10/13 The Ole Miss Game
I’ve never been one of those “any win is a good win” guys. I always thought that Alabama should be an elite program, and as such, we should have lofty goals. So when we have a win that doesn’t seem to indicate that we’re going to be able to win the games that we’ll need to win to be an elite program, I’m disappointed. That was the case today against Ole Miss. We won the game, but I’m as disappointed as I’ve been in our team all year. It seemed that we managed to choke every time we had a chance to take control of the game. We horribly mismanaged the clock before halftime, and then Leigh Tiffin missed yet another easy field goal, so we were only ahead by 7 at the half. On the first possession after halftime, Ole Miss walked down the field like our defense wasn’t even there, but we came right back, and looked poised to take the lead when Coffee lost his focus and allowed the ball to be stripped from him as he was going in for the TD. We were playing catch-up for most of the rest of the game, until Javier Arenas made a miraculous return to setup the tying TD, and then Tiffin managed to make a chip-shot field goal to give us a 3-point lead. And Ole Miss’s last drive? Holy smoke! I’ll get back to that in a second.
Before I go any farther, I want to take a second to talk about Saban’s decision to fake the field goal with a little over 3 minutes left and us up by 3. Some of you might have thought that he should have kicked the field goal, putting us up by 6 and forcing them to score a TD to beat us. Let me state emphatically that Saban did the right thing. O.K., you can argue that he should have simply gone for it with our standard offense instead of faking the field goal, but trying to get the first down instead of kicking was absolutely, positively the right thing to do. The last thing that we wanted was for Ole Miss to get the ball back with 3:30 left, down by 6. They would have had 4 downs to make a first down all the way down the field, and giving up game winning TD drives has become an Alabama tradition over the years. Besides, had we actually scored a TD, it would have effectively ended the game. Hear me loud and clear; Shula would have kicked that field goal, and we would have lost 31-30.
As for the last drive, I was so frustrated I thought I was going to scream. We had them buried, and then on fourth and long they have a man camped out all alone 3 yards past the first down marker. We can talk about bad defensive calls, players slipping, etc., but here’s what happened; Mitchell got toasted. I really thought we had them after Deadrick’s sack, making it fourth and 22, but we almost blew it again. We were very fortunate on the replay reversal. I’m not sure of the rule. I know that a receiver can’t go out of bounds and be the first person to touch the ball, but I don’t know if that receiver can touch the ball if the defender touches it first. The whole situation was confusing, but if the refs wouldn’t have reversed that call, they would have had a shot at the end zone from the 4 yard line, and I’m pretty sure they would have made it, and we would have lost.
Finally, a note about the Player of the Game. It was awarded to D.J. Hall. Now, all of you know I love D.J. Hall, but he was not the Player of the Game. The award should have gone to Javier Arenas. His returns were absolutely amazing, and we would have lost if not for his miraculous return midway through the fourth quarter. Congratulations and thanks Javier!
A few miscellaneous notes and observations. First, our offensive line was terrible. Justin Britt was out tending to personal matters, so Antoine Caldwell moved to RG, and Evan Cardwell played center. Most people think this is our most effective lineup, but I really don’t agree. First, I don’t think Cardwell is a very good center, and surprisingly, I don’t think Caldwell is a very good guard. Caldwell is an excellent center, so I would have preferred to keep him there and put in someone else at RG. Maybe Saban has no faith in any other guards; I don’t know. Second, for those of you that are wondering, no, their Number 86 is not a genetically engineered hybrid of Richard Dent, Bruce Smith, and Lawrence Taylor. We just played horribly, and he was able to take full advantage. He’s good, but he’s not that good.
It’s going to get better. I warned you that this year would be a challenge, and if you’ll notice last week’s blog, I picked this game to be a 3-point Bama victory, so things are about where I expected. Our defense will improve with experience in this system, and with an influx of better talent. Our offense played better, even with the horrific OL play, and again, I expect it to improve over time. Unfortunately, we play Tennessee next week, so it’s going to need to improve fast. Can we put it all together and upset the Vols? No, we can’t. O.K.; it’s possible, but really, they’re better than we are at almost every position. When I watch Bama play, I see glimpses of what we’ll be, so I have hope that we can turn it on, and maybe our D will be able to put enough pressure on Ainge to make him uncomfortable, and maybe our O-Line will finally put it together so we can run the ball consistently, and Wilson will be comfortable in the pocket. But I doubt it. I think we’ll lose 34-24, but I can promise, I’ll be rooting for the Tide as hard as anyone on this planet. In next week’s blog, I’d love to be writing about how wrong I was!
As always, please feel free to send me any questions or comments.
Kenny
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