Sunday Hangover: Mississippi State

I haven't gotten to watch the whole game since we were on the road the spend the night in a hotel before my son went to college baseball clinic/showcase today. I was able to listen to the first half in the car, and once we got to the hotel, I was able to watch the second half. 

The Tide put the game away basically in the second quarter. 

However, the Bulldogs' first drive in the third quarter didn't inspire confidence in the Alabama defense. 

But Alabama righted the ship and closed out the game. 

I don't have a lot of analysis to provide right now. 

But I know Texas A&M, who is up next at their place, has a good offense the Crimson Tide will have to contend with. 

Now Alabama needs to show more consistency on offense and a stronger defense. From what I saw of the game, I didn't notice Lawson at the LB spot. I hope he can get back for this next game. 

Sunday Hangover: Mississippi State

In contrast to the debacle in Knoxville, the defense played, especially the secondary, played well. 

State scored in the final seconds, unfortunately. This could have been a shutout. 

As for the offense, Alabama put up 30 points, but it seems like it could have been much more. 

I was disappointed how the Tide didn't run the ball as effectively as they should have. But the bounce back performance of the defense was something good to see. 

The offense needs to work on finding consistent playmakers from the wide receiving corps. 

The Tide is off next week, so I might go to a local college football game when Tennessee Tech visit EIU. 

Sunday Hangover: Mississippi State

After the debacle that was the visit to College Station last week, this game was a good win. 

However, I still hunger for the days of joyless murderball when Alabama would just pound opponents into submission by a predominant ground game and a stifling defense. 

The defense played much better with three interceptions, one of which was a pick-six for Battle. However, I thought the Tide could have done a better job against the run, which admittedly State rarely runs, so it's a surprise when they do. 

After starting the game in a very vanilla fashion, the DC brought more blitzes to keep State off balance. Anderson had a wonderful game with six total tackles, four of which were TFL, and he had four sacks and broke up one pass. 

Like I said, I wanted Alabama to run more often, but in the end, they ran for a total of 195 net yards with Robinson working as the main back and Roydell Williams coming in to spell him from time to time. Williams actually had one more yard than Robinson, and he he averaged an impressive 7.1 yards per rush. 

Robinson had a fabulous reception for a TD late in the third quarter after State heavily blitzed and Young hit Robinson on a quick pass that he took to the house. 

One player who I hope have emerged is Traseshon Bolden, who had three receptions for a total of 70 yards with a 29-yard TD. He is a tall receiver. 

543 yards of total offense is a good day. 

Sunday Hangover: Mississippi State

 Well, that was an old school mauling by the Crimson Tide squad. 

The passing duo of Jones and Smith were unstoppable. And 203 yards and four touchdowns is not Smith's personal best. 

A move that be something to watch is that Trey Sanders out carried Brian Robinson. Sanders, the heralded recruit from two years ago, toted the rock 12 times for 80 net yards, which was solid. The offense chewed up State's defense on the ground. Harris had a stellar day with 21 carries for 119 net yards. 

The welcome sight was the defense daring State to run and shutting out the Bulldogs. I love an old fashioned shutout. 

State almost got on the board late, but Dylan Moses made an outstanding interception in the end zone. 

Next up is a bye week before the Crimson Tide travels to Baton Rouge. 

Sunday Hangover: Mississippi State

It was a costly win. Besides Tua's season-ending injury, the two starting DTs got banged up too. 

As for Tua's injury, Coach Saban will be second-guessed ad nauseam about still playing the QB with the Tide up 35 to 7. I'm not going to go there. 

But I am a little peeved that people are thinking the Tide's season is over. Mac Jones was a highly touted QB coming out of high school in Florida, probably at least f four-star recruit.  He has a lot of talent. He just doesn't have a lot of experience except for mainly mop-up duties and his lone start against Arkansas. 

Sarkisian's play calling in the Arkansas game was, for the most part, conservative. So I hope they call some more downfield passes in the next two games. Jones has a good arm. 

Western Carolina is up next, which is not much of a matchup. The real proving ground for Jones will at Auburn. 

Sunday Hangover: Mississippi State

State can play some serious defense, folks. 

I only got to watch the final minute or so of the first half of the game live because I was holding tryouts for the travel baseball team I'm coaching, so I only watched the second half live. 

From what I saw, the usually stalwart offensive line had its hands full with State's defense. 

Alabama got a gift on one play that the Bulldogs would have scored a touchdown. The Tide db dove for the player and the State wideout put his hands up to indicate he did not block him in the back. However, I think the receiver putting his hands up made the ref think he actually blocked him in the back. 

So in reality it should have been 24 to 7. 

Regardless, that was not the score, and the Tide has now had back-to-back shutouts. 

The Crimson Tide defense was salty once again, surrendering only six first downs, 44 net yards rushing, and 125 yards passing. 

I am concerned about the Oline's ability to protect Tua. 

But next up is home matchup versus The Citadel. My hope is they rest Tua and let Hurts and Jones play most or all of the game. 

Sunday Hangover: Mississippi State

Because we were away for a good part of Sunday since my son was playing travel basketball, I totally whiffed on getting this post out to the mighty Interwebs yesterday. 

So I'm doing it late. 

What a nerve-wracking game that was on Saturday. 

After watching that game, I am really concerned about Alabama's run defense. Not having Shaun Dion Hamilton, who basically served as co-captain of the defense, really exposed the team a bit. 

I know the commentators discussed how good State's OLine is, but so is Auburn's. And that game looms large in roughly two weeks. 

Some of my other takeaways from the game are the following:

• Calvin Ridley is Alabama's number one receiver, which makes me always question during the game, "Why is he so open? Don't they realize how good he is?" And then I think, "He's open because he's the number one receiver." The guy had 171 yards receiving on 5 catches. 
• Although it didn't seem like they ran the ball that well, in the end, the Tide amassed a total 202 yards rushing. 
• I thought Hurts had one of his better games despite a couple of throws that were off. 
• Our defense needs to get healthy, especially in the linebacking corps. 
• The touchdown pass to Devonta Smith with 31 seconds left was reminiscent of the screen pass to T.J. Yeldon versus LSU in 2012. Good memories. 

Sunday Hangover: Mississippi State

The word before the game is that Alabama wanted to work on the passing game more. 

And they did just that in a 51 to 3 blowout of the Bulldogs. 

Stewart had a huge day, and the play calling focused on getting O.J. Howard heavily involved. 

Hurts had one very long run, but it seemed like the coaching staff wanted limit his runs to work on the passing game. 

Scarbrough didn't play in the game to rest his tweaked knee ligaments, but with the game turning into a blowout, we got to see four running backs in the game. One of my favorite plays of the season was a swing pass to Jacobs, and then the freshman running back juked the heck out of some defenders. 

With Auburn's loss at Georgia, the Tide has won the SEC West. 

Tennessee-Chattanooga is up next and then the Iron Bowl. 

Sunday Hangover: Mississippi State

A score of 31 to 6 sounds like a blowout. 

The game in Starkville sort of was but wasn't for a good while. 

The Tide offense was bottled up for a good while until three big plays in the first half: A 69-yard punt return for a touchdown by Cyrus Jones, a 60-yard passing touchdown by Calvin Ridley, and 74-yard run for a touchdown by Derrick Henry. 

A big loss in the game, and season, is Kenyan Drake breaking his arm. He's out for at least three weeks. That's a big blow because the running depth behind him are freshmen who haven't seen much playing time: Damien Harris and Bo Scarbrough. 

They'll get plenty of reps this coming week and probably lots of playing time against Charleston Southern, the game in T-Town before Alabama travels to Auburn to play in the Iron Bowl. 

The most impressive part of this game was, once again, the Tide defense. They sacked Dak Prescott 9 times. They had 4 quarterback hurries, 7 passes broken up, and 11 tackles for loss for 58 yards. 

Sunday Hangover: Mississippi State

One of the knocks against Alabama's strong defense this season is that they haven't created a lot of turnovers. That changed yesterday. 

Though State dominated the game from a statistical standpoint, the Tide dominated the game from a realistic standpoint. Key interceptions from Nick Perry, Cyrus Jones, and Landon Collins deflated the Bulldogs yesterday. And the D's ability to shut down State's fine running back Josh Robinson made their offense pretty predictable ~ either Prescott was throwing or running. 

I hadn't seen a safety in a while, so it was fun to witness one of those in the first quarter. 

As for the offense, it sustained some drives, but it wasn't clicking like it could have. Sure, Amari Cooper was out there doing Amari Cooper things, but State's D is pretty salty, especially in the red zone. The offense and Yeldon got it going in the fourth quarter to finally put the game away even though State came back in the fourth, scored a touchdown late, and didn't succeed with an onside kick.  

If I'm getting this right, the SEC West breaks down this way: 

• If Alabama wins against Auburn, it goes to the SEC Championship.
• If Alabama loses to Auburn and State beats Ole Miss in the Egg Bowl, State goes to the SEC Championship.
• If Alabama loses to Auburn and Ole Miss beats State in the Egg Bowl, Ole Miss goes to the SEC Championship.

The East breaks down this way:

• If Mizzou loses a game, Georgia goes the SEC Championship.
• If Mizzou wins the rest of its SEC matches (Tennessee and Arkansas), they go to the SEC Championship.