Bama didn't make a 3 pt shot until there was less than 10 minutes left in the 2nd half.

                                             Ark vs Bama

First, congrats to the Bama players and coaches on the big win today. This is the first time a team from the SEC won 10 SEC games in a season.  This was also a game where Bama got to get a lot of game experience for the backups in the 2nd half.  One question I do have is why was there so much slipping?  Wasn’t this something that could have been seen in pregame warmups therefore allowing them to change shoes? 

OFFFENSE:  The offense put together 443 yards of total offense which included 227 passing and 216 rushing.  For negative plays I have Bama with 2 tackles for losses and 1 fumble lost.  The first tackle for loss was when Harris slipped on a cut and the second was not until the 4th quarter on a wide receiver screen where the other wideout missed the block.  Bama only had 2 three and outs and both of those came in the 2nd half with the backups in.  For plays that covered 10+ yards, Bama had 9 passing plays and 2 running plays.  Bama got into the red zone 6 times and scored 5 touchdowns while fumbling on the other possession.  Two scores came from outside the red zone on a field goal and the long run by McClellan.  The other score came from the special teams as Smith returned a punt for the touchdown.  I know this game was a little different because of no passing touchdowns and the lack of long passes.  However, there are benefits when you get to keep the defense off the field and keep the other teams defense on the field. 

QB:  Jones played a good game where he connected on 24 for 29 passes for 208 yards.  He connected on 83% of his passes.  Some people don’t know how frustrating it can be when you are used to throwing the ball down field on a regular basis.  Ark did a good job taking the deep ball away.  Even though I thought there were a couple of chances to throw a deeper ball Jones took the safe throw and kept the offense moving.  The only mistake he made was negated by the targeting penalty.  I really thought he had an early throw he didn’t take.  Young came in and did a decent job.  He really never threw the ball downfield, over 10 yards, and ended up with a total of 19 yards passing going 3 for 4. 

RB:  Bama played 4 different running backs.  Harris and Robinson got most of the carries.  They combined for 27 carries for 100 yards.  McClelland and Williams go the other 10 carries for 114 yards.  The biggest run of the day came from McClellan who ran for 80 and a touchdown.

Rec: Forristall led the receivers with 6 catches for 52 yards.  He was followed by Metchie with 5 (72), Bolden 4 (43) and Smith 3 (22).  The best part of this is that Smith didn’t pout by not being the main guy.  As a matter of fact, he and Jones were some of the leading cheerleaders for the backups on the field later in the game.  Overall, counting running backs 9 different players had catches.

OL:  The OL had another great game.  You can see there were a total of 3 negative plays and really none of them had to do with the play of the offensive line.  The got a good push in the running game and gave the QB time to survey the field and go to the 2nd or 3rd receivers when necessary. The backup OL also played well when they got into the game.

Def:  The defense played very well with all the different looks Ark gave them.  Bama gave up a total of 188 yard with 108 passing and 80 rushing.  For negative plays, I have Bama with 4 tackles for losses, 8 sacks, 4 fumbles (3 recovered), and 1 interception.  Instead of 3 and out, I am going with quick outs, because Bama had 6 three and out and 1 one and outs because of a fumble.  This happened on 7 consecutive drives after Ark had a little success on their first 2 drives.  For plays that covered 10+ yards, Ark had 6 passing plays and 4 running plays.  Again, all of these were on the first 2 drives in the game or the last 2 drives of the game.  Ark got into the red zone once and settled for a field goal.  Ark had 13 first downs and all of them came on the 1st two drives of the game and the last 3 drives of the game.  The only bad thing on defense was a couple of times they lost contain and allowed the QB to escape outside.  The frustrating thing about this is that they QB dropped short and the edge was lost quickly. 

DL: They played one of their best games. I say this because many of them were among the leading tacklers when it is usually the safeties who fill these slots.  They had the most negative plays of any game this year.

LB: The most glaring aspect here is how well Moody played when he replaced Harris in the game.  He was the leading tackler in the game.  Others didn’t have as many tackles as they were replaced with backups and the DL got the Ark players before they got to that level.

DB: They didn’t get tested much. As I have said in the past the best pass defense is a great pass rush.  This is obvious since Ark had only 108 total passing yards. 

Special teams:  The highlight of the special team was Smith’s punt return for the TD.  He was untouched 84 yards and seemed to pick up the Bama offense.

Penalties: Bama had 2 penalties for 23 yards.  The first was a defensive holding on Anderson.  Too be honest this was probably a good hold as Ark was running the rail out of the backfield and there was no one else there to pick him up.  This may have saved a touchdown.  The 2nd penalty was a roughing the kicker on a punt.  This gave Ark one of their 13 first downs.

Finally, Bama showed they don’t have to throw deep to win the game.  They controlled the ball and the lock.  Bama got great game experience for backup as they played for a quarter and a half.  Hopefully, they will finish punching their ticket to the playoff with a win over FL who will be very hungry after their loss last night.
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17 and Counting

Found it on espn.  went to gamecast and it popped up to watch live.

What is that old saying, don't let you mouth write a check your butt can't cover.

                                             LSU vs Bama

First, congrats to the Bama players and coaches on the big win today.  This game was a tale of two opposite halves for the offense and defense.  The offense scored 45 points in the first half and only 10 in the second half.  The defense gave up 14 in the first half and 3 in the second half.   

OFFFENSE:  The offense put together 650 yards of total offense which included 385 passing and 265 rushing.  The only thing that stopped Bama was Bama themselves.  In the 2nd half Bama fumbled to stop a drive and Metchie dropped a catchable ball that would have kept the drive alive and put them either in the red zone or close to the red zone.  For negative plays, I have Bama with 3 tackles for losses, 1 sack (which happened in the 4th quarter to the backup QB), and a lost fumble.  The only 3 and outs Bama had was when they scored on 2 three play drives.  For plays that covered 10+ yards, I have Bama with 12 passing play, really 13 but Bolden fumbled on one and 9 running plays.  Three different backs had runs of over 10 yards.  Bama got into the red zone 6 times and 4 touchdowns and kicked 2 field goals.  They scored 3 touchdowns from outside the red zone.  As I said Bama stopped themselves in the 2nd half with the fumble and drop or the scored could have been worse.  One other thing I want to say, is I have Bama with 3 tackles for losses.  If my eyesight is correct, the first 2 losses were less than a yard and the 3rd one was about 2 yards.  The sack was a legitimate loss.

QB:  Jones played a good game where he connected on 20 of 28 (71%) passes for 385 yards.  There was one clear drop by Metchie and another that could have been a possible catch by Metchie so he could have easily been 22 for 28 which would have been a 78% completion rate.  I did think a couple of times he locked in on certain receivers and didn’t check down as well, but the TV angle didn’t show what was on the other side of the field.   Most of the time he does a good job moving up and around just a bit in the pocket, while still looking downfield, to find a secondary receiver.  Young basically handed the ball off except for 2 plays.  The first pass attempt ended in the only sack of the day and the other pass was thrown late and could have easily been picked off. 

RB:  Harris played very well vs LSU.  He ran the ball well and showed patience to find the hole.  He accounted for 148 total yards with 145 rushing and 3 receiving.  The reason the receiving yards are so low is because LSU sniffed out a screen early in the game.  They also did a good job covering him out of the backfield.  With his 145 yards rushing he surpassed the 1000 yard mark now totaling 1038 for the year.  His total yards stands at 1285 when you combine his rushing receiving.   Robinson ran well also accounting for 62 yards on 11 carries.  It looked like he was running a purpose and punished the tacklers when they got to him.  I also thought both McClellan and Williams ran well as they had 48 and 19 yards and combined, they averaged over 7 yards per carry. 

Rec: It sounds like a broken record, but Smith had a great game 8 receptions for 231 yards and 3 touchdowns.  That is an average of 28.875 yards per catch, not bad for someone who was supposed to be double covered most of the day.  Metchie and Billingsley both had 4 catches for 126 yards.  Bolden had one catch for 19 yards, but was negated by his fumble.  I think this is the second straight game he has lost the ball.  It is good that Billingsley is stepping up to be that 3rd receiver. 

OL:  The OL had an outstanding game.  As I stated above the only tackles for losses were close to the LOS and there were few of them.  The biggest tackles for losses were the sack and the screen which was read well by LSU.  There were a couple of things that really stood out.  First was the push the OL got which led to the OL getting to the second level.  Many times you could see the OL downfield on the big runs.  Second the blocking that literally took people completely out of the point of attack.  There was one where Leatherwood blocked his guy all the way to the sideline. 

Def:  Except for a couple of busted assignment/alignments that led to touchdowns the defense played a very good game.  I say this because I heard Saban talking about the bust.  On the touchdown pass, the corner didn’t get the call that called off the corner blitz.   At first, I thought the safety didn’t overlap properly.  On the long run, the force player lined up n the wrong side of the formation which allowed the lane for the long run with no force guy to turn the runner back inside to his help.  The Tigers had a good game plan starting out with the short passing game. With this type of game plan, the defense has a hard time getting pressure on the QB.  The defense gave up a total of 352 total yards which included 254 passing and 98 rushing   I don’t know the exact total, but Bama gave up about half as many yards in the 2nd half as they did in the first half.  For negative plays, I have Bama with 3 tackles for losses, 5 sacks, and caused 2 fumbles one which they recovered.  I credit Bama with 5 three and outs, with 3 being in succession at the end of the 1st half and the start of the 2nd half.  For plays that covered 10+ yards, LSU had 8 passing plays and 2 running plays.  They had no running plays that went over 10 yards in the 2nd half.  They got into the red zone twice and turned the ball over on downs both times.  They were huge defensive stands.  All scores came from outside the red zone on one long running play and one long passing play.  Each were caused by mistakes by the defense.  The other score, a field goal came from outside the red zone. I will say Bama did miss some tackles early but did a better job after the first 4 drives.  I may be wrong, but it also looks like Bama may be playing more zone than they usually do.

DL: They played well as they were able to put pressure on the QB when they tried to throw the ball downfield.  Counting Allen and Anderson, the DL accounted for 4 of the negative plays. 

LB: They played well also, as Harris was one of the leading tacklers.  I know people have talked about LB play, but he days of playing inside the box are basically gone.  They have to cover out of the backfield, like the play Moses made when LSU tried to run the rail by the RB out of the backfield.  Harris gets to line up on the edge and had a big play on the 4th and short. 

DB: They played well.  Most of the completions were short. The QB’s combines completed 56% of their passes.  Of the passes thrown 32 were thrown under 10 yards from the LOS and they completed21 of them.  The other 13 passes were thrown over 10 yards and only 4 were completed.  As I said above the days of LB’s playing and making tackles in the box are basically gone.  Many of the top tacklers for the game were Jobe, Hellams, Moore, Battle and Wright.  This is a combination of safeties and corners.

Special teams:  The special teams were solid except for the extremely short kickoffs.  I don’t know if that was the plan or what. 
Penalties: Bama, again, only had 4 penalties.  A roughing the passer after a completion happened on one of the touchdown drives.  The targeting call was also on a touchdown drive.  I did think Wright tried to go in with his shoulder, but the receiver lowered his head.  That play came on an incomplete pass and would have been 3rd and 10.  The other 2 penalties were a holding call and a false start by Brown.  I think Brown has at least one false start a game.

Finally, Bama wraps up the Western division championship.  They must stay focused and beat Arkansas this weekend.  Hopefully, they can get a big lead early and play a lot of backup.  One thing for sure they can’t look ahead.
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17 and Counting

Good news, I finally purchased a computer.   Bad news , because of covid they are short handed and may take up to 3 days to transfer info on my computer.

Have been delayed because of computer issues.   Looks like I may be getting a new one.

Looks like if Bama can't hit the 3, there is no backup plan.

Many teams are putting them in difficult situations. For instance covering backs out of the backfield.  If you check the total stats you will see they are among the team leaders in tackles.

Stanford vs Bama on ESPN 2.  8:30

A couple of things I left off.  Even though the official stats show that Jones averaged 11. 6 yards per passing attempt, he averaged he averaged 16.77 per completion. On the other side of the ball, Bo averaged 5.97 per attempt and and 9.8 per completion.  AU also averaged 2.9 per rushing attempt. and averaged 4.3 yards per play.

Yea, those "game managers" make a few plays every once in a while.  He throws a heck of a deep ball most of the time.

I also thought Tim played well.  Yes he has played quiet a bit this year.  His stats have picked up the last 3 or 4 games,

Thank you young man.