Yesterday was a good win for the Crimson Tide. They traveled to a stadium that's difficult to play in and came out with a W based mostly on a solid defensive performance.
It's not that the offense played poorly, but they certainly could have played better.
Besides the opening drive of the Nittany Lions, Alabama's defense pretty much bottled up Penn State's offense, giving up only maybe three explosive plays for the whole game. Penn State got a field goal out of that first drive and didn't score their touchdown until late in the game when they were playing against a mix of first- and second-teamers on the Tide's defense.
As I'm sure many other Tide fans feel, they're happy with the victory but are concerned about the team's run-blocking. While Richardson and Lacy both had good games--Richardson with over a hundred yards rushing--for a good portion of the contest, Richardson wasn't making very large gains, and the offense was forced into third and longs. In fact, to my inexpert eyes, Lacy seemed to run better than Richradson yesterday even though he gained fewer yards.
Then again, the offense has been very vanilla in the first few games. Most of the running has been situated between the tackles. And we haven't seen anything of Blake Sims, who is the third string quarterback who also plays running back and wide receiver.
Next up is North Texas where we'll probably get to see more of Phillip Sims at quarterback. He only played in mop-up duty in this game. Although I initially thought Sims would be the quaterback of the team based on spring performances, McCarron might have secured the job after yesterday. His throw to Michael Williams on Alabama's first touchdown was a pass into an NFL-like window. However, there were a few throws that were underthrown or innacurate.
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