How many turnovers did the defense have in those three games? Zero.
How many did the offense have? 3+0+7 = 10
However, there's a flip side to that.
Texas A/M - one TD drive was 41 yards (after the McCarron to Bell slant pick on deflection)
Oklahoma - Yeldon fumbled at their 8 and OU turned that into a TD (that's at least a 7, possibly a 14-point swing - as Yeldon already had a first down when he fubmled)
McCarron threw a pick that OU ran all the way back to the 13 and got a TD.
Oklahoma's last TD was a fumble recovery for a TD. How in the world can anyone blame that on the defense?
So the actual numbers of points given up by the D are: 29, 28 (the FG return was not the defense's fault, either) and 38, but even the 38 is misleading since an additional 14 were when the D started on its heels).
Actually, we lost 9-6, but it isn't McElwain's fault that Maze misplayed the punt (or whatever actually happened) or that Williams didn't hold onto the ball that LSU intercepted at the goal line.
He scored 21 times as many points as necessary to win; I'm just saying
Actually, they gave up nine. However, six of those points came on drives that started at the Alabama 8 (AJ's pick returned) and the Tide 25.
But using a terrible example like the 2011 LSU team that was an absolutely great team is preposterous in the first place. Those two teams were evenly matched and both teams went 1-1.
Then go
read this article:
1) aside from a scattered few individual players, Alabama didn’t play like it wanted to win the game, and didn’t coach like it, either.
2) Someone, at some point this offseason, will ask Nick Saban a question along those lines, and he will probably respond that it’s not his job to worry about Auburn.
But it is.
3) Because at some point, someone is going to have to stand up to Nick Saban and pin this game squarely on him. The players deserve plenty of blame in their own right, but a coach’s primary job is to prepare a team mentally for a game like this and that was not done Saturday. Too many mistakes, some small and others large, added up to make Alabama look like anything but the No. 1 team in the nation.
We had first and goal at the Aggies 6 AT HOME with four minutes left. The genius called:
a) a pass play that McCarron wound up running for a yard
b) a handoff to Lacy for a yard
c) a pass play that fell apart and McCarron saved by bolting all the way to the three
d) a pass play that was intercepted.
That was atrocious play-calling against an awful defense when we had the best O-line maybe in college football history. Give Lacy three carries and he scores. I pin that one in particular on Nuss' play calling at the critical juncture of the game.
Is he solely to blame? Of course not. But he blew the last good chance.
But guess what? We were in Auburn's red zone THREE TIMES in the final quarter and got zero points. It's not just one play, that one play is simply representative.
Did you realize that the only TD we scored in the second half against a lousy Auburn D was the 99-yard bomb to Cooper?
No, we remember that. But that wouldn't have mattered if the play calling had done its job. Now - I blame this one a tad less on Nuss, it was a group effort including stupid penalties that you cannot blame on Nuss.
No, it doesn't. Getting into the red zone three times without scoring at all? That does fall on him.
It was 9-6 in 2011, I'm just saying.
So we put the defense on the 13 and say "stop them" and it's their fault? We give OU a TD on a fumble and Auburn a TD on a FG return and it's the D's fault?
I think a lot of this IS a group effort. But Nuss' playcalling was atrocious in some critical situations, most notably 2012 aTm.
I don't get overly bitter on coordinators. We still have Saban, and his former coordinators have not exactly set the world on fire as head coaches.
