Sunday Hangover: Florida State

One of the more hyped opening games of the college football sort of lived up to expectations. 

Both defenses played pretty well. I was a little worried when the Seminoles scored pretty quickly on that early drive. Francois was on fire. 

Alabama answered, and it was 10 to 7 at half. 

The Crimson Tide offense looked lethargic a great deal of the time. Hurts threw a huge touchdown pass to Ridley, and the rushing game rarely got runs over a few yards, but the team grinded out 184 yards by four runners, Hurts included. 

Alabama's passing game was not consistent. But I think that was mainly because of Florida State's outstanding front seven. 

With all of the the fine work the special teams and defense did in the second half (two interceptions and a blocked punt), the game would have been a blowout if the offense would have capitalized on great field position more than once. 

On the other hand, the Tide gave FSU poor field position most of the second half, and the Tide's D played salty. 

I noticed a lot of second-team players playing in the front seven during the game, and there are, as I find out now, reasons for that. As for the DLine, I suspect they just wanted to rotate people to keep the big men fresh. 

But for the linebackers, the Tide's D exited the contest with serious injury problems. Three outside linebackers are hurt. Starter Christian Miller is out for the season with a biceps injury. Key backup Terrell Harris is out for the season with an elbow injury. Another crucial outside linebacker, Anfernee Jennings, is out for a maybe four weeks with an ankle injury. And starting inside linebacker Rashaan Evans is out for a few weeks with a groin injury. 

The next four contests break down this way: vs. Fresno State, vs. Colorado State, at Vanderbilt, and vs. Ole Miss. 

The last two games of those four are a concern because Vandy has a good defense, and Ole Miss can be dangerous. Sure, they're in serious trouble with the NCAA, but infractions they'll likely get won't affect them this season, and they still have plenty of talent to give any team problems.