week.  We will need it.

ROLL TIDE!!!

Thanks Coach. Great job and on the mark. Something tells me that Saban will get their attention this week. Let's hope so anyway.

I sure hope he does but he keeps saying Bryce is playing ok everybody else needs to step up around him. Could this not put a divide between the players? Just asking. RTR!

Great job, as usual.
I hope what we saw against Miami is representative of this team versus what we saw with Mercer. I do think CNS will have them ready by Saturday.

Miami almost lost to App State last weekend.  I don't know if we permanently broke them or if we are in for trouble this year.

Bama only returned two starters on offense, and has yet to play with its best 5 OL.   We'll improve.  Besides, I know Coach Saban would never admit this, but he wanted a "closer than it should be" game Saturday.   The gameplan was vanilla as Bryant Gumbel.

I noticed this and I wondered about it also. CNS is a lot sharper than we can imagine. RTR!