Sunday, October 23, 2011

Sunday Hangover: Tennessee

I had the good fortune of getting back in time to watch the game live since we left Madison, WI in the early afternoon and got back right around 6 p.m.

So I sat down in front of the tube and wanted to watch a strong Tide offense have its way with the Volunteer defense. That didn't happen in the first half, unfortunately. At the half, Tennessee and Alabama were tied 6-6. Surprisingly, the Volunteers were having some success running the ball versus Alabama, and the Dooley did a really nice play call on a fake punt-pass that created a first down since Kirkpatrick was playing soft coverage on the gunner.

The first drive of Alabama's was not pretty since McCarron threw a bad interception. The Tide's D held, but McCarron looked tentative during the whole first half of the game.

In the second half Alabama woke up and got itself together, scoring 31 unanswered points with McCarron looking a heck of lot sharper.

I saw today that the Nov. 5 game against LSU has been moved to be a night game. This game has all manner of hype around it: No. 1 (LSU) vs. No. 2 (Alabama) in a SEC conference tussle.

I have concerns, however.

Tennessee's running back, Poole, had some success running the ball against the Tide. He netted 67 yards with a 3.5 average, and Tennessee as a whole had 92 net yards rushing. We should expect LSU's starting running back to play on Nov. 5 even though he was suspended for the their beatdown of Auburn.

Alabama also didn't get as much pressure on the QB as they usually do, so whoever is manning the quarterback position for LSU could have some time to get the ball to their excellent receiver Rueben Randle and other options.

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