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UC vs Bama

First, congrats to the Bama players and coaches the victory and advancing to the National Championship game once again.

OFFFENSE: The offense played the game they needed to play to win this game. I have to give the UC defense some credit. Their skilled defensive players made it tough for a deep passing game and they consistently put pressure on the QB. The running game saved Bama. Bama put together a total of 482 yards of total offense which included 181 yards passing and 301 rushing. For negative plays, I have the offense with 4 tackles for losses, 2 sacks, and a interception. I credit Bama with 2 three and outs, one of which was because of an interception. For plays that covered 10+ yards, I have Bama with 7 passing plays and 11 running plays. I can’t remember the last time Bama had more running plays for 10+ yards than they did passing plays. Bama got into the red zone 3 times and scored 2 touchdowns and kicked a field goal. There was a sack that led to the kicking of the field goal in the red zone. They scored twice from outside the red zone with a touchdown pass and a field goal. The offense converted on 5 of 13 3rd down situations and converted their only 4th down try. They kept saying Bama opened the game with 10 straight runs, however one of these was a scramble because of the pressure on the pass play.

QB: Young had a good day considering the pressure he was under. He was 17 for 28 for 181 yards with an interception. He was pressured on at least 10 of the passes and the interception happened on one of those pressure. Since they were running the ball effectively, he was 5 for 7 on passing plays that involved play action.

RB: Robinson played very well. I do think they ran the ball a little less in the second half to probably save him a bit. He made many yards after initial contact. Robinson ended up with 204 yards on 26 carries. The yards were a Bama record, and it is great to see this for him because he stuck it out and finally got his chance to play. Sander had a very good game also as he had 67 yards on 14 carries. I noticed they also left him in more on passing down when he was call upon to block.

Rec: Williams led the way with total number of receptions with 7 for 62 yards. The yardage leader was 66 yards on 4 catches and a touchdown. Bolden had 3 catches for 31 yards and a touchdown. Billingsley and Latu both had a catch and Latu’s was for a touchdown.

OL: The OL, when it came to run blocking, did a fantastic job. However, when it came to pass protection, they left a lot to be desired. The got a great push on running plays and even saw some of them downfield getting more than one block. In the passing game, they missed simple stunts, the were beat on 1v1’s, and a missed block by the TE led to a sack in the red zone. There were a few times when UC got pressure with 4 rushers vs 5 blockers. Hopefully, they can clean up the mistakes before the next game.

Def: The defense played very well. UC tried to attack Bama with the short passing game as they threw the ball 32 times and out of these 32 times, 23 were thrown under 10 yards. UC was 3 for 9 for balls thrown over 10 yards. Bama gave up a total of 218 total yards which included 144 passing yards and 74 rushing yards. Out of these 218 yards, 116 came on the first drive of the game for UC (60 yards) and the opening drive for them in the second half (56 yards). At the half they had 76 total yards, and probably late in the 3rd quarter it looked like Bama play a lot of 2 shell to keep everything underneath. For negative plays, I have Bama with 2 tackles for losses and 6 sacks. I credit Bama with 5 three and outs. For plays that covered 10+ yards, I have UC with 6 passing plays, 3 in each half, and 2 running plays, both in the second half. They got into the red zone twice and had to kick field goals both times. Bama held UC to 2 of 12 3rd down conversions. Those 2 came on the first drive of the game.

DL: They played well and had several passes knocked down. They kept pressure on the QB and didn’t give up a run of 10+ yards until the 2nd half. I really thought Mathis played a very good game.

LB: They played well as they got off blocks and got to the running back. That is if the blocks got to them. They did a good job with timing their blitzes.

DB: Since Bama is basically playing back-ups, I thought they played well. As I stated above, UC only threw the ball past 10 yards 9 times and completed 3 of them. Most of the short passes were defended by the safeties and LBs. I thought they did a good job tackling and the only issue I really saw was when Armour-Davis couldn’t change direction on the pass completed against him.

Special teams: The special teams had a couple of hiccups. There was a fumble on a punt which Bama fortunately recovered, there was the missed field goal, and the kickoff to the kickers right side. When he kicks to the right side, the other teams left, he does get the height or distance, it seems to me.

Penalties: I have Bama with 6 penalties. They were all on the offense or special team. First, Bama had an illegal forward pass, Second, there was a false start on the field goal. Third, there was an illegal formation that took away an 8-yard run. This was also a result of one of the wide receivers not stepping up when the TE and other rec shifted to the other side of the field. Fourth, unsportman like conduct on 42 on the punt that was fumbled caused by pulling someone off the pile. Fifth and sixth, holding and false start both by Owens. He also had a holding that was declined right before these two.

Finally, Bama has a chance to win another National Championship. I don’t think the game will be as easy as last time they played UG. Bama can’t afford to leave points on the field like missed field goals or not getting touchdowns when they get in the red zone.

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