Alabama won’t be upset by a Mountain West team again. Any question marks about a rebuilt offensive line and the debut of quarterback Greg McElroy were resoundingly answered at the Georgia Dome. The Tide leaned on Virginia Tech with bigger, stronger bodies until the Hokies collapsed. Tech played with great passion, had some breaks, made several special teams plays -- and still lost by ten. McElroy replaced John Parker Wilson, who was as much a Tuscaloosa fixture as Dreamland BBQ. I’m ready to say, after a single start, that McElroy will be better: He withstood a fiery defense and his own inexperience early, hung tough, and made plenty of plays in the second half. Once he figures things out, and locks in with T.O. Jr., a.k.a wide receiver Julio Jones, Bama is set at quarterback. The running game, defense, and special teams are already championship quality.
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Eh?
“Championship quality” special teams usually cover kicks just a wee-bit better than we did in that game. Also, the inability to finish on drives is a bit troubling.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m pumped that we dominated them in the 4th quarter and won on the stat sheet, but there’s no way you can make a credible prediction on whether our team is championship quality until we get into the meat of our SEC schedule.
by Bama philosophe on Sep 7, 2009 8:47 PM CDT reply actions 1 recs
Agree to an extent however
other than the 98 yard run back against a team that specializes historically in special teams play and a missed field goal, I was overtly happy with our special teams play. We have a punter that averaged 44.7 yards per punt and a kicker that has gotten stronger over the past three years. If anything, we need to work on our return game. Javvy didn’t make the cuts he normally makes during returns, and other than the big catch on the wheel route (lookin at you, MJ #24!) and William’s big run at the end, we played extremely well on D. Minus those two big plays and the run back, they only score 3. I know thats not an excuse and a lot of what-ifs, but we played a hella game against a stout team while gelling a new QB and O-line.
I’m as excited about watching this offense as I am about the impending decapitations our D is going to lay on people - Stuck in the Plains
by BamaReturns07 on Sep 7, 2009 9:41 PM CDT up reply actions
I was VERY pleased...
…with Fitzgerald during this game. I hope he keeps it up during the season.
by Nico2.0 on Sep 7, 2009 10:24 PM CDT up reply actions 1 recs
Agreed...
… the frustrating thing about our special teams was it so damn much boom and bust. We gave up big plays in the kicking game, but we made some big stops and also forced a fumble. Arenas didn’t have any huge returns, but he didn’t really struggle, Fitzgerald had his best game in crimson, and the punt protection unit was never serious challenged. Tiffin really made a huge difference by making four kicks — including a very tough one — but he also screwed us over on a chip shot that could have killed us.
I don’t know, I mean we weren’t outright terrible on special teams, we did some really good things. The problem was that we followed really good things up with really bad teams.
Honestly, though, special teams is really starting to concern. We should be good with the athletes that we have, but honestly our special teams have struggled since Ron Middleton left for Duke after the 2007 season.
by outsidethesidelines on Sep 7, 2009 11:58 PM CDT up reply actions
our long snapper
is the bomb diggity
2008 Iron Bowl Bumper Sticker: Shut DOWN, Shut OUT, now SHUT UP!
Alabama 36 - Auburn 0
by LittleSis on Sep 8, 2009 5:54 AM CDT up reply actions 1 recs
i was very glad to see...
javy making good decisions on the return team. if he keeps doing that, the awesome will follow.
I liked this quote:
Boise only has a trip to Fresno in the Battle For The Milk Can as a potential landmine on the path to beating the disappointed, half-hearted loser of a major conference title game in a lesser BCS bowl.
TO Jr.
I think that, balancing the two’s maturity, we should be calling to Bills reciever JJ Jr.
If it were up to me, I'd blitz on offense too.
I agree...
… in terms of personality, you couldn’t find two more different people. On the other hand, though, in terms of physical comparisons as wide receivers, it’s as close as you can get.
I like to think of Julio more as basically Earl Campbell reincarnated as a wide receiver from Foley.
by outsidethesidelines on Sep 8, 2009 12:32 AM CDT up reply actions
And...
… I don’t think he’s being too exacting in the standard of “championship quality.” I’m still not expecting a national champion, nor do I think Weintrab here is saying that either. But I do think you can say that there are probably six or seven teams in college football that could legitimately be good enough to win a national championship this year, and I think we are legitimately in that discussion.
And, frankly, I think the guy has a point. For all of the terrible mistakes we consistently made that kept Virginia Tech in the game — and despite the fact that we were breaking in a new quarterback and largely a new offensive line — we still were able to go out and beat that same Virginia Tech team by ten points while absolutely dominating them in every statistical category (and we could have made the score more lopsided had we tried to late like Ole Miss).
Does that mean we’re heading for a national championship? No. But, you do have to be damn good to be able to do something like that. I think we’re in that category.
by outsidethesidelines on Sep 8, 2009 2:08 AM CDT reply actions
I think we are
very good except at special teams. We are well below average on kick-offs. I don’t know what the problem is, but I do not attribute it to VT being a great return team. They have some talent but I don’t think they have anyone that looks like Greg Reid looked last night. What in the world would he do to Bama?
And if Tiffin can’t reach the end zone in the Dome, he will not reach it outdoors unless he has a strong wind at his back. I wish the out of bounds rule only put it at the 30 because I’d take the 30 all the time with our D.
In a way I feel sorry for the Defense as a unit because there is no way they should have 24 pts. against them already based on the way they played. In my mind the D gave up 7, the O gave up 3, and special teams gave up 14.
I know you don’t break it down like that but I think we have one of the top 3 defensive units in the nation and they are credited with giving up 24 and that seems unfair. We have to shut out or next two just to get it down to 8 per game.
I hate the NCAA more than UT & AU combined. At least with UT & AU you got a fighting chance.
Correction:
The D gave up 0 to 3 depending on how the next down after the fumble would have turned out – McClain gave up 7 all by himself…the unit cannot be blamed for his boneheadedness. Good points.
I bleed crimson and white...I puke Vol puke orange. RTR
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