I watched this game mostly live on Saturday night until 1:30AM, then I loaded it back up again today after 4 days of break in between because I didn't want my live impressions to overwhelm my second go-through on the tape. Several things arise out of the tape that totally countered my first impression of the game.
My first impression was that Ole Miss looked extremely potent passing the ball, and that Alabama shot itself in the foot over and over with turnovers. And that's the impression that I heard most people give me when they recapped the game. Most Alabama fans believed they would have won except for the stupid turnovers, and possibly starting one QB instead of two QBs, but that was about it. Most Ole Miss fans I talked to were extremely impressed with the offense, but were wary of how they kept giving Alabama chance after chance when they didn't have to.
Is Alabama in as bad of a situation as the media would make it out to be? Absolutely not. You'd be a fool to look at this tape and walk away thinking that Alabama still can't compete for an SEC Title right now. However, they have certain deficiencies that I warned about in their game against Wisconsin, and Ole Miss was exactly the type of team to pounce on those problems. Mainly, I'm talking about the linebacker and secondary play for Alabama, which isn't up to their usual high-caliber. More on that later.
Let's address the obvious first, the two fumbles on kickoffs absolutely put Alabama on the wrong foot. But even without those, it was the decision by the Alabama coaching staff to inexplicably start #18 Cooper Bateman instead of Jake Coker. I still have no idea what they were thinking. The offense went nowhere under Bateman for the first quarter and a half of the game. They had only 3 points, and finally Bateman was yanked for Coker after he threw a pick tied 3-3 with 10 minutes left in the second quarter. Again, let me point out that even with the first fumble, and the pick there, it was still just 3-3. But Ole Miss went for the jugular on 4th and goal on that next drive, and scored the first TD of the game. That's when the second fumble on the kickoff really killed Alabama's momentum. Ole Miss would score again on QB Chad Kelly's scramble to make it 17-3 Ole Miss.
That's when Coker came into the game. He led the team down the field in their next drive to make it 17-10 Ole Miss at the half. I honestly forgot it was that close, but it was only a 7 point game. So with the game on the line, and Ole Miss getting the ball. What happened? One of the freakiest plays you'll see in college football. The snap goes over Chad Kelly's head, he tips it in the air, picks it off the ground, and heaves it down the field right as he's hit. The ball goes off an Alabama player's head, bounces in the air to an Ole Miss receiver, who then tears down the field for a TD. It was absurd. Once I saw that play, Hell ANYBODY who saw that play, immediately thought the same thing: This is Ole Miss's day.
The Alabama offense stalled again and again, allowing Ole Miss two more FGs, making it 30-17, but Alabama rallied back with a TD drive of their own to make it 30-24. Again, Alabama is well within striking distance, but that's where another defensive breakdown happened. On a scramble to the right, #26 freshman DB Marlon Humphrey pulled off his coverage on Cody Core to try and get the QB, and Chad Kelly threw over the top of him for a 76 yard wide open TD run. Nobody could stop Core once he caught the ball because Humphrey was supposed to be the last line of defense on that play. It was a bad read and one that really cost the Tide. It's also not the first time I've pointed out Humphrey because he's young and looks unsteady out there. He's a 5-star recruit who had really high hopes dumped on him early, but he's getting exposed in the backfield quite often from what I'm seeing. I counted a few whiffed tackles to go along with getting beat on that key play.
This points out a bigger problem with the Alabama DBs, they are young and in the case of their best cover guy #5 Cyrus Jones, he's short at only 5'10". They put Jones on 6'3" WR #1 Laquon Treadwell, who abused him on several plays for 5 catches, 80 yards, and 1 TD. And that was probably a good job on a guy like Treadwell, but it's still not good enough for an Alabama defense that gave up over 40 points in the game. Interestingly, if you look at the tackles by position on the team, the number one tackler is LB Reggie Ragland. That makes sense as he's probably the most talented player outside of the Alabama front four, and he's projected right now as a 2nd round draft pick. However, if you look at the top 3 tacklers behind him? It's all DBs. Eddie Jackson, Marlon Humphrey, and Geno Matias-Smith. 35.5 tackles between all of them, but only 1.5 for losses. You know why DBs are making so many tackles? Because teams realize they can't run on you, and they are going to pick on your secondary. Let alone how many bad angles and missed tackles I saw in this game that I normally never see out of a Nick Saban defense.
Coker made two mistakes late, both bad interceptions with the game on the line. The first was a terrible throw, the second was because his center screwed up a key block and got Coker crushed as he unleashed a deep ball. But even so, Coker doesn't need to be throwing deep balls. In fact, Alabama getting as close as they were shouldn't have been throwing at all. They looked panicked in their play calling, and it showed in the stat lines. They threw 59 times and only ran 42 times. Yes, they were behind, but they weren't THAT far behind to force their QBs to fling it down the field. It's another time where I look at Lane Kiffin and wonder why he gets so aggressive at times when he's got a guy like RB Derrick Henry averaging 5.5 yards a carry in the game. It makes no sense to risk it down the field like they were. Alabama's strength is that they are bigger and better than you up front, not that they are speedy in the backfield and on the edges. The play calling should reflect that.
But that's putting it all on Alabama, Ole Miss won the game because they did what they do best. They realized they were going to have more success throwing the ball, so they put the game in Chad Kelly's hands. I was dead wrong about thinking there would be a falloff from Bo Wallace to this kid Kelly, he's likely the best QB in the SEC right now without question. He makes solid reads, he knows how to scramble with his eyes down the field, and he has a great deep ball arm. In fact, he's 6th in passer rating in the nation, just ahead of teams like TCU and Oklahoma State. That's pretty phenomal for an SEC squad.
Oh and then there's this guy on defense for Ole Miss. You might have heard of him. His name is Robert Nkemdiche. He's the best defensive player in the SEC right now from what I've seen. He almost single-handedly ruined Alabama's game several times. The first was when it was 2nd and goal early in the game, and Alabama was down 0-3 on the 2 yard line. Alabama ran a jet sweep handoff to the strong side, and Nkemdiche swim moves past the RG in the interior, beats the Center as he's trying to hold him up, and chases down the runner for a 9-yard loss. It was insane. He forced Alabama so far out of position that they had to kick a FG instead of taking the lead. And I think if that play doesn't happen and Alabama DOES get the lead? The complexion of the game changes completely.
But Nkemdiche has all the moves. He was using stunts to beat the center, running through little chip blocks like there were nothing, and doing swim moves past an offensive line that looked incredibly solid against a Wisconsin team. He's NFL ready right now. If he's not in the top 5 in the NFL draft, I'll be absolutely floored. He's a man playing with children.
What I really loved about Ole Miss's play was how aggressively consistent they were while leading on the road. I love to see that out of any team that has a lead. They didn't get conservative and start running the ball to burn clock. That's not what they did to get them the lead in the first place, and that would have lost them the game. Instead, up 36-24 off the Coker interception, they kept their foot on the gas and went down the field to Treadwell for the back-breaker TD. If you're an Ole Miss fan, or just a football fan who hates the prevent and hates conservative protect-your-ass playcalling? That was a thing of absolute beauty.
Make no mistake, Ole Miss won this game. Alabama didn't hand it to them. If you believe Alabama lost it rather than Ole Miss taking it, you're probably an Alabama fan because they are the only people on earth who would try to rationalize that kind of nonsense. Teams don't put up 43 points on an Alabama defense because they got lucky. Ole Miss looked at the film of Wisconsin-Bama game, identified who to pick on and how, capitalized on turnovers, and executed their offensive gameplan to perfection. The only qualm I have with Ole Miss is that their defense started to wear down the in the second half, and their ball-hawking style can lead to them getting beat underneath at times with dink and dunk plays.
I honestly can't wait to see how Ole Miss fares against Texas A&M and LSU whose defenses are much faster and more terrifying in the secondary, but softer in the middle and on the lines. Can Ole Miss switch to a more powerful running attack to adapt for the speed? Also, can Alabama quickly train up their DBs and their LBs in time for a quick-hitter running attack in UGA, along with one of the better short-to-intermediate passers after the UGA game against South Carolina?
Only time will tell.
No comments:
Post a Comment