SB Nation - Earl Alexander

If College Football Had a Playoff: #16 Troy @ #1 Alabama

Jeremy Mauss — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 19:00:25 -0000

by Dave Martin - AP

So, starting each week day from now till the title game a 'What if Playoff' will occur here with readers voting on who should win the matchup.

Today's would be Sun Belt champion Troy @ Alabama. An upset is unlikely, but the way Troy plays against big time competition who knows how close this game would be. Yes, a playoff would feature home teams by the upper seed to give them an advantage for a better season. The bracket and stats on each team are listed below.

Just make sure to vote and the winner moves onto the next round. Voting is open for 24 hours, and look for these to be posted each day at 12 eastern time.

#16 Troy Stats

Passing

		Passing									Rushing					Sacks
	G	Rating	Comp	Att	Pct	Yds	Y/G	Y/A	TD	INT	Rush	Yds	Y/G	Avg	TD	Sack	YdsL
Levi Brown	12	60.0	248	386	64.2	3264	272	8.5	19	5	46	19	1.6	.400	1	-	-
Dantavious Parker	9	50.0	10	19	52.6	87	9.7	4.6	0	0	28	154	17.1	5.5	2	-	-

Rushing

		Rushing					Receiving
	G	Rush	Yds	Y/G	Avg	TD	Rec	Yds	Y/G	Avg	TD
Levi Brown	12	46	19	1.6	.400	1	0	0	0	0	0
Jason Bruce	10	2	11	1.1	5.5	0	20	260	26	13	2
Maurice Greer	10	34	244	24.4	7.2	3	6	59	5.9	9.8	0
DuJuan Harris	12	137	471	39.3	3.4	8	23	193	16.1	8.4	1
Josh Jarboe	8	2	9	1.1	4.5	0	14	236	29.5	16.9	1
Jerrel Jernigan	12	34	227	18.9	6.7	1	62	947	78.9	15.3	4
Nathan Nolin	2	1	9	4.5	9	0	0	0	0	0	0
Dantavious Parker	9	28	154	17.1	5.5	2	0	0	0	0	0
Chip Reeves	11	3	9	.800	3	0	22	363	33	16.5	3
Austin Silvoy	10	1	-15	-1.5	-15	0	13	182	18.2	14	0
Shawn Southward	12	100	574	47.8	5.7	10	10	94	7.8	9.4	0
D.J. Taylor	3	8	71	23.7	8.9	0	0	0	0	0	0

Receiving

		Receiving
	G	Rec	Yds	Y/G	AVG	TD
Travis Boyd	2	3	41	20.5	13.7	0
Jason Bruce	10	20	260	26	13	2
Jonathan Chandler	1	0	0	0	0	0
Patrick Cherry	11	20	260	23.6	13	1
Andrew Davis	8	13	149	18.6	11.5	2
Tebiarus Gill	11	44	553	50.3	12.6	6
Maurice Greer	10	6	59	5.9	9.8	0
DuJuan Harris	12	23	193	16.1	8.4	1
Josh Jarboe	8	14	236	29.5	16.9	1
Jerrel Jernigan	12	62	947	78.9	15.3	4
Zack Marcum	12	33	315	26.3	9.5	1
Chip Reeves	11	22	363	33	16.5	3
Austin Silvoy	10	13	182	18.2	14	0
Shawn Southward	12	10	94	7.8	9.4	0
Cornelius Williams	11	18	320	29.1	17.8	2

Kicking

		Field Goals								PAT
	G	0-19	20-29	30-39	40-49	50+	FGM	FGA	PCT	XPM	XPA	PCT	pts
Sam Glusman	5	-	-	-	-	-	7	9	80.0%	9	9	100.0%	30
Michael Taylor	8	-	-	-	-	-	9	10	90.0%	38	40	100.0%	65

#1 Alabama Stats

Passing

		Passing									Rushing					Sacks
	G	Rating	Comp	Att	Pct	Yds	Y/G	Y/A	TD	INT	Rush	Yds	Y/G	Avg	TD	Sack	YdsL
Star Jackson	2	70.0	13	18	72.2	116	58	6.4	0	0	6	3	1.5	.500	0	-	-
Greg McElroy	13	93.0	192	315	61	2450	188.5	7.8	17	4	47	110	8.5	2.3	1	-	-

Rushing

		Rushing					Receiving
	G	Rush	Yds	Y/G	Avg	TD	Rec	Yds	Y/G	Avg	TD
Demetrius Goode	3	16	108	36	6.8	0	0	0	0	0	0
Terry Grant	7	40	166	23.7	4.2	3	3	47	6.7	15.7	0
Mark Ingram	13	249	1542	118.6	6.2	15	30	322	24.8	10.7	3
Star Jackson	2	6	3	1.5	.500	0	0	0	0	0	0
Julio Jones	12	2	4	.300	2	0	42	573	47.8	13.6	4
Marquis Maze	10	4	7	.700	1.8	0	30	519	51.9	17.3	2
Greg McElroy	13	47	110	8.5	2.3	1	0	0	0	0	0
Trent Richardson	13	126	642	49.4	5.1	6	14	107	8.2	7.6	0
Roy Upchurch	10	46	290	29	6.3	2	12	72	7.2	6	1

Receiving

		Receiving
	G	Rec	Yds	Y/G	AVG	TD
Earl Alexander	3	4	52	17.3	13	0
Michael Bowman	1	1	7	7	7	0
Preston Dial	3	3	25	8.3	8.3	0
Brandon Gibson	2	2	25	12.5	12.5	0
Terry Grant	7	3	47	6.7	15.7	0
Darius Hanks	9	17	272	30.2	16	3
Mark Ingram	13	30	322	24.8	10.7	3
Julio Jones	12	42	573	47.8	13.6	4
Marquis Maze	10	30	519	51.9	17.3	2
Mike McCoy	3	10	149	49.7	14.9	1
Colin Peek	10	26	313	31.3	12	3
Trent Richardson	13	14	107	8.2	7.6	0
Brad Smelley	5	7	50	10	7.1	0
Roy Upchurch	10	12	72	7.2	6	1
Michael Williams	2	3	29	14.5	9.7	0

Kicking

		Field Goals								PAT
	G	0-19	20-29	30-39	40-49	50+	FGM	FGA	PCT	XPM	XPA	PCT	pts
Jeremy Shelley	1	-	-	-	-	-	0	1	0	1	1	100.0%	1
Leigh Tiffin	13	-	-	-	-	-	29	33	90.0%	39	42	90.0%	126

Poll

Who wins this matcup?

The Film Room: Looking At LSU

outsidethesidelines — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 20:03:15 -0000

This week in the film room I want to do a bit of a blurb piece, looking specifically at several of the bigger plays in the Alabama v. LSU game. Unlike in past weeks in which we have focused specifically on individual players with a specific point of evaluation in mind, this week we're going to bounce around a bit and just take a bit more casual look at some of the biggest plays in the game this past Saturday, looking for anything we can find.

First off, let's look at the first snap that we took out of the Wildcat. You will recall that in the Initial Impressions piece I said that, with Earl Alexander (a former high school quarterback) going in motion, we were almost certainly looking to throw the football. Let's look at the play again:

Notice the LSU cover package here. They have clearly manned up the three receivers, with safety Chad Jones over the top. I still think that this play was intended to be a pass, but given LSU's defensive response, it's hard to see how we would have successfully thrown the football. The only way it could have been done is if Alexander had thrown the football to the left and hit either Ingram or tight end Michael Williams slipping out of the backfield in the opposite direction.To be sure, the fumble was certainly disappointing because even with the recovery we were still faced with a third and long, but it's hard to see this one being a success through the air. We may have called a pass option on this one, but I imagine that it would have likely ended up being a run had the fumble not occurred.

Next, let's actually go back a play to the snap immediately before that. It's a first and ten near midfield and we decide to take a shot downfield to Maze early in the game. You'll probably remember this play well, but nevertheless you can get the jist of what happens with the following .gif (note, you need to click the .gif to make it work):

Disappointing, eh? I don't know exactly what route Jai Eugene was looking for, but he was clearly expecting that route to be broken off at the intermediate level somehow. He certainly wasn't expecting Maze to try to beat him deep, and as a result he ended up getting turned around and Maze blew right by him. This one just makes you want to throw the remote through the TV, plain and simple. Even with a semi-decent throw this is a touchdown, and not only does McElroy overthrow him he throws it out of bounds to boot. Double negative. This one hurts.

I guess we'll go ahead and knock out all of the negative McElroy stuff now, so let's take a look at the second Wildcat snap that we ran, this one coming late in the third quarter with 'Bama trailing 15-10.

I loved this play design from the outset. When Julio Jones comes down on the jet sweet and McElroy steps back, you know that every single LSU defender is looking for something on the frontside to Julio Jones. So what we do? We slip Brad Smelley out on the backside and we get them with it. The LSU defense isn't expecting it at all, and Smelley gets behind the secondary. A good throw and this is a touchdown, and even with a decent throw we probably have a first and goal. Unfortunately, this one sails long too, incomplete pass. We eventually settle for the field goal to cut the lead to 15-13.

Do, however, pay close attention up front on this one, particularly with regard to LSU defensive tackle Drake Nevis. The junior from Marrero whips William Vlachos at the point of attack, and he hurries the throw. It's still clearly a throw that McElroy should make, mind you, but nevertheless Nevis does a great job of getting into the backfield and making it a more difficult throw. The more you watch of the film, you see that Nevis played a whale of a game. I bet he graded out really high when Miles and company reviewed the film.

At any rate, let's close up the negative McElroy stuff here by taking a closer look at the safety:

First off, notice how we come out here guns a blazing, to paraphrase Saban. Not only are we throwing the football out of our own end zone on a third and long with a narrow lead in a low scoring game, notice that we are doing so with only five men in to protect the quarterback. Both Mark Ingram and Colin Peek go out on pass routes, and we are left with only the five linemen to get the job done. This one is as gutsy as it gets.

Unfortunately, Mike Johnson whiffs on the block of... guess who? Drake Nevis. Once again Nevis gets into the backfield and forces the safety, a fine play on his part. Again, though, McElroy shoulders a lot of the blame here. Even with the whiff by Johnson, McElroy still has approximately three seconds to get rid of the football, but for some reason -- even though everyone is covered -- he keeps holding onto the football for dear life. Predictably, the pressure eventually gets to him and the safety is the end result. He should have just thrown this one away. Thankfully, we lucked out that it was only a safety.

Now in all fairness to McElroy, while he did make a lot of bad plays, he also made his fair share of good plays too, and that is what we'll look at next. The following is McElroy's touchdown pass to Darius Hanks:

For all of the criticism of the passing game the past few weeks (and rightly so), here is a textbook example of where everything is executed perfectly and the play is performed exactly like you draw it up on paper. And this is also a textbook example of the type of things that you must do when an opposing defense loads the box to stop the run. Notice that after Ingram's previous success on the ground that LSU practically commits eight defenders to stopping the run this time around. That forces man to man coverage on the outside against all three receivers.

For McElroy, this is a simple read. We roll the pocket to the right to avoid the pressure, and it's obvious that he has a man-to-man match-up of Hanks on a safety. For McElroy, he either throws it downfield to Hanks if he is open, or checks it down to Earl Alexander. Fortunately, Hanks runs a fine route and gets good separation on the defender, and McElroy delivers an absolute strike. Just how you draw it up... touchdown 'Bama.

Next, let's look at a couple of defensive plays, specifically focusing on the two big runs that LSU had after the safety in the end zone. First, let's take a look at Charles Scott final run where he rips off a big gain to put his Bayou Bengals deep in 'Bama territory:

Notice that we come out and defend this effectively in our base 3-4 set. Eryk Anders has his hand on the ground, but even so this is pretty typical base 3-4 stuff, and also notice that we've got Mark Barron creeping up into the box. We've effectively got the back-up defensive line in the game for this snap -- Marcel Dareus, Luther Davis, and Josh Chapman -- but even so we have eight men ready to stop the run.

And in all fairness both Scott and the LSU offensive line does a solid job, but what really kills us here is poor tackling. Mark Barron is really playing the outside here and isn't in position to stop an interior run, but the real disaster is in the middle with Cory Reamer and Justin Woodall. Those two may be seniors, but they looked like freshmen with this effort. Instead of crashing down hard and making the tackle, the best Reamer can muster is a weak arm tackle attempt, which of course the powerful Scott blows right through, and then after that Woodall completely whiffs in the open field on a tackle. With a good play by Reamer this is a two-yard gain, and with a good play by Woodall it's an eight-yard gain, but unfortunately those two whiff and Scott is off to the races.

With LSU driving, Stevan Ridley comes off the bench and gives the Tigers a lead with his touchdown run. Let's take a closer look, particularly keeping a very close eye on the match-up of LSU center T-Bob Hebert on Terrence Cody:

Well, now that is certainly one for those conspiracy nuts, now isn't it? This is a run right into the heart of the line on second and short, and we have it snuffed out pretty well. Cody is in position to make the tackle, and looks to do so with Ridley trying to cut it to the outside. He ultimately misses the tackle, of course, simply because Hebert flat out tackles Cody in the open field. This should have been a holding penalty setting up a 2nd and 13, but alas no such flag came about.

Of course I'm not going to complain too much about the officiating because you do also need to focus on your own effort, and that certainly falls short here. Keep your eye on Eryk Anders, he has outside contain to the offensive right, and he basically just blows it. He gets sucked too far inside, and Ridley beats him to the outside. Touchdown LSU.

Finally, let's wrap this piece up by taking a closer look at the gamechanging touchdown on the screen pass to Julio Jones:

Notice how odd it is that LSU is actually in really good position, before the snap, to stop this play. They've got a base 4-3 look, and the linebackers are playing a bit soft. A safety is manned up against Julio Jones, to be sure, but this is the short side of the field and there is also another safety over there for help, plus a linebacker. I don't care who you are covering, someone between Brandon Taylor, Danny McCray, and Kelvin Sheppard should stop this play.

At any rate, we feign something of a pass to the right, and then McElroy wheels back around to throw to Julio. The entire left side of the Alabama offensive line, plus the center, all move out to the second level to block. Now, Brandon Taylor, knowing that he is a safety in man coverage against Julio Jones, plays it very safe, and leaves a massive cushion between him and the 'Bama wideout. And that, in many ways, costs him here. He sees the screen and runs in very hard, right by James Carpenter, who was supposed to block him -- and for what it's worth, the Auburn fans complained of a block in the back on this play by Carpenter on Taylor because there is a photo showing him blocking the LSU defensive back from behind, but if you watch the film, naturally the Auburn fans are wrong as Carpenter whiffs so badly that he barely touches the back of Taylor so lightly that Taylor himself probably never even noticed.

Unfortunately for Taylor, with him racing in, he loses body control, and Julio makes a quick, nifty cut to the outside to sidestep the LSU safety. Kelvin Sheppard effectively takes himself out of the play by biting on the fake to the right, and when Danny McCray tries to come in to make the tackle, he takes a poor angle and there William Vlachos gets just enough of him to knock him out of the play. And with the LSU defense firmly in the review mirror, Julio is off to the races. Touchdown 'Bama.

Initial Impressions from the LSU Game

outsidethesidelines — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 21:03:58 -0000

Almost 24 hours removed, a few initial impressions from the LSU game:

First and foremost, it was obviously a huge win for the Tide yesterday. We came in absolutely needing to get the job done, and with LSU giving us their best shot we answered the bell. We played the best we've played since late September, and truth be told there was absolutely what was required. Credit goes to LSU for playing well in their own right, and they made us take our game to the next level to get the win.
Mark Ingram logged another unreal performance yesterday. LSU was highly physical on the defensive side of the ball, and Ingram racked up 177 total yards. He averaged 6.5 yards per run and the way he powered the opening drive of the second half really changed the game. As I mentioned in a fanshot earlier, the Heisman is an "award" for tools... it's based more on glamor than anything else, and it's given by a collection of idiots. Ingram will probably never win it, but I wouldn't trade him for any other player in the country, and we just need to enjoy him while we have him. He's a three-year player, and someone will be paying him big bucks to do this come 2011.
Julio Jones had his best performance of the year, and it was very interesting how things were discussed in the post-game. Based on what everyone is saying, it's clear that only in the past week or so has Julio gotten back to near 100%, and he looked very different yesterday than he had the rest of the year. His explosiveness was back, and he was a difference-maker in this game. Even aside from the long touchdown run off the screen, he had a huge first down on the final drive, had a couple of other nice grabs, and the pass interference on Peterson was yet another big play. And, of course, that's not counting the throw in the first half that should have been a touchdown. Nice to have you back, Julio.
Greg McElroy played the best game in at least a month, and was clearly improved over the course of the past few weeks. We needed every bit of what he did, and we could not have won had he played anything like he had the past three weeks. Unfortunately, McElroy still has a long ways to go, and he left a lot of points on the board today. He did some good things, but he did a lot of bad things too. He missed Julio on an easy touchdown throw, costing us four points, and the dumb interception before halftime cost us at least a field goal. He held onto the football too long on the safety, and he missed an open Smelley on the trick pass out of the Wildcat that could have been a touchdown, and of course that is to say nothing of the terrible decision to try to force the ball to Julio late on the controversial incompletion. Bottom line, McElroy played pretty well and he clearly showed some progress, but he still did some things to cost us a lot of points and he clearly still needs to play better.
Speaking of passes out of the Wildcat, remember the first Wildcat snap we had that resulted in a fumble? Did you happen to notice who was coming in motion at the time of the snap? It was none other than Earl Alexander, and that was one of the few snaps he saw in the game. And if you will recall correctly, Alexander was a quarterback in high school, and Ingram was very upset after the fumble. I'd about bet the farm that we had a trick play called in that situation with Alexander getting the ball looking to throw a pass.
The offensive line played an incredible game today. Both James Carpenter and Drew Davis were nothing short of outstanding protecting the edge in pass protection, and we beat up LSU in the trenches in the running game. It was a complete effort by the big uglies, and I don't have any doubt that we played better along the offensive line yesterday than we have at any point in the year. Joe Pendry deserves a lot of credit for what he has done with this group. We don't have any real dominant players out there, but we consistently play good, solid technique and just get the job done.

Bamagrad had it right in the fanpost... we're throwing the football to set up the run. That was clearly the plan offensively, and it worked very well.

All in all, it was certainly nice to see us moving the football again. McElroy's mistakes and the illegal substitution penalty kept some points off the board, so it wasn't exactly a perfect day, but again it was clearly an improvement over the past month. LSU has a good defense, and any time you average almost 6.5 yards per play against a defense of that caliber, you're certainly doing something right. Hopefully we can just continue to build off of this effort.

Marcel Dareus, for all intents and purposes, is unstoppable when we move him inside in pass rushing situations. He consistently takes the manhood of every guard they line up over him, and he did the same thing on Saturday with senior right guard Lyle Hitt. I can guarantee you this much... come April of 2011, that young man will be getting a lot of money from an NFL team. Enjoy him while we have him.

Defensively, we really had some struggles at time stopping the option. We had things set up defensively pretty well most of the time, but the execution looked ugly a good bit of the time. In particular, Jefferson made Justin Woodall look pretty bad on one option play. That's something we're going to have to fix before we leave for Atlanta.

Jordan Jefferson played a fine game yesterday, and that young man has a great upside. He has all the physical tools you would ever want, and he is a legitimate dual threat to boot. He clearly still needs to progress, but if he ever puts it all together then he is going to be a legitimate superstar.

And speaking of Jefferson, what in the world was the deal with him not going back in the game? The CBS broadcast reported that word had came from the LSU sideline that he could have gone back in, and he looked okay on the sideline. I have no clue what the deal was there, but Lee was clearly a drop-off. And here's the thing on Lee... he has great physical tools, and he can throw the football down the field with the best of them. But in terms of having to hit receivers over the middle on crossing routes, he cannot hit the broad side of a barn. If he could ever gain some accuracy on crossing patterns, he'd be one hell of a quarterback.

LSU really does have some unreal talent at the skill positions. For whatever criticism you can make of Miles, this is certainly not one of them. Even with Florida, there is probably not another team in the country that has the kind of athleticism at the skill positions like LSU does.

Colin Peek misses the game for 'Bama, and Richard Dickson didn't play either. Pretty much a balancing effect, really.

The more I watch of the LSU offense, the more I think that it is really just too complicated for its own good. It can certainly create some issues for defenses, mind you, but it certainly does create a lot issues for the offense, too, and that was the big catalyst behind all of the false starts, the illegal formations, and the wasted timeouts. With all of the talent that those guys have, I really just cannot help but think that they would be better served just by simplifying the offense and letting all of the raw talent just go to work for them.

Chad Jones didn't have much of an impact yesterday, and his mobility wasn't particularly impressive. On both the long pass to Maze out of the end zone, and the drop by Julio out of the end zone in the third quarter, Jones was tracking the ball the entire way and at first sight I was almost convinced that he was going to snag an easy pick. In both cases, though, he never really got close enough to make the play. I don't know if he was hurt or perhaps just a tad bit overrated, but either way he didn't exactly blow me away yesterday.

The LSU linebacker corps is a very underrated group. Those guys played a fine game, and Kelvin Sheppard in particular really looked good. I tell you, he's probably not quite in the same league yet as Rolando McClain and Brandon Spikes, but he's not far behind. Outside of those two and Hightower, he might be the best linebacker I've seen in the SEC this year.

Patrick Peterson is an incredible player, and he played a great game yesterday. Unfortunately, he really shot himself in the foot by never being properly hydrated in the first place, always a tell-tale sign when you're cramping up by halftime in a game where the temperature never rises above 70 degrees. I know he had some flu-like symptoms earlier in the week, but that had cleared up by mid-week and at that point you just have to make sure you get plenty of fluids. Once the game started, of course, it was entirely too late and you simply lose entirely too much fluids to get them back to where they need to be. Peterson played great when he was in the game, but really he was his own worst enemy.

Charles Scott deserves a lot of credit for playing a fine game. His drop on the busted pass play was a big one, but he ran the ball really well and played a physical game. It was a shame to see his collegiate career likely ended on such a fine run, but such is life sometimes. Best wishes on the recovery, Mr. Scott, and we'll see you on Sunday next year.

DeAngelo Peterson was huge on LSU's first touchdown drive, and their coaching staff really got us there defensively. He's a wide receiver, regardless of what you call him, but when they lined him up at tight end we covered him with a safety (Barron) and then a linebacker (Reamer), and he ate our lunch both times.

Are any of you guys familar with ROBO-PUNTER, the theoretical punter whose punts are downed at the opposing team's one-yard line every time? Well, that was pretty much LSU yesterday. I swear, those guys did an unbelievable job punting the football. If they weren't pinning it against our goal line, they were kicking it a mile and eliminating any chance of return for Arenas. Ill be perfectly honest, it was the most impressive display of punting that I've seen in many years.

Look at it this way... LSU punted the football eight times yesterday, and Javier Arenas ended up with 11 return yards. And that is not counting the penalty on Smelley, and when you take that into consideration we ended up getting a grand total of one return yard on eight punts. And if that's not getting the job done, I don't know what is.

And speaking of punt returns, why in the hell is Brad Smelley in the game? He has to lead the conference in penalties committed in the return game, and his penalty yesterday was one of the dumbest I've seen in a while.

The punt that LSU rolled inside the one-yard line was touched at around the four. Refs missed that one, I believe. And it had a big impact on playcalling, too, no doubt about that.

All of this hoopla over the interception is ridiculous, and it's mainly just a bunch of homer fans looking for an excuse for a guy that they otherwise got their asses beat. It was a close play that could have legitimately gone either way, to be sure, but the ruling on the field was an incomplete pass and there was no indisputable evidence on the replay that would command the play be overturned. And I'll be frank, even if you give him the interception, it doesn't matter. LSU would have been 61 yards away from the end zone, and those guys ended up with 17 total yards on three possessions in the fourth quarter. The end result would have been the same regardless. The only difference would have been that 'Bama might not have covered the spread had it been called an interception.

Two huge plays in the fourth quarter have been overlooked in the wake of all of the talk of the incomplete pass, and they were the stop by our defense on 3rd and short early in the fourth quarter, and the running into the punter penalty. We scored on the screen to Julio immediately after the defensive stop, and the running into the penalty not only gave us three points but also took another three minutes or so off the clock. The incompletion is getting all of the attention, but those two plays are really the ones that broke LSU's back.

And speaking of the running into the punter penalty, that was one gutsy call on the fourth down after that. We're literally three inches from a first down and we decide to motion McElroy out wide and snap it five yards behind the line of scrimmage to Ingram in the shotgun, when we fumbled a snap in the Wildcat earlier in the game? Hell, that might be more than gutsy, it might even be stupid, but fortunately it worked out for us in the end.

Leigh Tiffin is a fine young man, a wonderful kicker, and we should all feel fortunate to have such a valuable asset on our team. And, again, I'm just going to shut up about him.

The way we dominated this game physically was nothing short of amazing. We were much more physical than LSU, and their players were dropping like flies. Moreover, we absolutely dominated this game in the fourth quarter, and that was ultimately the difference. In many ways, we didn't so much win this game yesterday afternoon as much as we won it last summer in the S&C program. We were clearly the more physical team and better conditioned to boot. If there is an unsung hero of this team, it's strength and conditioning coach Scott Cochran. That man clearly deserves a raise.

Week Six Preview: #3 Alabama at #16 Ole Miss

outsidethesidelines — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 13:00:20 -0000

More photos » by Bill Haber - AP

"Quit throwing so many picks!"

Browse more photos »

The Alabama v. Ole Miss series isn't one filled with hatred quite like the Auburn or Tennessee series, nor is it generally a series that has a high degree of relevance on the national level. Nevertheless, over the course of the past four years, no series anywhere in the country has produced as many gut-wrenching, nail-biting contests as what we've seen when the Tide took on Johnny Reb.

The past four games in this series have been decided by a grand total of thirteen points, and that statistic alone does not even begin to adequately describe how close things have been. The 2005 game ended on a time-expiring kick, while the 2006 game ended in overtime. The 2007 game was decided on a controversial penalty with seven seconds remaining, and last year's game also went into the final minute. And most shockingly of all, somehow, someway, all of those contests have fallen in our favor. How we've had the good fortune from the Football Gods to pull all of those games out, I'll never know.

After Ole Miss rallied late last year, this game has been marked for months as one of the games of the year. Of course, though, Johnny Reb effectively wet the bed in its only real test thus far in the 2009 season, and that has knocked a lot of the luster off this game. Ole Miss was clearly overrated as a top five team, and had no real business being ranked that high. That said, however, the Rebels are still a quality team and a very dangerous opponent. This game is likely to be yet another close one that goes down to the wire, so let's take a closer look at the match-ups:

Alabama Offense v. Ole Miss Defense

Even with a slow start in the passing game and some questionable early play-calling against a good Kentucky defense, Alabama nevertheless managed to rack up 38 points and 352 total yards in Lexington. The Alabama offensive juggernaut has seemed to slow with each and every game the past three weekends -- largely because the quality of the defense faced has increased each week -- and things won't get any easier this week when we go to Oxford.

The strength of the Ole Miss defense is clearly at the point of attack. The defensive end rotation of Greg Hardy, Kentrell Lockett, and Marcus Tillman is easily the best we'll see all year long, and while Hardy has not been able to get completely healthy -- and thus he's really no longer an every down player -- he's still a dangerous weapon when he is in the game. The ends are also solid on running downs, and mixed with the size of the interior players, it forms a very difficult run defense up front when these guys show up to play. Interior tackles Ted Laurent and Lawson Scott are both over 300 pounds, and the monster 340 pound Jerrell Powe is quickly starting to show why he was a five-star prospect coming out of high school. You can make all the reading jokes you want, but literacy isn't really a core competency for playing nose tackle, and Powe can at times dominate interior offensive linemen like he's a man among boys.

At linebacker Ole Miss has had more than their fair share of struggles since Patrick Willis went to the NFL, but they've got a solid group there now. The unit is led by Patrick Trahan, the senior linebacker that Houston Nutt signed out of the JUCO ranks in his first class in Oxford. Trahan started his collegiate career as a safety -- he was a former track athlete in high school -- but he kept getting bigger and bigger so he was moved to linebacker. The end result now is a 6'3, 225+ pound 'backer with great athleticism, and he's tough on opposing offenses. He's big enough to play the run, but also versatile enough to play the pass and rush the passer. He's a legitimate three-phase linebacker. Jonathon Cornell and Allen Walker start alongside Trahan, and while they aren't quite the caliber of Trahan, both are upperclassmen who are more than adequate.

The real surprise of the Ole Miss defense to date, however, has been the defensive backfield. Ole Miss was almost universally expected to struggle in the secondary this year, but surprisingly enough they have allowed very little success through the air. That said, however, we really don't know anything about this group because they have yet to face a decent passing attack, so it could be all a paper tiger for all we know, and if nothing else the Alabama passing game will be easily the best this unit has faced all year. What we can safely say is that so far this year Cassius Vaughn and Marshay Green have been solid at cornerback, Johnny Brown and Kendrick Lewis have been more active than usual at safety, and the back-ups have generally been pretty adequate. But, again, we really have no clue as to whether or not this Ole Miss defensive backfield is a contender or a pretender.

Looking at how we match up against Ole Miss, you really have to worry about our running game. We ran the ball well against Kentucky on the meaningful attempts -- i.e. factoring out the garbage time, clock-killing carries late -- but Arkansas still shut us down, and frankly this is easily the best defensive line we've seen all year. Ole Miss shut down our running game last year better than any other team on the schedule -- we had 31 carries for only 107 yards, averaging a meager 3.1 yards per carry -- and it's going to be very difficult to run on these guys again this year. These guys can flat out whip you in the trenches, and we're going to have to show up ready to play at a very high level if we look to move the football on the ground in Oxford.

Hopefully we will be able to take advantage of Ole Miss in a couple of areas. Their defensive line features a solid, deep rotation, but the linebacker corps is very thin. The starting three are good players, and back-up Lamar Brumfield is a solid, versatile player who can play all three positions. After that, though, all you really have is true freshman D.T. Shackelford -- an Alabama native who the Tide passed over last, so extra motivation there -- and while he has been a bit of a freshman sensation, he is also slowed by a high ankle sprain, and he likely won't play a lot against the Tide. So, it's a thin unit already, and both Trahan and Walker also play extensively on special teams, so hopefully we can wear them down and take advantage of their lack of depth. Likewise, the Ole Miss secondary is also a very small unit -- all starters are 5'11 and under, and three starters are 190 and under -- so hopefully we can really take advantage of the size match-ups with the likes of Julio Jones, Mike McCoy, Earl Alexander, and Michael Bowman.

Now, along those lines, I do like how our passing attack matches up against the Ole Miss secondary, but of course success there is predicated upon us being able to protect Greg McElroy against a very good pass rush. If we can give McElroy time, we should be able to move the football through the air. On the other hand, though, if Ole Miss can legitimately rush the passer, this is not going to be pretty. Either way, this isn't going to be an easy assignment for the Tide's offensive line. Ole Miss is tough off the edge, and Nutt will likely be aggressive in blitz packages, so the offensive line has its work cut out for them.

All in all, this one is a tough match-up for the Tide. Hopefully we can have some success running the football and block Ole Miss off the edge, but that's a lot easier said than done. Ole Miss will be tough to run on, and if they can get to McElroy, we're likely to find ourselves in Oxford with an offense that cannot run or throw effectively. It's going to be one heck of a fight, and we're going to have to play very well to move the football against this defense.

Alabama Defense v. Ole Miss Offense

The good news for Alabama is that this match-up favors the Tide a bit more. The Ole Miss offense is no slouch, to be sure, but it is a unit that has struggled early. Jevan Snead hasn't played anywhere near well enough to justify the preseason hype, the loss of Mike Wallace has hurt more than its gotten credit for, and there has been nothing close to a comparable replacement for Michael Oher.

Really, the struggles of this offense have started up front with the offensive line. The run blocking has been good at times, but has also been terrible at times, too. Smashes at the point of attack that spring good gains have been mixed with whiffs that result in tackles for loss. Pass protection, though, has really been the Achilles Heel of this group. Left tackle Bradley Sowell was beaten to a pulp against South Carolina, and right tackle John Jerry hasn't looked very good either. The interior linemen haven't played much better, either. Houston Nutt and company have rotated in a lot of linemen looking for the right mix, but they haven't found anything yet, and making matters worse this bunch simply looks out of shape. When John Jerry was literally begging to come out of the South Carolina game, all that came to mind for me was Mike Dubose, 2000, and the infamous "Pankcake Posse."

With the struggles up front, the rest of the offense just hasn't been able to compensate. Jevan Snead has been decent at times, but he has generally struggled to complete a high percentage of his passes and he has turned the football over a lot -- only a completion percentage of 51% and five interceptions. With Mike Wallace gone, the Rebels really do not have the big vertical threat in the passing game, and while the likes of Shay Hodge, Markeith Summers, Lionel Breaux, and Patrick Patterson form a solid wide receiver corps, they haven't been able to make up for the loss of Wallace. Likewise, Dexter McCluster is a threat, but he has really been more of a cog than a game-changer thus far in conference play.

The true strength of the Ole Miss offense to date has really been in the backfield with the tailbacks. Brandon Bolden has played as well as any back in the SEC to date, and at 5'11 and 220 pounds he is an absolute load. Back-ups Cordera Eason and Enrique Davis were both highly-touted recruits coming out of high school, and with their raw talent they form one of the most potent backfields in the country. Combined with Dexter McCluster's ability out of the Wildcat, this is a very dangerous group if their offensive line can give them any help up front.

Defensively for the Tide, I'll be brief on the overview because most RBR readers are more than well aware of who we are as a defensive unit, but I will address that the biggest issue we face here is exactly what we will do to replace Dont'a Hightower. Based on the practice reports, it's clear that Cory Reamer will be back at strongside linebacker this week, and we're going to have to be bigger inside to take on an Ole Miss team that will clearly look to be physical at the point of attack and establish the run. Chris Jordan is going to get a lot of playing time this week, and look for both Nico Johnson and Tana Patrick on the field -- even though playing will cost Patrick him a redshirt year.

As a whole, we are going to have a good bit different look defensively this week. Again, Ole Miss is the physical, run-based attack that we've come to expect out of Houston Nutt, and we are simply going to have to play smashmouth football against these guys. Simply put, if our defensive line doesn't show up with more energy and intensity than they did last week in Lexington, it's going to be a long afternoon. This isn't a spread passing attack where we'll constantly be in the nickel; you're going to see a lot of base 3-4 this week with safeties coming into the box to stop the run. The Rebs are far from pass happy.

And with that in mind, Injuries may make an impact on Ole Miss' power running attack. Fullback Andy Hartmann, a senior, is one hell of a lead-blocking load at 5'11 and almost 250 pounds, and he may be the best lead blocker in the conference. However, Hartmann sprained a knee a couple of weeks ago and has missed time. He missed practice on Tuesday, and while he is going to play on Saturday, we don't know how effective he can be and we do not know how much he will be able to play. Likewise, tight end Gerald Harris missed the South Carolina game with a hamstring injury, and while he did return against Vanderbilt, he's probably not 100%. Their back-ups, Dan Hoffman and Ferbia Allen, are a good 20-30 pounds lighter than the first-teamers, so if Hartmann and Harris are at less than 100%, that is going to make it more difficult for Ole Miss to run the football.

Furthermore, we need to use our depth in the defensive front seven to our advantage. Even with injuries to Hightower and Damien Square, plus the suspension of Jerrell Harris, we are still very deep in the front seven, and if the South Carolina game is any accurate indicator, the Ole Miss offensive line isn't in very good physical shape. We need to rotate players all afternoon and wear these guys down. Few things can better insure a 'Bama victory than to have John Jerry once again begging to come out of the game in the second half.

All in all, we're just going to have to line up against Ole Miss and be able to stop the run. That has to be priority #1 going into this game, period. Jevan Snead is overrated, but he can still be a threat, and with Nutt at the helm you have to be adequately prepared for every trick in the book. Nevertheless, those concerns are secondary to stopping the run. Given Snead's turnover issues to date -- which is to say nothing of Ole Miss' struggles in pass protection and the struggles of the receiving corps -- Nutt and company will likely play a bit conservatively here and try to establish the running game. If Ole Miss does that, they can move the football effectively and that will allow them to selectively use Snead and the trickeration to their advantage. On the other hand, though, if we can stop the run, particularly on early downs, we get Ole Miss in a lot of obvious passing situations, which limits the use of the Wildcat and other trick formations, and which also gives our defensive line numerous opportunities to take advantage of their struggles in pass protection and tee off on a quarterback who will be forced to take a lot of seven-step drops while waiting for routes to develop downfield.

Putting It All Together

On the whole, this one looks to be much like the last four contests in this series... a very hard, physical game that goes right down to the wire. Yes Alabama has looked very good to date, and yes Ole Miss wet the bed in their only true test to date. And, yes, Ole Miss was overrated coming into the year, no arguments here. Nevertheless, this is still a pretty good Ole Miss team, and they are a dangerous opponent that is more than capable of pulling off the upset.

Furthermore, the West is still absolutely wide open right now -- three teams are still undefeated, and Ole Miss still controls their own destiny -- and that fact mixed with Nutt's love of playing the underdog role, not to mention the recent acrimony that is surely present in the Ole Miss roster thanks to how this game has turned out the past four years, you can bet your life that Ole Miss will show up to play football on Saturday like men possessed. For all of the talk of Ole Miss wetting the bed, if Johnny Reb can pull off the upset on Saturday, they will quickly vault back into the top 10 and they will once again establish themselves as the front-runners in the SEC West if Florida can beat LSU, as expected. And, of course, rest assured they are well aware of those facts. Make no mistake about it, there is a lot on the line here for Ole Miss, and they will play accordingly. Do not expect Colonel Reb to lay an egg Saturday afternoon.

I do think we are the better team here. We have a tad more top-end talent, and a good bit better quality depth throughout the roster. Nevertheless, again, this is a dangerous Ole Miss team that actually matches up with us pretty well thanks to the strength of their defensive front seven and their ability to rush the passer with a base four-man rush. If you think victory is a near certainty in this game, you really need to drink something other than the crimson Kool-Aid. This should be a close game, and if we play like we did last week in Lexington, we're probably in a lot of trouble. We are a better team here who is justifiably a slight favorite, but nevertheless we are going to have to play really well to go into Oxford and get this victory, and at the very least victory is unlikely to come without one hell of a fight.

Hope for the best.

Initial Impressions from the Kentucky Game

outsidethesidelines — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 20:20:20 -0000

A few initial impressions after the Kentucky game:

From the outset, looking at the entire picture, the Tide simply did not play very well against Kentucky. Of course you should never complain too much any time you can go on the road in conference play and get an 18-point victory, but by the same token you shouldn't be so blinded by the scoreboard to not realize that we played poorly and that, based purely on the performances of the two teams, that this game should have been a lot closer.
Without doubt, Kentucky was their own worst enemy in this game. They had five personal foul penalties, a slew of dropped passes to open receivers, several incredibly bone-headed throws by Hartline (many of which resulted in interceptions), and that is not counting the last-second fumble to end the first half that resulted in a Courtney Upshaw touchdown. Truth be told, Kentucky beat themselves in this game more than anything else. The lopsided margin of victory was really the result of Alabama just allowing Kentucky to keep shooting themselves in the foot.
Offensively, our strategy in the beginning of the game really made very little sense. Kentucky never even remotely stopped our running game, but we decided to stop it ourselves by airing the football out. And making matters even more head-scratching was that we kept throwing deep, instead of trying to establish the short and intermediate passing game. And that strategy was even more perplexing given how Nick Saban talked after the game about how the strong winds made throwing the football so difficult early. I really just never understood what we were trying to do offensively, nor did anyone else, and our offensive play-calling was perhaps the most suspect it has been since McElwain arrived.
And speaking of the running game, I worried coming in that Kentucky would be able to shut us down, but our guys really answered the bell. Kentucky never really stopped us in the running game, and Mark Ingram and Roy Upchurch combined to run for 153 yards on only 24 carries. Trent Richardson's stat line doesn't look very good because he got the workhorse duty in the fourth quarter trying to run out the clock, but again in meaningful situations Kentucky never really stopped us. The problem was, really, that we stopped ourselves by simply choosing not to run the football.
The offensive line did a very good job in pass protection. As I said in the preview, Kentucky could really get after the quarterback, and we largely neutralized them at the point of attack. McElroy was hit several times -- which is honestly a given for any team these days really wanting to throw the football a lot -- and he is clearly helping the offensive line out by not holding onto the ball too long, but even so our guys up front did a fine job. McElroy threw 26 passes yesterday, and was sacked only once. Moreover, thanks to McElroy's pocket presence, he limited that sack to only a two yard loss. Truth be told, protecting the passer is a joint effort between quarterback himself and the offensive line, but I do think it's clear at this point that McElroy and the newly revamped offensive line do a better job of it than John Parker Wilson and the group we had a year ago.
Good news on injuries... there were none. I did see Barrett Jones gimpy at one point, but he never left the game and looked to be okay. Few things in football are more precious than staying healthy.
The Wildcat... didn't see it a single time all day, to my knowledge. I think it's clear now that our offense uses it as a weapon -- and forces the opposing defense to prepare for it -- but for the most part we really do not see it as an integral part of our offense like many other teams do.
Earl Alexander came up with a huge catch on the touchdown drive late in the second quarter, and the redshirt junior continues to make good things happen when he can actually get in the game. The problem is he's buried on the depth chart by Julio Jones and Mike McCoy, and he doesn't get very many balls thrown in his direction.

Julio Jones... I just really don't know what to make of him. I really don't think he's 100% right now, and for much of the day yesterday Trevard Lindley got the best of him. That's no shame because Lindley is the league's best corner and a future first round draft pick, but it would be nicer to get Julio more involved in the game. We're doing just fine without him being a major producer, but it's hard to believe that through five games he has a mere nine catches on the year. Against Arkansas we really didn't get him involved that much, but I saw eight passes go his way yesterday, and it netted two catches for 13 yards. Julio's presence makes our offense much better simply because it allows us to get other players consistently isolated, but it would still be very nice to get some more production out of Julio.

Colin Peek finally put together a big game yesterday. He has been plagued by the drops for most of the season -- at least four by my count -- but he emerged yesterday as a big weapon. Hopefully he keeps producing like that.

Notice something eerily similar on that touchdown pass to Darius Hanks? It was the exact same play call that we won the 2007 Arkansas game with, except this time it was Hanks in place of Matt Caddell, and Julio Jones in place of Keith Brown.

Greg McElroy, in some ways, had his worst day of the year yesterday afternoon. Just like he did against Virginia Tech, he rallied strong after a slow start, but it wasn't his best day. Nevertheless, I'm not complaining a bit. The SEC has some tough pass defenses, and Kentucky may be the best one of them all, and even against them McElroy had a solid day throwing the football and completely avoided all big, negative plays. As a general matter, you can really ask for little more out of your signal caller.

Moving to the defensive side of the ball, things weren't so pretty. Kentucky has an offense that will almost certainly finish near the bottom of the SEC in most statistical categories, and they scored 20 points against us. Making matters worse, we never really stopped them, and they should have scored more. Again, we never really stopped them, they only stopped themselves. Had Kentucky not been so hell bent on shooting themselves in the foot, they could have legitimately scored 30+ points.

Kentucky effectively had 11 possessions yesterday. Of those 11, they scored on four of them, four of them resulted in turnovers, two of them stalled out with four dropped passes / penalties, and the Tide forced all of one legitimate stop. In other words, Kentucky had 11 possessions yesterday, and on 10 of them they either scored points or stopped themselves with their own incompetence.

Obviously the turnovers were the biggest difference-maker defensively, and while it's nice to see we got the four turnovers, I'm afraid to say that we didn't necessarily do that much to force those turnovers. The three interceptions by Kentucky were the result of two unbelievably stupid throws by Hartline, and a pass that bounced off the UK receiver's face mask (i.e. a ball that should have been caught). The fumble was a heads-up play by McClain, but again Cobb was really not securing the ball properly. The point is that a lack of turnovers has been a problem to date, and while it was nice to see us generate four turnovers against Kentucky, I'm afraid they were generally of the bone-headed variety that we cannot count on future opponents to give us.

Without doubt, the single biggest play of the game was the Rolando McClain strip and subsequent Courtney Upshaw fumble return for a touchdown. That single play absolutely changed the game, and it would have been a very different contest had it not occurred. If we don't get that then we go to halftime leading 14-6 with Kentucky getting the ball to start the second half. After that play, victory was never in serious jeopardy.

The biggest thing that Kentucky did to us defensively was win the battle in the trenches. They didn't mow us over, but they did neutralize our defensive line. We could not get pressure on the quarterback, nor could we get penetration into the backfield in the running game. By and large, they whipped us up front, plain and simple.

Kentucky had a good bit of success running the football, but notice how they did it. They didn't pound the ball in the A-gap like many choose to do, they instead ran things a bit wider in the B-gap and outside the tackles. It placed a greater premium on the lateral quickness of our defensive linemen than usual, and likewise with the linebacker corps. And again, we really didn't respond. They racked up over 130 yards rushing, and we struggled to stop it. Expect other teams to do many of the same things Kentucky did.

So, to replace Hightower, we went with Reamer in the middle, Anders at Sam, and Upshaw at Jack. Chris Jordan saw some time, but Nico Johnson only played on special teams. And I'm really not sure how well things worked. Reamer wasn't really the problem -- as much as he will probably get blamed for it -- but Upshaw was a bit suspect at times in run support. He didn't play the run as well from the Jack linebacker position as Anders did in the first four games, and that hurt. Moreover, things just generally looked out of sync at times. Saban has said in the past that he generally doesn't like re-shuffling a lot of players, and there is a reason for that. Perhaps we'll see something else moving forward. I know one thing... that South Carolina game cannot get here soon enough.

The most interesting thing I noticed about Hightower's absence was that we seemed to be taking fewer risks defensively. With Hightower and McClain in the game at the same time, we were taking a lot of risks with blitzes because we felt the linebacker corps could still get the job done even if they were undermanned simply because those two were in the game. Against Kentucky, though, we didn't see that kind of risk-taking, and that may have been one of the reasons why we didn't rush the passer as well. Truth be told, of Hartline's 31 passing attempts, we really only had one sack, and that came after Anders put a great move on Zipp Duncan out of a basic four man rush.

Randall Cobb and Derrick Locke made our defense look bad. Period. We couldn't cover 'em, and we couldn't tackle 'em.

The pass defense wasn't great, but it generally played pretty well. Javier Arenas looked really bad on the deep touchdown pass Cobb -- seriously, Cobb watched that football for about three seconds and Arenas never was even aware the ball was in the air -- but aside from that things were good. Taking out that one pass, Kentucky completed only about 50% of their passes and averaged only about 4.0 yards per attempt. Of course, though, given how poorly Hartline played, that should have been the outcome.

On the whole though, being unable to stop the Kentucky offense, this was probably the worst defensive performance we've had since 2007. Sure, Florida and Utah did well against us last year, but they were great offenses. Kentucky did well against us yesterday, and they were a bad offense. Big difference there. Our defense ought to be fuming mad after watching this film.

The kick coverage unit... this has to be one of the worst I've ever seen. Yesterday was actually one of our "better" days, and still two of the four returned kicks went out to midfield. It's been five games of this and we've seen no improvement, and right now I really just don't see much of a reason to expect any better. If all that was required was a simple fix, it would have been fixed by now.

Best fact of the day? With the win over Kentucky, Alabama has an 18-2 record in our last 20 games. That is easily our best mark since the height of the Stallings era.

All in all, not the best day for the Tide. We didn't play very well, and the lopsided final score was more the result of Kentucky beating themselves than anything else. We clearly will have to play better moving forward. Of course, though, wins in this league never come easy, and in all fairness Kentucky is a decent team that will likely make a bowl game, so an 18-point victory, on the road, is far from shabby. We clearly need to play better, but more than anything else this game just shows how much Saban has changed the mindset and the culture of the program. At every point from 1997-2008, we would have been literally wetting ourselves with glee over such a victory, and now such a victory is met general criticism. The times have changed in Tuscaloosa, that much we know.

Initial Impressions from the North Texas Game

outsidethesidelines — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 15:15:09 -0000

A few initial impressions after the 53-7 route of North Texas:

Obviously a dominant performance by the Tide, and frankly one that was over before it ever really started. North Texas was never even close to being in our league and they were just outmatched from the very beginning. We effectively could have named the score today, and honestly this was probably the most dominating performance we've had over a Division 1-A team in many years. At the very least, it was the most points we scored since UTEP in Legion Field way back in 2001.
On the offensive side of the ball, you really just cannot say enough about the performance of Greg McElroy. Ever since he took off in the Virginia Tech game, he has been practically unstoppable. I think he threw about one bad ball today, but aside from that his performance was completely flawless. And the amazing thing is that he has had three touchdown passes dropped the past two weeks, which means his already gaudy statistics ought to be even more inflated. I'm sure it won't be this good all year, but you would have been hard-pressed to even script a better debut for McElroy.
Likewise, even without the presence of Julio Jones, the wide receiver corps looked great. Mike McCoy has basically done everything Julio would have done the past two weeks, and Marquis Maze, Darius Hanks, Earl Alexander, and others have all filled out the rotation nicely. Now obviously I'm not going to be so swayed by the past two games to think that we can miss a guy like Julio Jones against the stretch run of SEC teams and not see a dip in production, but it's still encouraging to see that we can get the job done against lesser opponents with #8 sitting on the sideline.
Mark Ingram and Trent Richardson may very well be the best tailback duo in the conference. Both are big, physical runners with good speed, good field vision, and both are threats to catch the football out of the backfield. There is not another duo anywhere in the country that I would trade for those two right now.
Defensively it was a great day, but honestly things were really vanilla by both the Alabama defense and the North Texas offense. For such a supposed offensive guru, it would be difficult to get much more plain jane than what Todd Dodge put on display today. It was all dink and dunk passes that came out almost immediately, mixed in with a bunch of runs out of shotgun into the interior of the line for no yardage. We were equally vanilla on defense, but there was no reason to do anything else. Terrence Cody and Josh Chapman had a field day with the UNT guards and centers and the 'Bama linebackers were free to roam all day. Our defensive backs were superior athletes anyway, and they were never legitimately tested by the Mean Green dink and dunk offense
The pass rush looked terrible on paper today, as we weren't able to get a single sack on 23 passing attempts. In reality, though, it was no major issue. North Texas was getting the ball out almost immediately on the snap and it really never gave our pass rush a chance. It took all of the edge rushers out of the game, effectively, but it's no major concern. Our pass rush didn't do anything wrong today, and we should still be in good shape moving forward.
It was nice to see Leigh Tiffin getting such great distance on kick-offs, but we still had at least one major breakdown in the kick coverage team, and Tiffin played a huge role in that. Every single kick return that has went for a long distance today has been largely assisted by Tiffin being far out of position. It has gotten so bad that it's practically an 11-on-10 match-up when we kick-off, and frankly I don't think I've ever seen someone consistently as lost on a football field as Tiffin is during kick returns. Again, he had a nice day today in terms of kick-off distance and positioning, but at this point you just have to be honest and say that if we need to rely on Tiffin in any way whatsoever to assist bringing down the returner, we're just out of luck.
And speaking further of Tiffin, the two missed extra points today were ridiculous. What can you say? Just pray that no 'Bama game this year legitimately comes down to a kick. If it does, the post-game drinking is most likely going to be rooted in depression, not celebration.
One nitpick on the Alabama pass defense: Care to guess how many interceptions we have had since the LSU game last year? One... and that one was Mark Barron's relatively meaningless interception very late last week against Florida International. All told, that is seven games and only one interception to show for it all. The pass defense has generally been good during that stretch, but the complete lack of an ability to force turnovers is very frustrating, and honestly it is something that we need to be able to do in order to truly become an elite defense. As well as our offense has performed, we can really be absolutely explosive in terms of point production if our defense can start getting turnovers for our offense.
You know whose playing time has almost been entirely eliminated? Cory Reamer. He's still a "starter," per se, I suppose, but he really has not had a lot of meaningful playing time the past couple of weeks, and honestly most of his time today came late in the game with the back-ups. For a "starter," he's probably played less than anyone with that designation in a long time.
Speaking of Reamer, I think one of the things interesting on defense is that we have largely went with a 3-3-5 look the past couple of weeks. Reamer has gone off the field, and in his place Marquis Johnson has been on the field as a fifth defensive back. And then in long-yardage, obvious passing situations, we move to a dime package with four defensive linemen -- with Rolando McClain the only linebacker on the field -- and the defensive line consists of the two "normal" defensive ends being moved inside, and Dont'a Hightower and Eryk Anders playing with their hand on the ground at defensive end. All in all it's been successful, but it's still an interesting note. We really haven't lined up very much in a traditional 3-4 look (or 4-3 look, for that matter) the past couple of weeks. These past two opponents have been spread teams trying to throw the football, so perhaps the 3-3-5 is the way we're choosing to attack spread passing teams moving forward. Given the success so far it's hard to overly complain.
With the playing time that Star Jackson saw today, there is no question whatsoever that he is indeed our back-up quarterback. We simplified things for him and kept everything short and underneath -- and he did get away with one pass that could have easily been an interception -- but he looked pretty decent. He has good physical tools and he's developing nicely. He's not ready to play right now against high level competition, in my opinion, but we knew that Jackson was a developmental project when we signed him, and to that end he seems to be developing nicely. That said, though, again, he's not really ready to play right now, and if McElroy goes down against quality competition, we're really going to see a drop in offensive production.
Very few true freshmen on the field today, even against North Texas. Trent Richardson, Rod Woodson, Dre Kirkpatrick, Michael Bowman, and Nico Johnson played, but those five players had played already, and to the best of my knowledge no new true freshmen played today. With that in mind, I imagine the general plan for just about everyone else at this point is to redshirt.
Speaking of players who didn't play today, Burton Scott was absent for the third consecutive game. He's healthy, not suspended, and he was dressed out today, but he never went in. Instead, Dre Kirkpatrick, Tyrone King, and Chris Rogers played corner in mop-up duty. I'll be honest, at this point I think you have to say that Scott is going to redshirt this year.
Fortunately, no major injuries today from what we can tell. The only other semi-serious injury was to Demetrius Goode who went down with what was later diagnosed with a hyper-extended knee. Thankfully it doesn't look to be anything overly serious, and hopefully he'll be ready to go in a week or two. Unlike what was the case against Florida International, thankfully the price of victory in terms of injuries wasn't quote so high this week.
All in all, it was just a dominating performance today by the Tide, and with no major injuries confirmed thus far, there is really nothing to complain about. Of course, on the other hand, North Texas was clearly nowhere in our league, so by the same token you shouldn't necessarily draw any hard and fast conclusions about anything from today. Nevertheless, it was a good day for the Tide, we won big and we stayed healthy in the process. Now let's just ready for Arkansas...

Initial Impressions from the FIU Game

outsidethesidelines — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 06:51:37 -0000

Things weren't always pretty, but nevertheless everything generally worked out well in the end with the Tide knocking off the Golden Panthers of FIU 40-14 in the home opener in Tuscaloosa. A few initial impressions on the game:

After an impressive debut against Virginia Tech, Greg McElroy built on that foundation again today with his performance over Florida International. He ultimately went 18-24 for 241 yards, 1 touchdown, and 0 interceptions, and frankly regardless of the opponent you can never complain when your quarterback completes 75% of his passes, averages 10 yards per attempt, and doesn't turn the football over. I'm sure McElroy will experience some pains later on down the road, but nevertheless he has gotten off to as good of a start as we could have hoped for, and frankly he's played better in the two games so far this than John Parker Wilson ever did at any point of the 2008 campaign.
The knee injury to Julio Jones has gotten a lot of attention, and rightly so. Obviously he must have been in some degree of pain for him to stay on the sideline, but I imagine it was more to do with the staff wanting to be cautious with him than anything else. Obviously we'll know more in the next couple of days, but the fact that he never went to the locker room, never went to get an MRI, an x-ray, or anything of the sort bodes well for the (hopefully) limited severity of the injury. Furthermore, keep in mind that Jones was injured on the end-around, and stayed in the game for several more players after the injury occurred. Again, we won't know anything definitive until another day or so, but for now I see no real reason to be concerned.

The good news is how well we've done in Jones' absence. After his critical drop on third and short early in the fourth quarter of the Virginia Tech game, we didn't throw in his direction the rest of the night, and the offense still put 18 more points on the board. Likewise, Jones really wasn't a factor today -- three balls went his way, and they included a nine-yard catch, a five-yard end around, and a dropped touchdown pass -- but in his absence guys like Mike McCoy, Earl Alexander, Darius Hanks, and others stepped up to fill the void, and we still put up 40 points on the board (and it should have been more). Obviously there is no replacing a player like Julio, and it goes without saying that we all hope his injury is nothing serious, but it is comforting to see that we can still field a solid, functional offense even when we aren't getting any real contributions from the Foley product.
Speaking of other injuries, the knee injury to Damion Square is particularly disheartening. The redshirt freshman from Houston had been playing really well, and the general consensus is that the severity of the knee injury will force him to miss the remainder of the season. Square had to be carted to the locker room, which is never a good sign, and I imagine it's some type of ligament damage involved. Nevertheless, he's a fine young man with a promising future ahead of him. Hopefully he can take things in stride and start getting prepared for 2010 (if the knee is as bad as feared), and then hopefully we can successfully petition the NCAA for a medical hardship waiver on down the road if it comes to that.
The rest of the injuries, fortunately, aren't as serious as Square's knee injury. Mark Ingram showed no signs of limitation from the knee injury he suffered late last weekend against Virginia Tech, and while Roy Upchurch's ankle sprain was a bit frustrating, Upchurch's fragility isn't exactly breaking news, and at this point you just have to be happy that it was nothing more serious, and from here on just count any production from Upchurch as a bonus. For what it's worth, the ankle sprain did look pretty serious -- Upchurch returned to the sideline in street clothes, and was sporting a protective boot on his lower leg -- and I imagine he either misses the next few weeks or is limited for the next few weeks. Hopefully that's not the case, but I'm afraid this wasn't just your typical minor day-to-day ankle tweak for Upchurch. Fortunately, though, there were no other major injuries reported for the rest of the team, so the news is good on that front.
With Ingram limited somewhat by the flu and Upchurch injuring his ankle early, the door was opened for the arrival of Trent Richardson and he did not disappoint. To date, Richardson has shown why he was so highly-touted coming out of Escambia. He is built like a bodybuilder and runs with great power, but he's no glorified fullback out there, he has a lot of top-end speed and overall agility to boot. Moreover, he did a decent job tonight in pass protection, and showed off his hands catching the football out of the backfield. He's still a true freshman and will experience some growing pains, inevitably, but he looks to be an asset for the Tide in 2009, and if Upchurch's injury issues continue, he's going to prove to be an invaluable asset at that. Prior to the season I said that he could probably get 150 carries on the year, and if Upchurch misses some time throughout the course of the year, Richardson will probably get near that mark. In particular, if Upchurch's sprained ankle indeed does keep him out or limited for a few weeks, expect Richardson to be a major cog of the offense.
As expected, we did see some more true freshmen in action tonight in addition to Trent Richardson and Rod Woodson -- both of whom played against Virginia Tech and played again tonight against FIU -- including Dre Kirkpatrick, Nico Johnson, Kerry Murphy, Michael Bowman, and Chance Warmack. The real surprises of the group were Michael Bowman and Chance Warmack, but in all fairness neither of those are necessarily big surprises. Bowman is supremely talented physically, and Warmack enrolled early and fought hard for a starting job this Fall. Of those true freshmen who didn't play tonight, most are probably headed for a redshirt season. Of the few possible exceptions, keep your eye on Tana Patrick, D.J. Fluker, and Kevin Norwood.
Thomas Darrah went into the game first tonight when Greg McElroy went out, but I wouldn't necessarily venture to say that he is the back-up at this point. Star Jackson was limited by the flu this week, and that had to hurt his chances against FIU. Truth be told, I still don't think anyone really knows who would take over if McElroy were forced out for an extended period of time.
Nobody will ever say that FIU has a dominating defense, but even so the offensive line did pretty well tonight. Greg McElroy was sacked only once on 24 passing attempts, and while FIU isn't exactly known for a fierce pass rush, the big uglies kept their quarterback upright, and that's all you can ever ask. Likewise, those guys did a pretty nice job in the running game as well. I think it's relatively clear that we cannot be the physically dominating unit like we were a year ago, but for the second week in a row these guys kept plugging at it and eventually got the job done. We didn't exactly annihilate FIU at the point of attack, but you can never complain about 42 carries for 295 yards and 4 touchdowns on the ground. All in all, again, regardless of the opponent, all you can ask for your offensive line is to go out and get the job done, and our guys generally did that tonight.

The defensive line is continuing to perform at an extremely high level. Despite the disappointing injury to Square, the rest of the defensive line was nothing short of dominating. FIU ended up with zero yards rushing on the day, and the defensive line itself picked up three sacks, a particularly impressive figure considering that linemen in the 3-4 are more designed to occupy space and blockers and then let the linebackers run free to make plays. Marcel Dareus continues to have the look of a superstar in the making, and Lorenzo Washington is really playing at the level that so many hoped he would when he signed with the Tide way back in 2004 (Shula's first class).
The pass rush as a whole, moreover, continued to be particularly impressive. We ended up with five sacks on only 38 passing attempts, not to mention nine quarterback hurries and at least one intentional grounding penalty. I said in the preview that the FIU offensive line was nothing overly special, and admittedly they gave up a relatively high number of sacks a year ago, but the way we got after the quarterback was still impressive. Objectively, our ability to rush the passer in the first two games augers well for the stretch run.
The pass defense, generally speaking, had a good night, but in the first half we did struggle quite a bit and things got very frustrating. Admittedly, it is important to get perspective on the subject by pointing out that, while FIU had a 14-13 lead, seven of those points came on a kick return, and the following seven came after we spotted them the football on the 40-yard line thanks to a Leigh Tiffin kick sailing out of bounds. So it wasn't really that bad -- as maddening as it was at the time -- and in all fairness we really did shut down FIU in the second half with no problem. Their five meaningful possessions of the second half resulted in a whopping twenty yards of total offense, and it really became a non-issue. Perhaps our cover schemes were a bit vanilla in the first half, perhaps we struggled with the speed of their no huddle offense, but whatever the cause it was something that we fixed in the second half. I do think we still need to play better pass defense against solid spread teams, but I don't think I'd get overly worried about what we saw tonight. All told, the FIU passing game tonight went 18-38 for for 213 yards, 1 touchdown, and 1 interception. That's a completion percentage of only 47%, and a QB rating of only 97.8. Given that much of the production came on picking up third and long plays -- which generally tend to be a bit of a fluky occurrence -- I'm not complaining too much.
One guy who did struggle a lot tonight in the defensive backfield was Kareem Jackson. He gave up a couple of long passing plays, had a pass interference penalty that was key in a FIU scoring drive, and dropped what should have been an easy interception. Jackson played well against Virginia Tech, but he struggled a bit down the stretch in 2008, and tonight was probably one of his worst games. He can play well at times, but he's also a streaky player who can be a liability at times too. I just hope he works out whatever his issues are before the stretch run of conference play begins.
Also frustrating tonight was that we continued to leave points on the board. Leigh Tiffin was his consistently inconsistent self, which included a missed 39-yard field goal and a kick-off that went out of bounds. Julio Jones, though it's hard to say how much the knee injury was limiting him, nevertheless dropped a touchdown pass that he should have caught. The same goes for Colin Peek as well. Likewise, penalties continued to be an issue, and in particular a holding penalty on Drew Davis in the red zone likely took away a touchdown drive. It's hard to complain too much when you still put 40 points up on the board, but even with that kind of production we still left a lot more out there, and while we can get away with this against the FIU's of the world, this type of foot-shooting can very well result in a loss (or losses) in conference play. Hopefully we can improve offensive efficiency moving forward and stop leaving so many points on the board.
The biggest problem tonight, of course, was continued breakdowns by the kick coverage team, and that point I really do not even know what to say. We have some of the best athletes in the country playing kick coverage, and there is absolutely no reason why we shouldn't have one of the best kick coverage teams around. What I can say, however, is that unless we get this problem fixed immediately, it's going to cost us a game at some point. SEC play is just entirely too tough, and the margin of error against many opponents in conference play is so small that we will not be able to afford to allow our opponent to just race to the end zone on a kick return and still expect to win. Either we take care of this problem soon, or this problem will take care of us soon. Hopefully it's the former, not the latter.
At the end of the day, FIU looked pretty solid in this game. They aren't a great team, obviously, but again they are nowhere near the laughingstock that many of our fans ridiculed them for being prior to this game. They are a solid Sun Belt team with a lot of experience and a good young coach, and it's a team that may very well end up in a bowl game came late December. Best of luck to them.
For Alabama, it's hard to complain too much. If nothing else, we're pretty healthy, 2-0, and #4 in the country. If you are asking for much more than that, chances are you are simply being greedy. We're in pretty good shape, and you won't see me doing any real complaining. On the other hand, though, in all fairness, we aren't a perfect team by any stretch of the imagination. We have more than our fair share of flaws -- offensive line isn't dominating in the run game like a year ago, we're leaving points on the board, penalties are hurting us, special teams are killing us, and the pass defense has looked shaky at times against FIU -- and no destination is guaranteed for us, not even Atlanta. Nevertheless, things have pretty much gone as well as can be reasonably expected thus far, and for now we just have to focus on fixing the shortcomings that we have displayed to date. We aren't there yet, but we've gotten off to a good start and now we just have to focus on improvement.

The Virginia Tech Preview: Tide Offense v. Hokie Defense

outsidethesidelines — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 14:00:18 -0000

Editor's Note: This will be the first installment in a four-piece series that will give an in-depth preview of the individual unit match-ups, as well as a special teams preview, and finally ending on Friday with a final wrap-up before the two teams face off on Saturday night.

The Virginia Tech Defense

Longtime Hokie DC Bud Foster

It goes without saying that the reputation of the "Lunch Pail Defense" precedes itself. Few programs in all of college football can boast a defense that has been as consistently successful as the Hokies have been over such a long period of time. No consultation of the statistical indexes is needed to understand that Virginia Tech is annually one of the best defensive units in the country, and the accomplishments of that group are highly impressive over the years. It's a unit that is generally near the top of the country in terms of scoring defense and total defense each and every year, consistently producing big plays, and with over 30 players drafted under the leadership of defensive coordinator Bud Foster, it's fair to say that there is a solid pipeline running straight from the Hokie defense to the NFL. Perhaps even more impressive, during Foster's era in Blacksburg, there has been at least one defensive player each and every year to earn All-American honors.

And, of course, the backbone of the Hokie defense is the aforementioned Bud Foster, the long time Tech defensive coordinator. It goes without saying that this is not an attempt to undermine Frank Beamer in any way, but nevertheless the Hokies have won a lot of games this decade, and it generally hasn't been a prolific offense leading them to victory. No, it's been an outstanding defense, and Foster is at the center of that. The 50-year old Murray State alum became defensive coordinator in 1995, at the ripe old age of 36, and has been an institution in Blacksburg ever since. The Broyles Award is given annually to the top assistant coach in the country, with Foster winning it in 2006, and no other assistant coach in the country has been chosen as a finalist as many times as he has. With such a long reputation of success, Foster could have easily had his pick of many good head coaching jobs, but he has opted to stay at Virginia Tech, and in all fairness he may very well be the best pure defensive coordinator in the country.

As a unit, the Hokies are a very aggressive defense, and Foster himself is very open and honest about wanting to dictate the flow of the game to the offense instead of vice versa. Underlying this aggressive defense is a unit that is built on speed, and one that not so secretly sacrifices size for speed. If you look at the Virginia Tech defensive line, it's a small unit. Many of their defensive ends are 250 pounds and under, and some of their interior players are 280 pounds and under. Likewise, the linebacker corps is light as well, with more than a few players barely hovering above the 200 pound limit. All told, the average size of the defensive line is around 267 pounds and the average size of the linebacker corps is around 220 pounds. By comparison, the Alabama defensive line averages around 300 pounds, and the linebackers almost 250. Tech defensive ends would be playing Jack linebacker at Alabama, and Rolando McClain, if he transferred to Virginia Tech, would instantly be a defensive end. To be sure, some of those disparities are a result in the different type of player needed for the 4-3 and the 3-4, but that alone doesn't explain the disparity in its entirety. Again, it's a unit that is built on speed, and one that openly sacrifices size for speed in the front seven.

The end result of a defense so heavily reliant on speed is about what you would expect. They are very quick, and running east and west on this unit isn't easy. Moreover, because of the overall speed -- and the general level of hustle consistently displayed by this group -- they tend to pursue well downfield, and the short-yardage quickness does allow them to make more than their fair share of tackles for loss in the running game. Moreover, it goes without saying that the speed first approach means that they are particularly a dangerous team rushing the quarterback off the edge. On the other hand, though, the lack of size does have it's drawbacks, particularly against big, powerful teams who -- when playing technically sound football up front -- can then generally have their way with the relatively light Hokies.

Also, before moving any further, a couple of position specific points should be addressed with regard to their impact on the Hokie defense, and these positions are, in Foster's parlance, the Whip linebacker, the rover, and the boundary corner. The Whip linebacker is an outside linebacker that functions in many ways like Nick Saban's Jack linebacker, playing to the wide side of the field -- the "field" side in Foster's terminology. The Whip linebacker generally plays zone coverage against the pass, but Foster loves to get creative with him and use him as an edge rusher against the passer, and also as a key player in run blitzes. The boundary corner plays to the short side of the field and is almost always locked in man coverage -- as opposed to the field corner, who plays the wide side and is more zone oriented -- and that position has a bit of a special place in Foster's lore because of the quality of players who have been given that designation. Finally, the rover is a hybrid safety player who is generally given a good bit of free reign, and one that has large responsibilities against both the pass and the run.

The Hokie Defense: A Critical Look

That glowing description of the Hokie defense notwithstanding, no defensive unit is perfect, and the Hokies are no different. Every defensive unit has flaws and weaknesses, and the same thing goes for this group as well. On the surface the Virginia Tech defense was outstanding last year, just looking at the major statistical categories, but if you dig deeper you begin to see that there is more than initially meets the eye.

In the passing game, the Hokies finished last year a solid 28th in the country in passing efficiency defense, but as is usually the case, things aren't necessarily so simple. The entire QB rating statistic has many detractors, shortcomings, and legitimate criticisms, and by analyzing the quality of pass defense based solely on opponent QB rating allows those statistical shortcomings to bleed through, and you can make a valid case that that happens when you look at the Hokies' defense.

Looking beyond the 28th placed ranking in passing efficiency defense, things quickly aren't so rosy. Truth be told, passing effiency defense isn't the best way to analyze the quality of a pass defense, the best way to do that is to look at yards per passing attempt (the favored pass defense statistic of many defensive gurus), and by that metric the Hokies really struggled a year ago, allowing roughly 7.14 yards per passing attempt. That number, in fact, put the Hokies at only 77th in the nation. And things were actually even much worse when you consider yards per completion. By that metric, the Hokies allowed 13.54 yards per completion, "good" for only 111th in the country out of 119 Division 1-A teams.

And much of the same criticism can be made of the Virginia Tech run defense as well. It, too, looks good based on the fact that the Hokies finished 14th in the country in rushing defense, but again it becomes a bit suspect the closer you look. The Hokies were a great pass rushing team a year ago (more on that later), and of course yardage and attempts lost as a result of sacks are, thanks to the methodology currently used, counted towards rushing statistics, even though they are really passes. For a great pass rushing team like that Hokies, that arbitrarily makes the run defense look more impressive than it really is. If you factor out the sacks, however, the Hokies 1735 yards on 416 carries, thus allowing about 4.1 yards per carry, not an overly impressive number. Moreover, the Hokies were great at stopping running games behind the line, posting 65 tackles for loss on running downs, and when you factor out those numbers, suddenly the average jumps to about 5.2 yards per carry. Bottom line, when the Hokies were not able to use their outstanding quickness to shoot the gaps and make a tackle in the backfield, their lack of size in the defensive front seven generally meant that their opponents were able to have their way in the running game.

Furthermore, just looking at the data, the Hokies were a team that was generally pretty good at limiting the run to a degree, but not a very good one at stopping the run outright. Even leaving the sack totals into the raw rushing statistics -- which again arbitrarily inflates the quality of their actual run defense -- eight teams rushed for over 100 yards against the Hokies last year, and only three times did the Hokies keep an opponent under 60 rushing yards (and one of those times came against Division 1-AA Furman). By comparison, only two teams cracked the 100 yard barrier against the Tide (one of which was national champion Florida), and Alabama held eight teams to 60 yards or fewer.

What all of this describes is a defense that was generally a good one, but one that became far too reliant on the big play. As mentioned earlier, the Hokies rushed the passer with great success by generating 35 sacks on only 343 passing attempts, giving them an adjusted sack rate of 10.3%, one of the highest in the country. Likewise, by racking up 65 tackles for loss on only 416 carries, Tech averaged a tackle for a loss on about 15.6% of all running downs, a number right on par with what the Alabama run defense posted. Furthermore, even more impressive, by snagging 20 interceptions on only 343 passing attempts, the Hokies were #1 in the country last year in interception rate at 5.81%. And, again, in a sense that's really the problem, they were far too reliant on those big plays. Yes they were generating sacks, tackles for loss, and interceptions in great numbers, but when they weren't doing that they were really struggling as a unit. When they didn't stop tailbacks behind the line, they were giving up well over five yards per pop. And when they weren't able to sack the quarterback or snag an interception, they were giving up over seven yards per passing attempt, and almost more yardage per completion than just about any other team in the country.

And that's the Virginia Tech defense in a nutshell. They are a fine coached unit that is very fast and that plays very hard. They can use their speed to kill you in more ways than one, and they have generally been successful. On the other hand, they are a unit that relies heavily on the big play, and if you as an offense can limit those big defensive plays, you suddenly find yourself facing a unit that you can have a good deal of success against.

The Alabama Offense

No one could have imagined the impact that Jim McElwain would have on the Alabama offense when he arrived a year ago from Fresno State. Most people liked what he had done in the valley, but no one expected that he could come in and immediately turn the Tide's offense into one of the most productive seen in Tuscaloosa in ages. But, of course, football is a constantly renewing game, and each team and each opponent is different from year-to-year, so you must constantly re-prove your merits, and in real terms that means that the accomplishments of 2008 for the Alabama offense are, for all intents and purposes, ancient history. Despite the return of the coaching staff, this is a new offensive unit, and many key faces are missing from a year ago. And considering that in the post-Bryant era, Alabama offenses have rarely been anything particularly special, it indeed is something that we will have to prove all over again in 2009.

Tide OC Jim McElwain

And, oddly enough, as much as we would probably like to think we know the generalities of McElwain and the method to his madness, there is in all actuality a high degree of uncertainty with regard to this offense. In all honesty, who are we? What are we going to do, and exactly how are we going to put points on the board? Can anyone here legitimately answer those questions? I, for one, cannot. And if you think you can, I suggest you head to Vegas.

I know who Bud Foster is, and I know what the Virginia Tech defense is about. Foster as a coordinator has a particular scheme in place that, while obviously changing in some regards, in many ways remains the same. In a sense he and his defense are known commodities. We know the type of player he is looking for, and we generally know how he likes to use particular players and skill sets. We know, generally speaking, what they need to do in order to be successful within their system, and we generally know how they are trying to go about playing winning football. But we know none of those things, really, when it comes to McElwain, aside from the absolute rudimentary basics.

Of course the easy answer -- and in all fairness, perhaps even the correct answer for 2009 -- is that we will try to replicate the basic strategy employed a year ago: physically dominate our opponents in the trenches in the running game, run it right down their throats, and only throw the football when and where we want to. But the problem with that is that there is no guarantee that the pre-requisites needed to be in place in order to do that will once again be there in 2009. Again, teams change, and many of the key faces that powered such an attack no longer reside in Tuscaloosa. Furthermore, it's almost impossible to overstate how difficult it is to consistently execute such an attack, and how little we threw the football last year... we probably threw the football fewer times last year than any non-option-based SEC team has seen in ages. Thus, even though that's the easy answer, that's not necessarily to say the correct answer.

And making matters more intriguing is McElwain himself and the way the team has conducted itself thus far. With regard to McElwain, In 2007 at Fresno State, his offensive attack operated generally out of the shotgun and threw the football heavily. And back when he was offensive coordinator at Montana State in the mid-1990's, he threw the ball all over the place there too. One way or the other, as a former quarterback, it's hard to say that McElwain is, at his core, anything over than a guy who generally likes to air it out. And moreover, regarding the team thus far, in the A-Day game we operated heavily out of the shotgun and threw the football a great deal. Likewise, in the two scrimmages this Fall, we have relied heavily on the passing attack. Sure the passing game generally needs more work in scrimmages, and yes coaches like to use it more because it can help cut down on injuries a bit, but at some point you have to say that we are working so heavily on the passing game because we actually want to throw the football more.

Moreover, you can just get ready for it, sooner or later the Alabama offense is changing. Nick Saban, sitting on his proverbial throne at 100 Bryant Drive, wants a balanced attack, and it's only a matter of time before we get that balanced attack. And regardless of how productive last year's unit was, it was the antithesis of balanced, so that way of life won't last much longer (if any longer). Rest assured, we aren't recruiting elite pocket passer quarterbacks and high-end receivers galore just so we can suddenly channel our inner Woody Hayes come Saturday afternoon. Ultimately, this isn't even a question of debate, it's a question of the particular specifics of an evolutionary timeframe. We were a very run-heavy attack last year, but we will eventually be a balanced attack. Period. The only question is just how far we will be along our evolutionary path in 2009.

With Julio taking hand offs and talk of a secret Wildcat package, just what will the Tide offense look like this year?

And, again, it could mean that our offensive attack in 2009 could be different than what many expect. It may very well not be as run heavy as many think. The passing game may very well play a more enhanced role. Furthermore, going away from the conservative route, with end arounds to Maze, hand-offs to Julio, and talk of Trent Richardson running the Wildcat, we are seemingly looking to find unique ways within the offense in order to get the ball into the hands of the ever growing amount of high-end athletes that roam Tuscaloosa. And, consider the resurgence of Terry Grant. Most had him set to transfer after going incognito last year, but he returned and has done so well that he's now listed as the #2 tailback on the depth chart. Given his lack of power and size, Grant had no real place in last year's power-driven, smashmouth offense, so what does his resurgence tell us? Among other things, it indicates that the offense itself is changing... he wasn't the right type of physical player last year to get a spot, and if things were staying the same he should be riding the pine this year too, yet obviously he has found at least some role. All the more evidence to think that the scheme is changing.

Either way, things are changing in Tuscaloosa, we just don't know by how much just yet. So, who are we as an offense? I really cannot answer that.

The 'Bama Offense: A Critical Look

While we cannot say exactly what the Alabama offense will be like in 2009, what we can do is analyze the more specific components of the offense and find our their strengths and weaknesses. And with many starters returning from last year's offense, much of the individual components of the offense are fairly well known commodities coming into the season. Mark Ingram should be a slight upgrade over what he was a year ago... a power runner with good speed, and improved pass blocking abilities. Julio Jones, if healthy, will be almost a lock for the All-America teams. Mike Johnson should continue to be a high-end guard, and Drew Davis should continue to be an adequate right tackle. Colin Peek, despite having never played for the Tide, is an experienced player and should be an above average tight end if he can remain healthy. Players like Mike McCoy, Earl Alexander, Brad Smelley, Marquis Maze, and others were all solid players a year ago, and they should continue to develop accordingly as their respective careers progress. Again, those players are relatively well known commodities at this point.

The real question is regarding the replacement players for those now gone from the 2008 team that looked to be replaced by new faces. Specifically, that means the loss of Andre Smith, Antoine Caldwell, Marlon Davis, and John Parker Wilson. And by this point, at least, we know who those replacements will be -- respectively, James Carpenter, William Vlachos, Barrett Jones, and Greg McElroy -- so we can at least get a pretty good idea of exactly what to expect in regard to their performance.

LT James Carpenter

James Carpenter will probably play at a pretty high level at left tackle. He has the prototypical frame of a left tackle, good athleticism, considerable time in the system now, and he was a highly pursued recruit by two of the national powers looking for him to start immediately (Oklahoma being the other). He won't be Andre Smith, but he should be a pretty high quality left tackle in his own right, and likely the best we've had in a while not named Andre Smith. And, to a lesser extent, the same likely goes for William Vlachos at center. He's not a superstar, but his lack of height makes it almost impossible to get underneath him, and that combined with his strength makes him a great drive-blocker which is really what Saban apparently wants in a center in the first place. The real linchpin of it all, though, is Barrett Jones at right guard, and frankly any projection on him is going to be nothing more than an outright guess at this point.

It should be noted that the offensive line, in particular, remains a major concern moving forward into 2009. For all of our smashmouth abilities last year in the running game, we still really struggled to protect the passer. Our adjusted sack rate was near the bottom of the SEC again, and edge rushers still gave us lots of problems even with Andre Smith in the lineup. It's hard to see that really improving in 2009 with Smith in Cincinnati, and if the 2009 line loses the ability to consistently manhandle opposing defensive lines in the running game -- something that can easily go away with just one weak link in the line -- then the line as a whole may very well turn into a net liability for the Tide, dragging the entire offense down with it.

Greg McElroy, obviously, remains the x-factor that will have the biggest impact on the Tide. The hope, of course, is that McElroy turns out to be a great player who plays well regardless of what is surrounding him. Unfortunately, that's unlikely to be the case, and McElroy's performance, more than anything else, will likely be a function of the performance of the supporting cast surrounding him. That could be either good news or bad news, depending on how the rest of the team develops. Moreover, questions remain about McElroy's ability to not beat ourselves. John Parker Wilson did that last year -- though in all fairness, he had a bit of luck helping him on the way, as some opponents dropped a couple of relatively easy, potentially game-changing interceptions -- but only time will tell if McElroy can do that this year. It goes without saying that avoiding really bad plays is effectively the same as making really good plays.

Now, in all fairness, when you put it all together, it's hard to see this Alabama offense being a bad one, based on the individual components. We've got a potential All-American at wide receiver, a backfield loaded with star tailbacks, plenty of other high-end athletes for the skill positions, an above average tight end, and at least three or perhaps four good, quality offensive linemen. That's enough to score more than a few points, but again it becomes a question of degree determined by the performances of the new faces. You can take that core group, add good contributions from the newcomers, and get a very good offense. On the other hand, you can take that core group and add some struggles from the newcomers, and suddenly you find yourself with a very middling offense. That distinction alone can easily be the difference between an 11-1 team and an 8-4 team.

And that is really all that we can safely say about or offense moving into this year. Unlike the Foster defense, or the Alabama defense for that matter, the Alabama offense doesn't really fit nicely into a little predictive blurb. We do not know how good it will ultimately be, nor do we really know what form it will take.

What To Look For

So, all things considered, how do things look to play out on Saturday night?

First and foremost, Bud Foster has a bit of an old school mindset as a defensive coordinator, one that places a great emphasis on stopping the run. Mix that with his very open intent to dictate the flow of the game to the offense -- and not the other way around -- and I think you can fairly expect Foster to make his first order of business stopping the Alabama running game. In this game a year ago, Alabama controlled the line of scrimmage from the opening kick-off with a power running game. The Hokies, though, won't let us go easily into that good night for a second year in a row. Their defense is again a small one, built on speed at the expense of size, so if we can get a helmet on a helmet, that's a match-up we ought to win more often than not. Thus, expect Foster to really dial up the run blitzes early, especially with Whip linebacker Cody Grimm, and to also keep the rover near the line of scrimmage for help in run support.

And, of course, if the Hokies can have some success stopping the Alabama running game on early downs, thus getting the Tide into some obvious passing situations, you know Foster and company have to be dying to find out what Greg McElroy is made of. The Hokie defense itself is largely built to take advantage of teams facing obvious passing situations, but the pressure will be even more so for McElroy, especially with the new faces on the offensive line. As mentioned earlier, the Virginia Tech defense is one that has come to rely heavily on the big play, and you know that McElroy is an inexperienced quarterback to whom the Hokies will be doing everything in their power to force him into making a big, negative play.

On the other hand, this approach by Foster and the Virginia Tech defense does present more than a few opportunities for the Tide, particularly in the early stages of the game. If you can say that Virginia Tech will bring the rover near the line of scrimmage and that they will want to -- and perhaps have to -- dial up a high dosage of run blitzes on early downs in order to shut down the Alabama running game, that correspondingly opens up opportunities for big plays in the passing game. Receivers will then likely see a lot of man coverage with little safety help on the outside, and likewise a good tight end like Colin Peek can also have a big day under such circumstances, particularly with play action. Now, to be sure, it goes without saying that doing this will be a very high risk/ high reward strategy, and one that could just as easily backfire on the Tide. Running the ball straight into the line and playing it safe may very well be the smart thing to do -- yes it will likely result in some three and outs, but with the quality of our defense, trading punts isn't necessarily a bad thing -- and avoiding big, negative plays is arguably priority #1 for the Crimson Tide offense. Nevertheless, this preview would be incomplete if it was not mentioned that the possibility exists for the 'Bama coaching staff to try to make some big plays early in the passing game.

Man coverage down field with no safety help spells M-A-Z-E-T-D.

The Virginia Tech boundary corner position also needs to be kept in mind. As opposed to the "field" corner, which is generally stashed on the far side of field with more help from the safety -- and with the quarterback having to make longer throws in his direction -- the Tech boundary corner position spends most of his time in man coverage with little or no safety help, and the position always features the Hokies best corner. And the position has produced a long line of future NFL players, going back to DeAngelo Hall, Jimmy Williams, Brandon Flowers, and most recently Macho Harris. With Harris now in the NFL, that job will fall to senior Stephan Virgin in 2009, and he looks to continue the Hokies' history of high play at the position. Nevertheless, though, it does create the possibility for Alabama to make some plays in the passing game. I doubt Julio Jones will see man coverage -- they'll probably combo him most of the time, and despite general thinking to the contrary, the defense's #1 cornerback generally does not cover the offense's #1 wide receiver anywhere near as much as you would probably expect -- but some Alabama receiver will, and with the Tide's depth at the position, someone will be getting an opportunity to make some big plays in space.

At the end of the day, the biggest single match-up in this game, however, will be Alabama offensive line versus the Virginia Tech front seven, and whichever side wins the majority of those battles will probably have an edge when the clock reads 0:00. And in terms of protecting the passer, this really is not what the Tide wanted to see. Again, we struggled to protect the passer last year, and with three linemen gone, it's a major concern. And now we start the year against a team with great edge rushing abilities and a lot of small, speed pass rushers, so it's far from an ideal scenario. Defensive end Jason Worilds will be playing in the NFL next year, and at 6'2 and around 260 pounds, he's a dangerous player. He has the speed and quickness to beat people on the outside, but he uses his hands well and his fluid hip movement allows him to quickly change direction in route to the quarterback. Starting opposite Worilds is Nekos Brown, and while Brown isn't the caliber of player that Worilds is, by tipping the scales at only about 235 pounds, he's a player with great quickness who will be tough to handle off the edge, if nothing else. Likewise, the same thing goes for the back-ups, Chris Drager and Stephen Friday, both weighing in the 240 pound range. It all presents a daunting task for the Tide, and one that will definitely require very solid play in pass protection by backs and the tight ends.

Finding a way to neutralize the Whip linebacker will also be key. As mentioned earlier, Foster loves to use him as a rusher, and keeping him out of the backfield will be an absolute necessity for the Tide. Normally the Hokies have co-starters at the Whip position, but injuries have made that a bit more difficult. The two normal co-starters at the position are Cam Martin and Cody Grimm -- Grimm was second in the ACC last year in tackles for loss, trailing only teammate Jason Worilds -- but Martin has been slowed by a knee injury. He underwent knee surgery at the end of last season to, in part, repair a torn PCL, and that caused him to miss all of Spring practice. He is back this Fall, but the knee has not healed completely, and it has turned into a lingering issue that has caused him to miss some time this Fall as well. Bud Foster said last Friday, eight days ago, that, "Right now, Cam Martin is not full-speed. He’s getting better. Right now, if we can get 15 good plays out of him a game early, that would be great for us." So it looks like while Martin will play some, he won't play much, and he'll be far from 100% when he does. That will help the Tide in a sense that it gets redshirt freshman Jeron Gouveia-Winslow on the field a bit more -- a player Foster opently stated was still a year away where from he needed to be physically -- but even so you're still going to have to find a way to stop Grimm. As mentioned earlier, the Alabama backs and tight ends are going to have to pass block especially well to help neutralize a player like Grimm, and the Whip position in general.

That said, worries in the passing game notwithstanding, the opportunities are there aplenty in the running game if we can just get things opened up slightly. John Graves (6'3 and 277) and Cordarrow Thompson (6'1 and 301) start on the interior defensive line, and they are smaller players who Alabama's interior offensive line -- in particular Mike Johnson -- should do well against. Likewise, there are some other new faces in the Hokie linebacker corps in Barquell Rivers and Jake Johnson, and again you have to like how we match up there. Again, if we can consistently get a helmet on a helmet, we have an advantage in the running game, one that we shouldn't have any great deal of difficulty exploiting with the number of high-end tailbacks on the roster.

The real problem in the running game, however, will be getting to that point. At the risk of sounding repetitive, Foster will not just give us the run, we're going to have to earn it. He'll use numbers and run blitzes to shut us down on the ground. And in real terms that means Greg McElroy will eventually have to make some plays in the passing game to open things up -- and in so doing the Alabama offensive line will have to keep him upright and out from under duress. If McElroy can consistently hit some good gains in the passing game, without making the big negative plays, the Hokies will have to retreat and the Alabama offensive line will largely be able to have their way with the Hokie front seven, thus leading to a lot of production in the running game. On the other hand, if McElroy struggles to throw the football -- and, if worse, makes some big mistakes -- the Hokies will keep the Alabama running game in check with numbers and run blitzes, and it will be a long night in Atlanta for the Tide.

And that is the match-up in a nutshell. 'Bama should be able to run the ball well against the Hokies, but Foster will bring numbers and dial-up the run blitzes to stop it. That, mixed with his players quickness, will likely most the Tide's running game not very productive. To counter that, the Tide will have to make some plays in the passing game, and we'll have to get the job done keeping the Hokies furious pass rush at bay. If we do that the running game will come to life, and it will be a big night for the 'Bama offense, mixed with a very likely victory. On the other hand, if we struggle in the passing game, Tech will take away the run, and the Hokie faithful will be having plenty to cheer about with the Tide struggling to move the football all night long. And Alabama will be left having to hope that the Crimson Tide defense is every bit as good as it has been billed to be in order to salvage hopes of pulling out the victory.

Wrapping Up Fall Camp

outsidethesidelines — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 18:44:51 -0000

With the start of Fall semester at The University of Alabama, Fall camp finally came to a close for the Crimson Tide. The grueling two-a-day sessions are now over with, and with a return to the classroom, life for the football players returns to essentially the "normal" in-season daily grind of early morning workouts, followed by classes all day, and evening practices almost to dusk. The Tide will scrimmage once again tomorrow, once again the following week, and after the completion of the final scrimmage, all eyes will officially turn to the season opener against Virginia Tech. Believe it or not, kick-off in Atlanta is a mere fifteen days away. Before we focus in on tomorrow's scrimmage, however, let's do a final wrap on Fall camp.

On the positive side of things, the most surprising thing to me about Fall camp was Nick Saban's particularly positive demeanor. Yes he did complain about a lack of effort in a couple of practices, and he did go nuts on a reporter a time or two, but all in all when Saban spoke of his team as a whole, as well as with regard to individual players, he was much more positive and optimistic than I've ever seen him. Part of this should be expected considering the team as a whole is still improving over what we were when he arrived, but nevertheless the reviews given by the ol' Nicktator seemed to be particularly glowing. He consistently talked about how many players were doing very well, and how talented they were, etc. If nothing else, it's hard for me or any other observer to overly complain about this team considering how highly Saban has spoken about them to date. It goes without saying that Saban himself is notoriously a harsh critic, so to please him requires a player (and a team) to meet a particularly demanding standard.

On a more somber tone, Injuries, of course, are everyone's major concern during this period, as nothing is ever more disheartening that losing a player for any extended period of time when we are, frankly, just playing with ourselves. Unfortunately, as Lombardi said, football is a collision sport and injuries are not a possibility but a certainty. To that end, Jeramie Griffin went down for the year with a torn ACL, and his loss is an unfortunate one because he is a very talented player. Fortunately, aside from Griffin's knee injury, the rest of the Tide remained quite healthy throughout the course of camp. There were some nagging injuries, but nothing major, and nothing expected to keep anyone out for an extended period of time.

At the quarterback position, Greg McElroy is clearly the starting quarterback, but the back-up job is still very much up in the air. In the first scrimmage last Saturday, all three candidates vying for the back-up job received approximately the same number of reps, and there is little separation. If I had to wager right now, a decision has not been made, and likely will not be made until after the third scrimmage. With no disrespect intended to Thomas Darrah, the battle is likely between A.J. McCarron and Star Jackson, but in all fairness it would be no major shock to see Darrah win the back-up job. On way or the other, though, performance in the coming eight days will decide who is the back-up, and to date all Fall camp has done is to underscore the uncertainty that we have with regard to who is actually going to win the back-up job.

The tailback position is likely just as much of an uncertainty. Clearly Mark Ingram is the starter, but from there it's hard to figure. Roy Upchurch will see a lot of playing time in some capacity, but even if he can stay healthy all year (something that he has never done before), there will still be a lot of carries to go around to another back, and to that end both Trent Richardson and Eddie Lacy have had very impressive showings to date in Fall camp. Moreover, Saban has even said that Terry Grant has also done well, so perhaps he can find a niche role here as well. One way or the other, it's just really hard to say how things will shake out from here. Ingram will start and Upchurch will play a lot, but aside from that we have a great deal of uncertainty. Both Richardson and Lacy look excellent, but one of those likely will (and probably should) get a redshirt this year, and right now we simply do not know how that will play out. They are two very similar players in terms of physical skill sets, and they have both impressed. It could go either way, and again Grant remains a bit of an x-factor. Much like with the quarterback position, once we get past the starter at tailback, we really do not know how things will play out from there.

The offensive line looks to be relatively set. There is no doubt that James Carpenter has locked up the left tackle job, and likewise there is no doubt that Mike Johnson will start at left guard. William Vlachos was thought to be in a position battle coming into Fall camp, but if all indications we have are even remotely true, he has won that battle and is now effectively the unquestioned starting center moving on to Virginia Tech. Furthermore, Drew Davis seemingly has the right tackle job locked up, and those four linemen seem to be pretty much set in stone. D.J. Fluker has looked solid thus far, but he still needs some refinement, and barring a late surge, he may very well be looking at a redshirt season. At the very least, a starting job does not seem likely for him early in the season.With others who were expected to compete for a starting job, like David Ross, they seemingly have not been able to make much progress one way or the other towards a starting job. That may be bad news for them, but in all honesty it's probably a good sign for the Tide. Our back-up line now consists of the likes of John Michael Boswell, David Ross, D.J. Fluker, Tyler Love,and others, and frankly the second string figures to be better than any we've had in Tuscaloosa in ages.

The big opening on the offensive line has been at right guard, where Alfred McCullough spent most of the early part of Fall running with the first unit, and where Barrett Jones has spent the latter part of Fall running with the first unit. As of right now, most expect that Jones will win the starting job, but I'll be brutally honest... all of this has came as a major surprise to me. Coming into the Fall, it was thought to be a three-way battle for the starting job between Chance Warmack, Bryan Motley, and John Michael Boswell, with the possibility of David Ross joining the fray if he moved back from center. McCullough wasn't even in the picture, and neither was Jones. In fact, I specifically wrote that I felt that Jones was still a year away from making a major contribution. I really have no idea as to what to make of this development, and I'm not even going to feign for one second that I do. For better or for worse, the starting line going to Atlanta will seemingly be (going left to right): James Carpenter, Mike Johnson, William Vlachos, Barrett Jones, and Drew Davis. That seems to be the starting five that we will sink or swim with.

The wide receiver position has underdone a massive overhaul in the past year, and the quality depth at the position is really starting to show off. Julio Jones will be the cornerstone of the corps, of course, but Marquis Maze, Darius Hanks, Earl Alexander, and Mike McCoy are all seemingly progressing very well in their own right, and the incoming group of true freshmen have been very impressive as well. This Fall, I think, has shown us that Chris Jackson probably had good reason for transferring... it's going to be very hard for anyone to crack this group and get some legitimate meaningful playing time in the near future.

Of the true freshman at wide receiver, seemingly the most likely to earn playing time at this point is Kevin Norwood. The Mississippi native has had a very productive Fall camp, and Saban himself even explicitly said after the first scrimmage that he was the most consistent of the true freshmen receivers. Moreover, in the media session shortly thereafter, Norwood was spotted working with the first unit at wide receiver, something that we have not seen out of any of the other three true freshman wide receivers, Kendall Kelly, Michael Bowman, and Kenny Bell. Now, to be sure, both Kelly and Bowman have impressed to date, and both are physically ready to play at the college level, but at some point a redshirt becomes an increasingly attractive option. In other words, those guys may play, but unless you figure that they can do enough to play a significant number of snaps, a redshirt is probably the better route to go. For now, Norwood seems to be the only true freshman wide receiver almost guaranteed to play from the start.

And speaking of Kenny Bell, expect him to redshirt. Saban recently said that he was suffering from shin splints and that he was going to be in a boot for about a week. That injury is particularly difficult for a guy like Bell who relies so heavily on his raw speed. Shin splints usually just need a lot of time off to heal, and I imagine that is what the doctor will order for Bell. Combine that with the inherent difficulty in cracking the line-up with the quality of this receiver corps, not to mention the unanimous opinion that Bell needs to add some weight in the S&C program, and I think you can almost be entirely certain at this point that Bell will redshirt.

The defensive line just continues to get better and better, and depth is just continuing to grow even further. The starting front three boasts three high-end players, and the back-ups at the end positions really do not consitute any real drop-off. Marcel Dareus and Luther Davis are probably the two best back-up defensive ends in the conference, and those two would probably be starting on at least half of the other SEC teams. Furthermore, the rest of the rotation has filled out as well. Damien Square continues to impress, and incoming true freshman Chris Bonds has finally gotten healthy (big news for someone with his raw ability). Darrington Sentimore has already drawn rave reviews from the upperclassmen, and Brandon Moore looks good as well. Furthermore, Kerry Murphy -- despite the setbacks stemming from the recent tragic murder of his brother -- has done a great job in the past year in the S&C program, and a role can be found for him somewhere. The truth of the matter is that this line looks incredibly good. Even with it being only a base three-man front, we nevertheless still have around ten different high-quality players that we can rotate in and out at will.

Despite talk of Dont'a Hightower moving to Jack linebacker, that does not look to be coming to fruition. He will be moving outside in passing situations, no doubt there, but his base alignment will nevertheless come inside at the Will position, where he will once again be starting alongside Mike linebacker Rolando McClain. Chris Jordan has continued his development this Fall, and with the addition of Nico Johnson at inside linebacker -- not to mention the possible contributions at the position from Tana Patrick and Jerrell Harris -- we have a deep rotation at the inside 'backer position.

With Hightower staying inside, that essentially creates a battle between Courtney Upshaw and Eryk Anders for the starting job at Jack linebacker. Without doubt, Anders is clearly the team's best pass rusher off the edge, and he is going to play a lot this year regardless. However, the smart money is probably on Upshaw being the starter and more of the every-down player. For all of his edge rushing abilities, Anders is definitely on the small side, and Upshaw likely presents a better option on running downs. And, of course, it should go without saying that Upshaw is a talented pass rusher in his own right. I doubt it matters a whole lot one way or the other considering that both are going to see a lot of playing time regardless, but from the looks of things, the smart money is probably on Upshaw being the starting Jack linebacker for the bulk of the season.

The Sam linebacker position, however, has been pretty quiet all throughout camp. Cory Reamer returns and he can certainly play the position, but honestly with guys like Nico Johnson and the continued development of Jerrell Harris, we have better athletes who can play the position right now. Reamer is a smart, hard-working kid who is going to get a good deal of playing time regardless, but I expected to hear more out of this position. Chavis Williams is likely facing a now-or-never situation, and the aforementioned Harris looked like the prototype player for the position this Spring. Again, I think Reamer will play a lot regardless, but I wouldn't be surprised to see his playing time get chipped away at somewhat throughout the course of the season.

The defensive backfield has largely remained the same, particularly with the corners. Kareem Jackson and Javier Arenas look to start yet again, and Marquis Johnson also looks likely to continue being the most underrated player on the team, as he continues to generally give solid play despite vast outcries from fans completely shocked that Saban hasn't forced him to transfer to the Institute of the Blind, Deaf, and Disabled. All three of those players are upperclassmen with a plethora of experience, and they will see lots of quality playing time this year, no doubt about it. However, do expect Dre Kirkpatrick to make a contribution immediately. The consensus opinion is that Kirkpatrick has, without doubt, had the most impressive Fall camp to date of any true freshman, and he's going to play a lot this season. I look at it this way: right now we have five good, quality cornerbacks on this roster... Kareem Jackson, Javier Arenas, Marquis Johnson, Dre Kirkpatrick, and Burton Scott. When was the last time we could legitimately say that?

The safety position also looks to be quite settled, as Coach Saban explicitly came out and said recently that we effectively have three starters at safety: Justin Woodall, Robby Green, and Mark Barron. Woodall will play the strong safety role, whereas Green and Barron will play free. And, frankly, based on what we have seen lately, I think that Barron will probably get the start over Green against Virginia Tech and for most of the year as well. Though Barron is a great athlete in his own right, his tendencies are likely suited slightly more to the run, while Green would specialize slightly more against the pass. Both will see a ton of meaningful playing time either way, but the smart money is Barron being in the game more in running situations, with Green playing more in obvious passing situations. Now, with that basic insight, do the math... Virginia Tech was a horrendous passing team last year, and probably won't be very good in that regard this year either. And most of the other teams on the schedule are likely not going to have great quarterback play either, and will also look to establish the run. I think that probably leads to Barron starting most of the time, and getting slightly more playing time than Green.

All in all, when looking back on Fall Camp '09, it's hard to complain too much about the things going on in Tuscaloosa. We probably have more raw talent on the field than we've had since 1992, and quality depth is emerging almost everywhere. The incoming true freshman class looks incredibly talented, and even Coach Saban is pleased. No one knows exactly what the 2009 season will bring, and make no mistake about it, success is still by no means guaranteed. Nevertheless, with Fall camp now in the rear view mirror, things have seemingly gone as well as we could have reasonably expected.

2009 Alabama Fall Football Roster (as of 8-5-09)

kleph — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 19:05:56 -0000

You know Alabama football is starting to get crackin' when the first fall roster is released. And, lo and behold, here it be... all 105 players who have officially reported for fall practice as of yesterday.

Number	Name	Pos.	Class HT.	WT.	Hometown/Last School
82	Earl Alexander	WR	Jr. 6-4	212	Phenix City, Ala./Central
32	Eryk Anders	LB	Sr. 6-2	235	San Antonio, Texas/Smithson Valley
28	Javier Arenas	DB	Sr. 5-9	195	Tampa, Fla./Robinson
49	Jonathan Atchison	LB	Fr. 6-2	220	Atlanta, Ga./Douglass
4	Mark Barron	DB	So. 6-2	214	Mobile, Ala./St. Paul's
7	Kenny Bell	WR	Fr. 6- 1	160	Rayville, La./Rayville
44	Alex Benson	LB	Sr. 6- 1	225	Trussville, Ala./Hewitt-Trussville
86	Undra Billingsley	TE	Fr. 6-2	276	Birmingham, Ala./Woodlawn
93	Chris Bonds	DL	Fr. 6-4	280	Columbia, S.C./Richland Northeast HS
67	John Michael Boswell	OL	So. 6-5	306	Northport, Ala./Tuscaloosa County
88	Michael Bowman	WR	Fr. 6-4	210	Rossville, Ga./Ridgeland
87	Drew Bullard	LB	Jr. 6-3	238	Florence, Ala./Florence
77	James Carpenter	OL	Jr. 6-5	300	Augusta, Ga./Coffeyville[Kan.] CC/Hephzibah
99	Josh Chapman	DL	So. 6-1	313	Hoover, Ala./Hoover
62	Terrence Cody	DL	Sr. 6-5	354	Fort Myers, Fla./Gulf Coast C.C,/Riverdale
57	Marcell Dareus	DL	So. 6-4	296	Huffman, Ala./Huffman
16	Thomas Darrah	QB	So. 6-5	227	Newnan, Ga./Newnan
79	Drew Davis	OL	Sr. 6-7	306	Evergreen, Ala./Sparta Academy
96	Luther Davis	DL	Jr. 6-3	275	West Monroe, La./West Monroe
95	Brandon Deaderick	DL	Sr. 6-4	306	Elizabethtown, Ky./Elizabethtown
51	Michael DeJohn	LB	Jr. 6- 1	241	Hoover, Ala./Hoover
85	Preston Dial	TE	Ir. 6-3	233	Mobile, Ala./UMS-Wright
40	DeMarcus DuBose	LB	So. 6-1	232	Montgomery, Ala./Jefferson Davis
13	Rob Ezell	WR	Jr. 5-10	170	Athens, Ala./Athens
97	P.J. Fitzgerald	P	Sr. 5-11	204	Coral Springs, Fla./Stoneman Douglas
76	D.J. Fluker	OL	Fr. 6-6	340	Foley, Ala./Foley
58	Nick Gentry	DL	So. 6-1	264	Prattville, Ala./Prattville
11	Brandon Gibson	WR	So. 6-2	192	Mobile, Ala./UMS-Wright
6	Demetrius Goode	RB	So. 5-9	191	LaGrange, Ga./Troup/Hargrave
29	Terry Grant	RB	Jr. 5-10	190	Lumberton, Miss./Lumberton
33	Hampton Gray	DB	Sr. 6- 2	196	Northport, Ala./Tuscaloosa County
23	Robby Green	DB	So. 6-0	181	New Orleans, La./John Curtis Christian
34	Jeramie Griffin	RB	So. 6-2	224	Batesville, Miss./South Panola
15	Darius Hanks	WR	So. 6-0	184	Norcross, Ga./Norcross
54	Glenn Harbin	DL	Fr. 6-5	257	Mobile, Ala./McGill-Toolen
5	Jerrell Harris	LB	So. 6-3	227	Gadsden, Ala./Gadsden City
30	Dont'a Hightower	LB	So. 6-4	255	Lewisburg, TennJMarshall County
40	Baron Huber	RB/TE	Sr. 6-4	263	Knoxville, Tenn./Powell
22	Mark Ingram	RB	So. 5-10	212	Flint, Mich./Southwestern Academy
3	Kareem Jackson	DB	Jr. 6-0	193	Macon, Ga./Westside/Fork Union
2	Star Jackson	QB	Fr. 6-3	206	Lake Worth, Fla./Lake Worth
24	Marquis Johnson	DB	Sr. 5-11	191	Sarasota, Fla./Booker
78	Mike Johnson	OL	Sr. 6-5	303	Pensacola, Fla./Pine Forest
35	Nico Johnson	LB	Fr. 6-3	225	Andalusia, Ala./Andalusia
75	Barrett Jones	OL	R-Fr. 6-4	289	Memphis, Tenn./Evangelical Christian School
8	Julio Jones	WR	So. 6-4	211	Foley, Ala./Foley
26	Phelon Jones	DB	So. 5-11	195	Mobile, Ala./LSU/McGilk-Toolen
36	Chris Jordan	LB	So. 6-3	230	Brentwood, Tenn./Brentwood Academy
81	Kendall Kelly	WR	Fr. 6-3	216	Gadsden, Ala./Gadsden City
20	Tyrone King	DB	Sr. 5-11	203	Birmingham, Ala./Grambling State/Minor
21	Dre Kirkpatrick	DB	Fr. 6-3	185	Gadsden, Ala./Gadsden City
42	Eddie Lacy	RB	Fr. 6-0	210	Geismar, La./Dutchtown
37	Robert Lester	DB	Fr. 6-2	207	Foley, Ala./Foley
72	Tyler Love	0 L	R-Fr. 6-6	303	Mountain Brook, Ala,/Mountain Brook
33	Mike Marrow	RB-HB	Fr. 6-2	240	Holland, Ohio/Central Catholic
4	Marquis Maze	WR	So. 5-10	179	Birmingham, Ala./Tarrant
10	A.J. McCarron	QB	Fr. 6-4	190	Mobile, Ala./Saint Paul's Episcopal School
25	Rolando McClain	LB	Ir. 6-4	255	Decatur, Ala./Decatur
80	Mike McCoy	WR	Sr. 6-3	215	Rankin, Miss./Northwest
52	Alfred McCullough	OL	So. 6-2	305	Athens, Ala./Athens
12	Greg McElroy	QB	Jr. 6-3	220	Southlake, Texas/Southlake Carroll
56	William Ming	DL	Fr. 6-3	260	Athens, Ala./Athens
59	Brandon Moore	DL	Fr. 6-5	310	Montgomery, Ala./Carver
66	Brian Motley	OL	Jr. 6-3	291	Autaugaville, Ala./Autaugaville
64	Kerry Murphy .	DL	Fr. 6-4	323	Hoover, Ala./Hargrave/Hoover
46	Wesley Neighbors	DB	So. 6-1	210	Huntsville, Ala./Huntsville
83	Kevin Norwood	WR	Fr. 6-2	180	D'lberville, Miss./DiIberville
18	Morgan Ogilvie	QB	So. 6-0	195	Mountain Brook, Ala./Mountain Brook
2	Tana Patrick	LB	Fr. 6-3	235	Bridgeport, Ala./North Jackson
84	Colin Peek	TE	Sr. 6-6	255	Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla./Georgia Tech/Bolles
39	Kyle Pennington	DB	Jr. 5-11	188	Chatom, Ala./Washington County
68	Taylor Pharr	OL	Jr. 6-6	290	Irondale, Ala./Shades Valley
54	Russell Rains	OL	Fr. 6-2	260	Satsuma, Ala./SaWuma
13	Cory Reamer	LB	Sr. 6-4	234	Hoover, Ala./Hoover
3	Trent Richardson	RB	Fr. 5-11	220	Pensacola, Fla./Escambia
8	Chris Rogers	DB	Sr. 6-0	190	Lakeland, Fla./Evangel Christian
74	David Ross	OL	Jr. 6-3	299	Homewood, Ala./Homewood
1	B.J. Scott	DB	So. 5-11	196	Prichard, Ala./Vigor
46	Chris Scott	WR	Sr. 5-11	170	Birmingham, Ala./Ramsay
50	Brian Selman	SNP	Sr. 6-0	210	Vestavia Hills, Ala./Vestavia Hills
94	Darrington Sentimore	DL	Fr. 6-3	280	Norco, La./Destrehan
26	Ali Sharrief	DB	Sr. 5-9	200	Stevenson, Ala./North Jackson
94	Jeremy Shelley	PK	Fr. 5-10	170	Raleigh, N.C./Broughton
48	Travis Sikes	WR	Jr. 6-3	198	Nashville, Tenn./Christ Presbyterian
71	Allen Skelton	OL	So. 6-1	265	Coker, Ala./Tuscaloosa County
17	Brad Smelley	TE	So. 6-3	233	Tuscaloosa, Ala./American Christian
92	Damion Square	DL	Fr. 6-3	272	Houston, TexaslYates
61	Anthony Steen	OL-DL	Fr. 6-3	305	Lambert, Miss./Lee Academy
47	Ed Stinson	LB-DL	Fr. 6-4	240	Homestead, Fla./South Dade
90	Milton Talbert	DL	Jr. 6-4	275	Hattiesburg, Miss./Hattiesburg
99	Leigh Tiffin	PK	Sr. 6-2	212	Muscle Shoals, Ala./Muscle Shoals
51	Carson Tinker	ST	So. 6-1	220	Murfreesboro, Tenn./Riverdale
87	Chris Underwood	TE	So. 6-4	231	Birmingham, Ala./Vestavia Hills
5	Roy Upchurch	RB	Sr. 6-0	205	Tallahassee, Fla./Godby
41	Courtney Upshaw	LB	So. 6-2	249	Eufaula, Ala./Eufaula
73	William Vlachos	OL	Jr- 6-1	294	Birmingham, Ala./Mountain Brook
65	Chance Warmack	OL	Fr. 6-3	301	Atlanta, Ga./Westlake
97	Lorenzo Washington	DL	Sr. 6-5	290	Logansville, Ga./Hargrave
91	Alex Watkins	LB	So. 6-3	225	Brownsville, Tenn./Haywood
55	Chavis Williams	LB	Jr. 6-4	223	Dora, Ala./Dora
60	David Williams	OL	Fr. 6-3	272	Duncanville, Ala./Hillcrest
89	Michael Williams	TE	Fr. 6-6	266	Reform, Ala./Pickens County
9	Nick Williams	WR	Fr. 5-10	165	Fort Lauderdale, Fla./St. Thomas Aquinas
27	Justin Woodall	DB	Sr. 6-2	221	Oxford, Miss./Lafayette
18	Rod Woodson	DB	Fr. 5-11	200	Olfve Branch, Miss./Olive Branch