When he first made that comment after the game, he did not sound happy at all with Mcilwain.

I dont think McElroy had a bad game at all….I certainly think there were chances where it would’ve been more appropriate to take a chance down the field instead of hitting the drop down read (i.e., 4 and 5 drop off to Upchurch instead of hitting Julio wide open on a slant)….but when you look back at the film out of 29 pass attempts…he really only had 3..maybe 4 actual bad throws…the other incompletions were nice PBU’s by a steadily improving UT secondary, drops, or the one pass interference call….the 2 bad throws that really caught my eye was the pass to Maze in the 1st quarter where he badly overthrew it to the sideline…but to be fair it was a harder throw than it looked because we were lined up on the left hash and the route brought maze all the way to the right sideline which is a decent amount of grass to cover…..and the other was the TE out route we threw the Smelley that should’ve resulted in a 1st down….McElroy threw it early and behind Smelley, and Smelley never even saw the ball…I’m not sure if Greg was too anxious or if he thought Brad was going to make his break earlier….either way, it was not a very good throw. Concerning our “dink and dunk” passing attack last game…..while it is important to take what the defense gives you and to be very wary of turnovers (especially in a tight game, with the lead, and with Eric Berry playing centerfield)….it is equally important too, as I stated in a previous post, to put “air in the defense”….by taking deep passing attempts down the field early in the game, and occasionally throughout the game you create a lot of things that benefit the rest of the offensive gameplan as a whole….1) you generate a larger degree of separation between the WRs and DB’s in the pre-snap alignment 2) You force the safeties to play the pass first, giving your RBs more time to reach the 8 and 9 gaps (outside lanes), and on inside runs, get farther up the field before reaching the 3rd level of the defense….3) it makes defensive coordinators extremely hesistant to call Safety/Corner blitzes, which in turn makes pass protection that much easier. In summary, even if the deep throws are for the most part unsuccessful (and with receivers like Julio, Hanks, and Maze we have proven deep-threats), it is incredibly important to take the deep shots to open things up and make the defense cover a larger portion of the field. I’m sure Saban is well aware of all of this and I wouldn’t be suprised if we take a couple shots early in the game and then fairly regularly throughout the rest. Roll Tide

No good can come from Saban rattling his junior QB the week before a big game against LSU. For all we know, McElroy could be sharp in practice, but for whatever reason he hasn’t been able to duplicate the performance on the last few game days.