Sunday Hangover: Ole Miss

The Crimson Tide won, but the win came with significant costs. Wide receiver DeAndrew White apparently has a serious knee injury. Running back and punt returner Dee Hart went down. Cornerback Deion Belue had an injury, and defensive end Ed Stinson got banged up. 

White's injury appears to be the most serious because he came back to the sidelines on crutches, and it remains to be seen how much the injuries will affect the other players. 

In White's absence, freshman Amari Cooper stepped up with his best game of the year: two touchdowns, eight catches for 82 yards. He represented McCarron's go-to receiver in the game. He looked really good. 

The Crimson Tide defense played ... okay. They gave up a total of 218 yards of offense against the up-tempo, hurry-up, Oregon- and Mizzou-like offense and only 80 net yards on the ground. For some reason, it seemed like they gave up more rushing yards than that. The defense did have five sacks and eight tackles for a loss along with three interceptions. But the Ole Miss quarterbacks aren't very good. I'm still anxious about Alabama's road trips to Columbia and Knoxville when they go up against strong passing attacks. 

Probably like many other Alabama fans, I was frustrated by the offense. Ole Miss put all kinds of players near the line of the scrimmage to stop the run, and the play calling was very vanilla. They didn't pass first to set up the run like they did against LSU in the national championship game, so the Crimson Tide wasn't successful on first downs. The pass protection for McCarron was quite good though. 

Here's to hoping the bye week brings good news on the injury front.