JessN: Texas A&M wrap-up: Manziel, sloppy Bama play combine to nix title hopes

JessN

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Texas A&M wrap-up: Manziel, sloppy Bama play combine to nix title hopes
by Jess Nicholas
TideFans Editor-In-Chief
November 11th, 2012 12:28 AM

I don’t usually write any column in the first person – it’s considered bad journalistic form – but I feel compelled to at least begin this column in such fashion while wrapping up this game. . Because there’s no way to accurately describe Johnny Manziel without [...]

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TideMom2Boys

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Thank you for the write up. I should have listened to you earlier when you thought a close game and gave their QB and wr's the upper hand. So true.
 

JD95

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Spot on. Hard to explain the sloppiness and lack of intensity in the last two weeks. Hope the Tide finds its groove before heading to Atlanta, because Georgia seems to be firing on all cylinders. Bama's a better team all around but has not played like it in the month of November. Maybe it's a good thing the SECCG is on December 1st!
 

DrollTide

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Thanks Jess.

What Manziel brings is fabulous play you can't scout, so you have to "debug" him on the field. You can watch tape all you like, but you'd have to practice against a Shaolin monk in a skinsuit covered in axle grease. For the defense it's like releasing a software package you've never executed even once. You'll be embarrassed for a while. Most teams were being embarrassed for four quarters, ours for one quarter only, after which A&M became just a good team but very beatable.

After that it was the poor Alabama execution that you listed. Remove just one turnover and we win. Give us the helmet-to-helmet call on AJ or Eddie that was called on us, and we win. Etc, etc. So I'm mostly disappointed that we couldn't manufacture just one more play, or execute the plays that we had with our accustomed discipline.
 

RhodeIslandRed

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I tended to feel that the team is extremely beat up with injuries right now. Even if not considered a legitiment excuse, it is a reason. the DL doesn't close running lanes as quickly as they once did. They seem a step slower. The OL doesn't blow open holes as they did. It may have been LSU that did the most physical damage. If the team knows what kind of shape they are in, then the skill guys appear to take more chances to get the completion or the extra yard. Hence the mental mistakes.
 

Al A Bama

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I tended to feel that the team is extremely beat up with injuries right now. Even if not considered a legitiment excuse, it is a reason. the DL doesn't close running lanes as quickly as they once did. They seem a step slower. The OL doesn't blow open holes as they did. It may have been LSU that did the most physical damage. If the team knows what kind of shape they are in, then the skill guys appear to take more chances to get the completion or the extra yard. Hence the mental mistakes.
What is the team psychology: Been #1 ALL season and serves as a Huge TARGET to all teams they play. It's hard to get players up for Every game. However, it's not hard to get a team up that's playing the #1 team in the country. It's like the Tide didn't know what hit them in the first quarter. So, was the Tide beat up physically, mentally and emotionally?

What is Alabama's strength? the running game
Not 2nd guessing Coach Saban or the OC, but if our strength is our OL and our running game, I would have run the ball on 1st down, 2nd down, 3rd down and 4th down if needed on that last drive. I also saw the SWEAT coming off Fluker's face at the end of the last drive. He looked very tirrrred!

The officials called Off-sides on Bama on that series. Do you call off-sides when the person moves but is NOT off-sides? That ended my last hope of a punt return by Christian Jones and or AJ taking the Tide down the field as quickly as last week.

I haven't even looked at how good Western Carolina is but it may be a difficult task to get the Tide up for them. Hopefully, we will put them away quickly so AJ can sit and let Sims get some playing time.
 

tidegrad92

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Great writing as always Jess. I loved (and laughed) with your description which said "he was scurrying around like a squirrel high on methamphetamine." :pDT_ura1:

Roll Tide and let's rebound with the next two regular season games and "fight on, fight on, fight on" to Atlanta!
 

Bamaro

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As it did against LSU last week, Alabama seemed too eager to abandon the run, which is a sin to begin with,
I'll never understand why we did that:conf3: As a result, they had the ball 5 more minutes than we did.
 
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bamaman65

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I have always thought a qb that is a threat to run is better when the pass protection breaks down. A drop back passer only is dead in the water when protection breaks down.
 

JessN

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Great dissection and article but the title? ...

Texas A&M wrap-up: Manziel, sloppy Bama play combine to hobble title hopes


fify :cool2:
Because in my opinion, Bama is done. In terms of the BCS title, that is; SEC title is obviously still very much in play.

I don't expect more than one of the other three unbeaten teams to lose, and even that is a 50/50 bet at best (USC over Notre Dame). I think KSU blows out the rest of its schedule, Texas included. As for Oregon, Oregon State frequently gives them problems when the Beavers should honestly have no right to do so, but the Ducks have a title in front of them if they just keep winning and Chip Kelly is good at keeping them focused.
 

rgw

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Yeah, Oregon has some defensive injuries though that might allow Stanford to make some headway. Still, Stanford is pretty shaky at the QB position this season. They made a change at QB this weekend and he performed decently but still young and mistake prone. Oregon State, I feel, doesn't really have a shot...maybe playing in Corvallis will help the Beavers. Oregon's best shot at losing may be catching UCLA or USC in the championship game.

Of the three undefeated teams, KSU and Notre Dame are probably the two we need to be making our prayers over. Texas hasn't won a big game seemingly since the 2009 RRS game, so putting a lot of hope in them is hard to do. They are more purely talented than KSU though...so maybe they can put it together for one night. Alabama has handled the pressure of being highly ranked well over the years...people forget that these schools who aren't accustomed to being a frontrunner can falter under that pressure. Notre Dame is going to lose to USC. It's in the coliseum and I fully expect the Senior Night motivation at the end of a disappointing season to inspire them. They might not be able to win a title, but they can end somebody else's run in their last home game.

Ultimately, I'm more worried about Auburn right now. We have to beat them to make the SECCG and we certainly don't look good enough to even beat UGA right now much less worrying about scenarios where we catch Oregon, ND, or KSU.
 

BigEasyTider

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Wouldn't be totally shocked to see either K-State or Notre Dame go down, but I doubt we get both. I don't see anyone touching Oregon in the Pac-12. Hopefully I'm wrong, but the fact is we've just got to stop choking away games late in the year and then hoping we'll get enough catastrophe everywhere else to get back into it. Just handle your own business and the rest is a non-issue, but we haven't been able to do that the past three years.

All in all, the past two weeks to me we have been exposed a bit. Lot of respect for our guys because they have played very hard, but I do think they are in over their heads a bit in terms of experience and depth, and it finally caught up with us. Hopefully we can improve in the final couple of weeks, but for now all of these people who keep talking about these BCS dreams need to just calm down. If we play in Atlanta like we have the past two weeks, we're not even getting through Georgia.
 

RhodeIslandRed

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I think Alabama will be a different team in January after a month off healing up all of those injuries. Just like after the 2009 season, the team facing Alabama will be wondering what hit 'em.
 

rgw

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Wouldn't be totally shocked to see either K-State or Notre Dame go down, but I doubt we get both. I don't see anyone touching Oregon in the Pac-12. Hopefully I'm wrong, but the fact is we've just got to stop choking away games late in the year and then hoping we'll get enough catastrophe everywhere else to get back into it. Just handle your own business and the rest is a non-issue, but we haven't been able to do that the past three years.

All in all, the past two weeks to me we have been exposed a bit. Lot of respect for our guys because they have played very hard, but I do think they are in over their heads a bit in terms of experience and depth, and it finally caught up with us. Hopefully we can improve in the final couple of weeks, but for now all of these people who keep talking about these BCS dreams need to just calm down. If we play in Atlanta like we have the past two weeks, we're not even getting through Georgia.
I feel pretty good that ND is going to lose in the Coliseum. ND hasn't played a team that can really put on points like USC. After that we're hoping for Oregon to just get unlucky in a shoot out and Texas to play well in a big game for the first time in 3+ years. In that regard, it is something that we can think about in the back of our mind as fans but I'm more worried about beating our biggest rival to seal the division title then playing a team that is frankly far more complete than us in Atlanta.

Georgia is kind of the amalgamation of what we've seen the last two weeks. They've got the scheme and depth at tailback of LSU with the QB-receiver combo of TAMU. Granted, Aaron Murray is not the greased pig Manziel looked like against us...but they can get into base personnel like LSU and pass it around effectively like TAMU. If the last two weeks are any indication, it would take massive improvement for Alabama to defend well enough to win. This is before considering the issues UGA's defense presents. They've underperformed at times but they've started gelling after some early suspensions. Their defense is about in the same tier personnel wise as LSU's and their offense is in the same tier as TAMUs.

The problem to me is that it is November not September. When we fell to South Carolina in 2010, I had hope that we could improve enough to have a back door shot at the SECCG and BCSCG. I didn't really materialize but the defense did come together to a degree but injuries kind of hurt the month of November. It is middle of November, we've got to ride through with what we've got at this point. The secondary might improve but how much can we improve with two more weeks before the SECCG week?
 

BigEasyTider

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I feel pretty good that ND is going to lose in the Coliseum. ND hasn't played a team that can really put on points like USC. After that we're hoping for Oregon to just get unlucky in a shoot out and Texas to play well in a big game for the first time in 3+ years. In that regard, it is something that we can think about in the back of our mind as fans but I'm more worried about beating our biggest rival to seal the division title then playing a team that is frankly far more complete than us in Atlanta.

Georgia is kind of the amalgamation of what we've seen the last two weeks. They've got the scheme and depth at tailback of LSU with the QB-receiver combo of TAMU. Granted, Aaron Murray is not the greased pig Manziel looked like against us...but they can get into base personnel like LSU and pass it around effectively like TAMU. If the last two weeks are any indication, it would take massive improvement for Alabama to defend well enough to win. This is before considering the issues UGA's defense presents. They've underperformed at times but they've started gelling after some early suspensions. Their defense is about in the same tier personnel wise as LSU's and their offense is in the same tier as TAMUs.

The problem to me is that it is November not September. When we fell to South Carolina in 2010, I had hope that we could improve enough to have a back door shot at the SECCG and BCSCG. I didn't really materialize but the defense did come together to a degree but injuries kind of hurt the month of November. It is middle of November, we've got to ride through with what we've got at this point. The secondary might improve but how much can we improve with two more weeks before the SECCG week?
Texas has to the potential to take down K-State based on raw talent alone, though I wouldn't bank on it. Odds are they finish up 12-0 and play in Miami against Oregon.

Think some people are just putting far too many eggs into the USC basket. It's a 7-3 Lane Kiffin-led team that got knocked around by Rich Rod, zero depth, and frankly if they were that good they would be in contention themselves. ND might trip up against them because the Irish aren't that good, but none of that matters unless K-State loses too. In any event, I don't see any way USC takes down Oregon, they just don't have the defensive depth to hold against that scheme over 60 minutes.

As for UGA, it's a tough bunch, admittedly. When they are on -- as I would expect them to be against us -- they are as good as anyone in the country. They will be a lot of trouble for us, frankly. As bad as McCarron has been, the UGA defense will force him into a long night, and if Mett can pick apart the UA secondary, you better bet that Murray can too. Not exactly feeling bullish about that Grantham v. Nussmeier match-up after the past couple of weeks, either.

We'll see what happens with us, but I wouldn't bank too much on further improvement. When you're eleven weeks into the season, you are what you are, and unlike 2010, injuries hasn't been a major issue this season on defense (in fact, we've been remarkably healthy on defense). We've just got to get a lot better level of play out of the kids we have back there, and that may not come until next season. In hindsight, I think Saban was pretty on-point about his concerns with this team even in the pre-season: We've got a lot of guys who are playing key roles without a lot of experience.
 
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