Jumbo Package: Missing 25 tackles shows how many fundamentals the Crimson Tide defense must correct

How big was the Game of the Century of the Year? From the CBS Sports press release:

CBS Sports’ coverage of the SEC ON CBS with LSU beating Alabama on Saturday, Nov. 9 at 3:30 PM delivered a massive audience scoring a fast national household rating/share of a 9.7/24, up + 47% over last year’s 6.6/13 rating/share in primetime. The 9.7/24 is the highest-ratedregular-season college football game (excluding Conference Championships) on any network in eight years.

The game that it beat? The 2011 Game of the Century between Alabama and LSU. SEC fatigue be damned — people are tuning in to see the most talented teams play for the highest of stakes. And LSU-Alabama is about as big as it gets in modern college football. Now, let’s hope we get a repeat of that joyous coda in 2019.

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He wasn’t moving very well on Saturday, but the silver lining here for Tua Tagovailoa is that he didn’t reinjure anything or take a step back in his healing either.

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Tonight is week two of the CFP Committee rankings, and TSN for their part have the Oregon Ducks edging Alabama for 4th place. Though, if Alabama absolutely demolishes Auburn, I’m not sure how you continue to justify that. The team has no quality wins. And, even assuming it runs the table and take down the Utes, will have but one quality win.

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Patrick Surtain II brought up the Alabama mistackles (see below), but overall the defense seems to be in a good place and emphasizing finishing strong:

He said the No. 1 thing “is how we complete the season.

“We have kind of a legacy around here that we’ve only had one team in the last 12 years that’s lost more than one game in the regular season. I’d like for this team to be able to continue that, and we certainly want to focus on all the things that we need to do to try to be able to get that done. The No. 1 thing is to play well this week against Mississippi State.”

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Football Scoop has a nice piece on the Arkansas coaching search, where up-and-comers Mike Norvell and Eli Drinkwitz (among others) are on the Piggies’ wish list. But, you can easily make a case that Memphis and App. State are in a better position than Arkansas at the moment. And FS brings up the ruthless question these G5 stars will have to ask themselves too:

If you’re Mike Norvell and Eli Drinkwitz, are you sure you want to cast what is quite possibly your one-and-only shot at being an SEC head coach on this Arkansas program?

Hayseed Icarus, Chad Morris, blew his big shot. He’ll not get another one. The Arkansas of 2019 is about as desultory and bereft of talent as any SEC team in my lifetime. Do Norvell and Drinkwitz want to gamble their futures here?

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Alabama may have lost Jahvon Quinerly’s eligibility appeal, but Nate Oats is going to make it work for Quinerly and his team:

“It didn’t work that way. So Greg kind of pulled JQ in and talked to him. Pulled the whole team in. ... I told them let’s control what we can control. We can’t control the NCAA’s decisions. We can control how hard we play. We can control our reactions to it. Let’s react the right way, let’s come out and play hard. JQ is gonna make us better this year. I thought our guys handled it well. They’re supporting him and will support him. He’s part of our family now.”

Oats told Quinerly entering the call that it could be a “win-win” situation for him. “If you have to sit, it will make you a lot better and you can come on the scene a year later, killing everybody. If you can play [now], great. We’ll play you and Kira [Lewis] together a lot.”

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Redneckery knows no geography:

An Oregon man is facing an attempted murder charge after an argument during Saturday’s LSU-Alabama football game turned violent, police say.

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An investigation revealed that Honey and the victim were watching the LSU-Alabama game when an argument turned physical before Honey loaded a shotgun with bird shot and shot the victim once as he was walking away in the driveway, according to the report.

My guess? His buddy was probably trying to defend that godawful illegal touching call and sometimes a man’s just gotta defend the Tide. Lord knows, the SEC didn’t.

At least it was birdshot?

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My biggest fear going into the LSU game was that an Alabama team that had been shaky at times tackling — and has been for two years — would be so against a team that makes hay with yards after catch and contact.

That bore itself out in ghastly measure, particularly late when the Tide could not buy a stop. Repeatedly, Alabama would play itself into position on the first two downs, and then have a collapse, miss a tackle, blow a coverage or just get whipped on crucial third downs.

Injuries and youth have hurt the Tide, sure. but Third and Post-Pruitt has been far more disastrous than Third and Kirby ever was.

On open-field tackling

”We missed 25 tackles in the game. So what did you see? I mean, I’m sure you saw the same thing I saw: we missed a lot of tackles. And I think you have to give credit to — their back made us miss tackles. And at times we did a poor job of tackling. I think those — we went into the game and made the statement several times that it’s going to be important to tackle well in space in this game, and that’s one of the things we didn’t get accomplished very well.

LSU outplayed Alabama to be sure. But Alabama did itself no favors either. (I am saying a nightly prayer for one of the Eastern teams to please hurry up and fire Muschamp or Pruitt. Golding isn’t ready for this job against these athletes in this conference).

Here’s the complete text of Saban’s presser from yesterday.

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The Crimson Tide coaching staff nqmed its six players of the game yesterday. Good news: The safeties had 24 tackles, and both tallied career highs. The bad news: The safeties had to make 24 tackles and tally career highs.

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