Blog: Latest Bama News 11/27/14

kyallie

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Alabama cornerback Cyrus Jones eager for another shot at Auburn-sds


While there’s no doubt that the University of Alabama football team would like nothing better than to wipe the memory of last year’s Auburn game, or at least get some payback for the dramatic loss, no one may want redemption more than junior cornerback Cyrus Jones. Granted, Chris Davis returned a missed field-goal attempt more than 100 yards for a touchdown on the final play, but perhaps just as important was the 39-yard touchdown pass to Sammie Coates that tied the score with 39 seconds remaining.
On it Nick Marshall started running to his left with the ball in his left hand and when Jones came off the receiver the quarterback switched hands and threw the pass without using the laces.
“I just try not to focus on it,” Jones said. “Obviously I know it was a big play in the game but that wasn’t the single play that defined the game.
“We’re just looking forward to this game coming up and just try to come out and compete for the whole game and come out on top at the end.”
It was one of just three pass attempts thrown his way that day, and every other play of the 65-yard, 2-minute drive was carry by running back Tre Mason. Yet Jones knows that he’ll probably again be in the thick of things when Alabama hosts Auburn on Saturday (7:45 p.m. ET, ESPN).
That’s been the strategy of nearly every Crimson Tide’s opponent this season: Line up its biggest receiver opposite Jones and hope for the best.
Only the Tigers don’t have just one, but a potent pair. D’haquille Williams, who was rated the nation’s top junior-college player last year, leads Auburn with 38 receptions with 609 yards and five touchdowns while Coates has 25 catches for 509 yards.
“I don’t know if he’s 100 percent, but we’re expecting him to play,” Auburn coach Gus Malzahn said this week about Williams, who sprained his right MCL against Texas A&M and missed the past two games.
Both receivers are listed as 6 foot 2.
“That’s one of the things that is a real challenge for any team that plays these types of receivers,” Nick Saban said, “Mississippi State had a couple of guys like that who were very challenging, and these two guys are probably as good as anyone in the country in terms of size, vertical guys who can make great catches, have great catch radius, really good hands and can separate from you, and are very physical.
“It’s going to be a challenge for our guys, they’re going to have to use great technique, really good eye control in terms of what they’re doing, but it’s got to be a team thing, you know? These guys make a lot of plays because the quarterback extends plays and does a really goof job of getting the ball to them. How you affect the quarterback up front, how you cover people, how you disguise things, all these things contribute to trying to slow these guys down a little bit in terms of their big, physical receivers.”
Jones is 5-10 while sophomore cornerback Eddie Jackson is 6-foot.
“You just can’t let them manhandle you,” he said. “You’ve got to be physical right back with them, especially if you’re a smaller guy such as myself. It’s just important just to be in position at all times to kind of be ready to make a play when the ball’s in the air and not letting them get on top of you down the field. It’s going to be a good challenge but I’m excited about it.”
Just as important will defending against Auburn’s running game, which leads the Southeastern Conference while the passing attack is eighth.
Cameron Artis-Payne leads the league with 252 carries for 1,405 yards, while Marshall is second with 133 attempts for 731 yards. Both have run in 11 touchdowns.
“It’s going to be a challenge to get off those guys’ blocks because they’re big, they take up a lot of space, you really can’t see around them a lot of the time,” Jones said. “You just definitely got to do a good job of getting your hands inside and striking back at them and trying to get off the blocks when necessary.”
Jones has been credited with 35 tackles including two for a loss, along with 11 passes defended, two interceptions, two forced fumbles and one recovered this season. The picks came against Tennessee and Mississippi State, off quarterbacks who were similar in style to Marshall.
This time last year the converted wide receiver had made just four starts. Additionally, Alabama’s defense shouldn’t have as much of a problem with the rapid pace that Auburn likes to play – at least in theory. With couple of exceptions every offense the Crimson Tide faced this season has been spread, up-tempo.
“A lot of teams felt like that was our weakness, so we faced that a lot this season,” senior safety Nick Perry said. “I don’t think they’re anywhere, nowhere as good as Auburn at doing it, so Auburn’s still going to be a tough task for us, but we’re still well prepared.”
As for if it is a weakness, Perry said, “Definitely not.”
 
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kyallie

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Alabama quarterback Blake Sims the best story in college football this season-sds


Despite the doubters, he’s been the best story in college football this season.

They questioned if he could play quarterback at this level for the University of Alabama.
He responded by winning the starting job.
They didn’t respect his arm strength.
He had touchdown passes on the first offensive play against both Florida and Tennessee, and has posted comparable numbers to his predecessor.
They didn’t think he could win on the road.
Blake Sims dramatically won at the toughest venue in college football, LSU.
“I felt good as a quarterback,” the fifth-year senior said after helping lead the 20-13 overtime victory against the Tigers on Nov. 8. “I knew my team had my back, but that just shows other people why I think they way I think. They played their hearts out.
“When they got on the plane, on the way back to Tuscaloosa, everybody was knocked out from being so tired. When you’re in the air and you look back on the plane and everybody’s tired, you feel good, because you know everybody gave it their all.”
This from there the guy who first tried safety, wide receiver and running back before finally becoming a quarterback for the Crimson Tide, and as CBS announcer Vern Lundquist would say “Oh my,” has he made the most of the opportunity.
In the neutral-site opener in Atlanta he set program records for most completions and attempts by a quarterback in his debut as a starter, going 24 of 33 for 250 yards, as Alabama defeated West Virginia in the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Classic.
Sims recorded the second-most passing yards in a single game in program history, 445 against Florida, trailing only Scott Hunter’s 484 in 1969. It was also the most ever by at Alabama quarterback at Bryant-Denny Stadium.
Against Tennessee, he helped teammate Amari Cooper set the Crimson Tide record – one of many for him this fall – for receiving yards in a single game, and the quarterback’s 43-yard touchdown was the team’s longest rushing play of the season.
“I’m not surprised at all because me and Blake having been working since the spring on our timing and everything like that,” Cooper said about the real secret to Sims’ success this season.
He put in the time, he put in the effort, and when training camp came around in the fall, and Sims was in the midst of a high-profile quarterback competition, things started to really click.
“There has been a chemistry there that Blake’s been around these guys for a long time,” Coach Nick Saban said. “They know him well. He’s performed well. I think their confidence in him has gone up and I think that when the leaders on the team are good people and they play effectively, I think it enhances their ability and capacity to affect other people, which is what leadership was all about.”
“I think he’s made a lot of improvement.”
Perhaps so many people had a hard time believing that Sims would do so well was that he hardly took the conventional route to the starting lineup. Yes, he was considered a top-notch prospect out of Gainesville, Ga., but not even the recruiting services knew which position he would end up playing at the collegiate level. So they listed him as “athlete.”
For years the only other thing one heard about Sims were the regular comments by his teammates like, “He’s a very good guy,” as senior wide receiver DeAndrew White recently said.
But starting quarterback? At Alabama?
The Crimson Tide’s quarterbacks had been well established under Saban, with AJ McCarron starting all 40 games over the previous three years, and before him Greg McElroy started 27. Factor in John Parker Wilson and those three had accounted for every start since the 2006 season opener.
Yet long before Sims started winning over the fans and media, which with some is still an ongoing process, he first had to do so in his own locker room. While those on the outside viewed the pairing as something unlikely, especially after he struggled on A-Day, the final scrimmage of spring, his teammates started to fall in line.
Fueled by the critics Sims kept plugging along, but it wasn’t until Alabama was a couple games into the schedule that the competition was deemed over. Along the way the dual-threat posted some very impressive numbers – especially in passing efficiency and third-down conversions – while Alabama made a run at being part of the inaugural four-team College Football Playoff.
“I think that trust is the big, big thing for us,” he said, while another statement in early November might have best exemplified his rise: “We’re not trying to do things until we do it right. We know it’s going to be that one play that’s going to win us the game. We want to be the ones that win that play, trying to do things until we can’t do it wrong.”
Meanwhile, nearly of the teams that were considered the Crimson Tide’s primary competition were led by returning starters, including Marcus Mariota, Jameis Winston, Dak Prescott, Everett Golson, Bo Wallace, Bryce Petty, Trevone Boykin and Nick Marshall.
“We’re encouraged by the way he played in this, he’s worked hard to improve and has performed this year for our team,” Saban said. “He’s done an outstanding job, is a good leader and is a fine person.
“But I also think that the challenge that we have with Blake is to keep him focused on the things that he needs to do to distribute the ball, execute the offense and take what the defense gives him – and when he has done that he has been phenomenal and we’ve been very good offensively. When we haven’t, we’ve struggled. That’s the key to the drill.”
That’s why Sims’ performance against LSU was so important, when he did something that he saw McCarron pull off two years earlier, lead a clutch drive at Death Valley and then head home with a potentially career-changing win. With no time outs he completed 4 of 6 passes while leading a 47-second drive down to the 10-yard line, with Adam Griffith making the field goal to send the game into overtime, and subsequently threw the game-winning touchdown pass to White.
“It was big,” said Sims, who will play his final home game Saturday against Auburn (7:45 p.m. ET, ESPN). “It let the team know that we’re capable of doing anything that we need to do. It showed that we’ve got the poise to, when times were going rough for us the whole game, when it’s time for the clutch time we can pull it through.”
But specifically the comeback showed Sims could do it. Just about all of the other key players who contributed had the same roles for the Crimson Tide in 2013, and some were there in 2012 when Alabama went on win the national championship.
Those seasons Sims was on the bench, learning and waiting his turn – a turn that most believed would never come – which he more than earned.
 

kyallie

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Kenyan Drake has made a consistent effort to post recovery updates since the Alabama RB suffered a horrific injury in the game against Ole Miss. Just recently, Drake posted a new video on Instagram showing the latest in the process.

Seeing how it was only a week ago that Drake moved from a boot to a cast (for which he posted another video, shown below), his recovery has been about as rapid as could be hoped for.
via sds

Video: Injured Alabama RB Kenyan Drake Is Already Back Working On The Treadmill-collegespun.com


Hand it to Kenyan Drake, he has been about as active as possible in keeping Alabama fans up to date with his recovery. Just a week ago, he posted video of himself out of the walking boot and in a cast. Now, he’s already doing some light work on the treadmill.Drake had 271 total yards and six touchdowns in five games before his injury. He should play a huge role in Alabama’s offense when he returns next season.
 

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