Game notes

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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