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SEC Football: Georgia-Arkansas and Texas A&M-Alabama Preview - Team Speed Kills
Similar to the UGA-ARK game, there's a big special teams discrepancy in this matchup. This is not Bobby Williams' best unit in Tuscaloosa, but A&M's unit is not so elite that one could easily assume they take advantage. A&M should get its yardage, but it must get points out of its drives. Defensively, the Aggies have to step up their pass defense and prevent big plays. 'Bama is holding most of the cards in this one, according to these ratings, and the outcome will likely be determined by if they take care of business or not.
Our offense will get points if our offensive line improves from the Arkansas game. But to me, this game will come down to how Saban and Smart plan on handling the short/quick passing game of A&M.
Alabama coach Nick Saban instructed not to comment on TE Kurt Freitag | AL.com
"I've been informed by the authorities not to make comment about this investigation," Saban said on his weekly appearance on the SEC teleconference. "I would like to leave it at that."
Who wants to bet the media will continue to ask him questions because they think it's their job to continue to ask him questions about something he's been told he can't talk about?
The SEC West Chaos Scenario - Team Speed Kills
If all of this occurs, we would have the following standings going into the final day of the regular season:
- Auburn (10-1, 6-1) - Win tiebreaker vs Ole Miss, lose vs Mississippi St.
- Alabama (10-1, 6-1) - Win tiebreaker vs Mississippi St., lose vs Ole Miss
- Ole Miss (10-1, 6-1) - Win tiebreaker vs Alabama, lose vs Auburn
- Mississippi St.(10-1, 6-1) - Win tiebreaker vs Auburn, lose vs Alabama
And we would have the following games: Mississippi St. at Ole Miss Auburn at Alabama
Throw in a one loss FSU and/or ND and you could have the potential of 5-6 one loss teams at the end of the season..
Oregon, Mich St., FSU, ND and two of the four from above. You could also have a one loss Baylor or Oklahoma and if somehow UGA pulls out the win in the SECG, they could have just one loss, In fact, there are currently 15 one loss teams in the top 20.
There's still a ton of football to be played but if all this plays out, trying to decide who are the top four best one loss teams is nearly an impossible task.
Alabama running back tears Achilles tendon in practice, ending freshman season | AL.com
The Calera product tore his Achilles tendon in Tuesday's practice, coach Nick Saban said. Clark, a safety, was working with the running backs since depth became an issue following Kenyan Drake's broken leg. In other injury news, Saban said center Ryan Kelly was doubtful for the Texas A&M game, but was likely to return the following week at Tennessee.
The injury occurred in a non-contact drill during the media viewing period Tuesday afternoon. Clark hopped on one leg to the sideline as trainers rushed to his side. He traveled to Arkansas for Saturday's game, but was almost assured he'd be redshirting this season.
I don't understand the statement "since (running back) depth became an issue"...Alabama hasn't had running back depth issues since Saban arrived and I don't really understand moving a safety to fill in for 4th-5th string running backs...
Doesn't matter now, Clark is injured but at least he has plenty of time to heal up and was looking at a redshirt season regardless.
There's more to Alabama's offense than Amari Cooper, and Nick Saban wants to see it | AL.com
"It's important that we make good decisions about how we distribute the ball, where we distribute the ball and when it gets distributed so that we're not holding the ball in the pocket and stress the protection," Saban said. "That's a team thing. We've got to do a better job with protection. The route runner's got to do a better job of having the right timing and running the right routes, and then the quarterback's got to get the ball out on time."
Return game a problem for Alabama this season | TuscaloosaNews.com
"We work on it all the time," Alabama coach Nick Saban said in the Wednesday SEC conference call. "We’ve made our players very aware, and when people do a lot of this spread-out front, rugby-type punts, you don’t always get catchable balls.
"We don’t always practice that enough, and I think that’s something that we’ve just practiced more. And I think the players are more aware now." Christion Jones wasn’t the only player with the last name Jones to fumble on Saturday in the 14-13 win. Cyrus Jones fumbled on a punt return, but the ball was recovered by Trey DePriest.
I'm not saying Jones has butter fingers but Jones may have butter fingers...
Nick Saban updates injury status of Ryan Kelly, Tyren Jones heading into Texas A&M game | AL.com
Kelly made his first appearance at a practice Wednesday since he injured his knee during the third quarter of Alabama's loss to Ole Miss. Redshirt freshman Bradley Bozeman likely will make his second career start in Kelly's place.
"He's doing good, man," tight end O.J. Howard said Tuesday. "He has a lot of guys on the O-line that are picking him up, so that's always good for him. Bradley's a young guy, but he's playing good and he's very coachable."
THE TAILGATE: A Graphical Preview of Texas A&M at Alabama - Good Bull Hunting
Last week Alabama barely squeaked out a victory over Arkansas, the same team that A&M needed overtime to put away. Alabama’s only loss this season was to the same Ole Miss team that just pantsed A&M in front of 110,000 of their closest friends and family. Are these closely-matched teams, or are the Aggies in for another swirly from an SEC West bully? What does all of this mean? What does anything really mean? The Aggies are one conference blowout and a hair dryer away from being full emo about the rest of this season.
The GBH Tailgate is always fantastic and the photoshop job of Kiffin is worth the click all by itself.
Watch Nick Saban discuss Texas A&M, offensive line, injuries | AL.com
Nick Saban discusses Texas A&M prep, injuries, offensive line, Mark Ingram and more topics in a long-for-Wednesday press conference.