Game notes: UT vs Bama

UT vs Bama

First, congrats to the Bama players and coaches on the big win today. Tough luck on the injury to Waddle, prayers go out for him.

OFFFENSE: The offense put together 587 yards of total offense which included 417 passing yards and 170 rushing yards. The only three and out was where there was a fumble on the third play. For negative plays, Bama offense is credited with 3 tackles for losses, 2 sacks, and 1 fumble. For plays that cover 10+ yards, I have Bama with 20 passing plays and 6 running plays. Bama had 12 possessions during the game and scored 5 touchdowns and 2 field goals. The other touchdown was scored by the defense. On possession was right before the half with little time on the clock and one was to run out the game. Basically, what I am saying here is Bama really scored on 7 of 10 legitimate possessions. Bama got into the red zone 6 times and scored 5 touchdowns and kicked one field goal. The other field goal came from outside the red zone. As I stated above the other score came from the defense. I also want to mention Sark here. Even with the loss of Waddle, Bolden stepped in and contributed. Also, Sark seems to add a little wrinkle each week and they seem to be successful. I think his game calling has been outstanding.

QB: Jones had another good game. He threw for 387 yards and completed 81% of his passes. What really impresses me with Jones is his deep ball throws. Many times, he puts the ball where his receivers are the only ones who will get it. Two plays really impressed me in this game. First, the fumbled snap where he picked it up and still made the completion. He has to take his eyes off the defense and then regain his composure find the receiver and complete the pass. The second was when it looked like was going to take off and run but pulled up in the pocket and completed the pass. The announcers made a statement that and 8 yard average on passes attempted, how they measure it, is good. Jones averaged 12.5 yards per attempt, and 15.5 per completion. I guess the only negative I saw was he did miss Metchie who was wide open for a touchdown threw a completion to Smith. Bama still scored on the drive. Young came in and did a good job. He was 3 for 5 for 30 yards. However, what impressed me was he didn’t try to force plays where mistakes are usually made. He did take a sack near the goal line, but I think the zone defense confused him when they were expecting man in that area.

RB: Harris had a good game as he had 96 yards rushing on 20 carries but added 61 more yards receiving for a total of 157 yard from scrimmage. He also did a good job pass blocking when needed. Robinson ran hard and actually had the best average per carry considering all the running backs. He had 4 carries for 29 yards which is about 7.3 yards per carry. Sanders showed a little of what he could do as he had the longest run of the day which was 20 yards. He carried the ball 7 times for 39 yards for a 5.3 yards per carry. I also saw him step across and pick up the blitz on one of the passing plays.

Rec: This was the first time since I don’t know when Bama receivers didn’t have a touchdown. However, they set ups many with catches that put Bama inside the red zone as well as inside the 10 yard line. Metchie and Smith each had 7 catches. Metchie had 153 yards and Smith had 73. Bolden comes in and adds 6 catches for 94 yards. The tight-end Forristall had 1 catch, but it was for 25 yards. What I really like about these receivers is they go and get the ball, they don’t wait for it. As they say they high point the ball and don’t mind catching the ball in traffic. They also use their hand and don’t let the ball get in on their body. I don’t know if anyone heard the talk with Smith, but he was ask about competition among the group and he told the interviewer it was more of a competition for knock downs/blocking than it was for who catches the most.

OL: Too me the OL keeps getting better as they had another good game. This is pretty evident when you only have 5 total negative plays. I thought they got a good push on the defensive line and got downfield blocking. They didn’t miss a beat when Brown went out and Dickerson moved over to left guard. It did look that Dickerson was still making the line calls from the guard position. I also think the OL is communicating better since I haven’t seen as many bust.

Def: Bama gave up a total of 302 yards which include 163 passing and 139 rushing. UT gained 165 yards in the first half which means they were held to 137 in the second half. For negative plays, I have Bama with 9 tackles for losses and cause 1 fumble which was returned for a touchdown. I credit Bama with 6 three and outs one of which was caused by a fumble. For plays that covered 10+ yards, I have 5 passing plays and 4 running plays. UT got into the 1 and kicked a field goal and scored 2 touchdowns from outside the red zone. Bama defense has improved, but still makes correctable mistakes. I have Bama with 10 missed tackles most of them in the first half. A few of their running plays should have been stopped. On one, a Bama player blitzed right past the runner. On two others, the Bama players opened up a hole in their pass rushing lanes which allowed the QB to run for 10+ yards. They did cut down on losing the edge as I only counted a couple of times this happened. One thing I heard Saban say a couple of weeks backs. We need to stop looking at the stats as far as yards rushing and passing and start looking at the stops or possessions that end in no points. The defense also held the UT QB to a 54% completion rate.

DL: I thought the DL played well as the 2 LBs were the leading tacklers. It is their job to keep the OL off of them so they can make plays. I thought they held their own again a pretty solid UT OL. There were no sacks they did a better job containing the edge.

LB: The two inside LB’s were the leading tacklers for the game. Again, this has to do with the people in front of them. However, it also means they were in the position to make the play.

DB: There were positives and negatives here. The DB’s came up and made some solid tackles and was involved with the tackles for losses. However, Battle allowed the receiver to break his cushion and run past him for a touchdown. He was not the only one. The good thing is it didn’t happen very often. On the touchdown over Sartain, Sartain was looking back and lost the receiver. It would have been better if he was looking at the receiver and maybe not allowing the separation, then he could have played the arms of the receiver.

Special teams: Overall the special teams were solid. The biggest problem was the was the 2 kickoffs that went out of bounds. One of those was just unlucky as it took a UT bounce that helped them out. I know Waddle wanted to make a big play by making a good return, but and I have said this before, you have to consider the depth and height of the kick. Height on kicks allow the coverage to converge on the returner.

Penalties: Bama had 8 penalties for 45 yards (the official stats only shows 7 penalties). Three were on the offense with 2 false starts and a grounding. The defense had 3 for holding, roughing the passer and a substitution infraction. The substitution infraction came on the field goal drive that helped UT go from a 3rd and 8 to a 3rd and 3. The defensive holding call came on the first down of one of UT’s touchdown drives. The defense did hold forcing the field goal. Special team had 2 for kicks out of bounds.

Finally, I think this was the least amount of yards Bama has given up this year. They still are making mistakes that against good teams could be costly. Overall, I do think they are improving. Finally prayer to Waddle for a speedy recovery.

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