Alabama v. Texas A&M: Week 8 Game Film Review

Let's make something abundantly clear about this Alabama game. The offense didn't play well, despite the score you see at the end. And that sounds odd given that they won by 19 points, 33-14, but you'll agree with me that when you watch the tape, the offense was not firing on all cylinders, and did not take advantage of several opportunities to turn this game into the ultimate rout. Alabama won, so they get the focus in this week's review.

ALABAMA OFFENSE:

Now many of you will say, wait a second Ben, Alabama had 450 yards of offense and 28 first downs, and you're saying they didn't play well. Yes, I'm saying that and here's why. Alabama only had one offensive TD in the first half out of 4 trips to the red zone. That's not acceptable for a team with the kind of running firepower that Alabama possesses. And yet, they'd run the ball to get into the 20s, and inexplicably start to throw it around as they got close to the end zone. I don't understand it, but then again I'm not the playcaller.

My basic point is that when you only score 27 points on 450 yards, you're wasting possessions. Think of yards as nothing more than an indicator of game dominance. Similar to time of possession. If you have high yardage and high TOP you should win a game. Sometimes you don't because of turnovers, or allowing the other team high yardage, or you fail to convert inside the red zone and settle for 3s.

And don't think for a second this game wasn't in doubt. There was a time in the second quarter where Alabama was trailing by a point. They had to have an offensive TD and a fumble return TD to put the game away for good, but A&M played Alabama tough the whole way, and did a great job defensively playing Alabama in throwing situations. However, they weren't immune to the deep ball and here's an example of how Lane Kiffin can outscheme your defense.

Here's the opening formation Alabama is coming out in a shotgun 1-back set, with trips to the left, and a TE offset on the left side. They are overloading the left, but the key is that the receiver is blue is a decoy. He's not an eligible receiver because in order to be eligible you have to be the furthest receiver out on that side on the line of scrimmage. In this case, the yellow receiver is the furthest out on the line, and the orange receiver is offset a yard back from the line of scrimmage. Because the orange receiver is set back a yard, he is eligible as well. As is the TE offset in the middle. Remember, you're eligible if you're not on the line of scrimmage. You're ineligible if there's two guys on the line of scrimmage ON THE SAME SIDE.

Confusing I know. But just remember that blue is ineligible and can't cross the line of scrimmage now. He's like a lineman and if he runs downfield they get a penalty for illegal man downfield. The yellow receiver is going to be the guy who gets the ball. The orange receiver will run a straight fly route down the left sideline.

Here's the play post-snap and ball in the air. As you can see the receiver on the lower right in red never crossed the line of scrimmage and confused the LB in the red box so he's covering nobody. That leaves 3 DBs to cover three WR's down the field in one-on-one coverage. The receiver at the bottom in the orange box is covered. The receiver at the top in the orange box is mostly covered, but probably could make a catch for a 15-20 yard gain. But the receiver in the yellow? He's blown by his guy and he's about to make the big catch for 46 yards. That's ArDarius Stewart, and if QB Jalen Hurts hits him in stride, it's a housecall. He underthrew it slightly so it was only a huge playgain. Still, it shows you how Alabama can really put you in difficult situations with their formations alone.

ALABAMA DEFENSE:

The bread and butter of Alabama is still just as good as ever. Let's take a look at two things. One is on special teams coverage where Alabama got away with a targeting call. It was a kick return and Speedy Noil, one of A&Ms best receivers and players was coming back across the middle when this happened.

Yeah that's Speedy's head getting hit with the top of the Alabama player's helmet. Folks, there's only one clear part of the targeting rule and it's this: "No player shall target and make forcible contact with another player with the crown (top) of his helmet." When in question, it's a foul in the rulebook. That picture to me is VERY much in question, which means it's a foul, and he should have been thrown out of the game. He wasn't. Play didn't even stop. There was no flag, no review, and no mention of it on the field other than that people bringing it up in the booth. And they should have because the refs blatantly missed this one. When it's a team like Alabama, that inevitably brings up bias, especially because another player on A&M was (rightly) ejected for targeting later in the game.

The second thing to bring up is how frightening the front 6-7 of Alabama really is. How frightening?

The yellow circle is #93 Johnathon Allen literally Superman-style sacking the QB after beating 2, maybe 3 blocks to get there. Look at him. His legs are literally parallel to the ground. He's in full on dive smashing his face into the QB's chest for a sack. That dude weighs 291 pounds and he's got THAT kind of launch in him. Good lord. That's totally insane. Can you not see how insane that is? LOOK AGAIN, IT'S HALLOWEEN ALMOST THAT #$@% IS SCARY!

Texas A&M normally scored around 36 points on average against SEC teams this year coming into this game with Alabama. Alabama held them to 14 points. It's not even really fair right now with who good Alabama is playing. The absolute only way you can beat them, and it may not be possible short of the NFL level of talent, is to have an offensive line that's good enough to give the QB time to throw it down the field. Alabama is vulnerable in the secondary, that's why they gave up 2 passing touchdowns. But you have to have enough time to throw, and the Bama front 7 isn't going to give you that luxury often.

CONCLUSIONS:

Unless Alabama gets in their own way and turns the ball over, there's only one team left on this schedule who has the offensive firepower to beat them, and that's Auburn. Given that it's a rivalry game, that one looms larger and larger. My concern is that regardless of how it plays out, Auburn is primarily a confusion based running team, not a passing team. And if Alabama decides to stack up and make you throw? I think Auburn gets beat badly. But who knows? I've underrated Auburn all year. Maybe this time they've got an answer nobody else has had thus far.

I doubt it though.