What is hurting our offense worse.....

LA4Bama said:

The way the question is posed makes any answer seem negative. Put it the other way though, that the thing that will make us excel the most is when Jalen gets his reads and timing crisper. Then this offense will have so many options that most other teams would need 13 guys to stop it.

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As much as we like the talent within JH, if the reads, timing, and accuracy don't improve somewhat immediately, we could see some previous incompletions become interceptions with the higher caliber of competition we are facing. The amount of time in the pocket is probably going to decrease in some upcoming games, making it more difficult. I'm not saying he is performing poorly for his age and experience, just looking at improved competition. It's here now.
As for running backs, I'll take the quality and depth of this bunch and their performance any day.

IMO, too many wasted plays in the first half of games running jet sweeps and WR screens. I know that it opens things up later in the game, but why not try and see if you can run on a team before you start that stuff? Those plays have no chance at all of being explosive, so they force your offense to dink/dunk down the field on 10+ play drives with an inexperienced QB and an o-line which is still making too many mistakes. Result - you don't start scoring until you stop running those plays and start attacking the defense a little further down the field.

Once your offense has gone into attack mode, you have been almost impossible to stop.

Inexperience. JH missing wide open WR's and taking 5+ yd. losses when he runs out of bounds. I think we will be fine even with 2 possible losses that will only humble us as we get better. On the D side we need to stop the long pass plays we are giving up.

B1GTide said:

IMO, too many wasted plays in the first half of games running jet sweeps and WR screens. I know that it opens things up later in the game, but why not try and see if you can run on a team before you start that stuff? Those plays have no chance at all of being explosive, so they force your offense to dink/dunk down the field on 10+ play drives with an inexperienced QB and an o-line which is still making too many mistakes. Result - you don't start scoring until you stop running those plays and start attacking the defense a little further down the field.

Once your offense has gone into attack mode, you have been almost impossible to stop.

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I've been wondering about this trade-off for a while now. I doubt anyone would deny that the tactic is effective in it's intended purpose of A: wearing out a defense going sideline to sideline & B: setting up misdirection later in the game. Perhaps with the questions at RB and O-line early in the season there wasn't the confidence to test the middle of a defense. I genuinely think that time is coming to a close. The O-line is gelling better and if Damien gets healthy with Joshua Jacobs back there then the middle should be more game than before. But I wonder, as you do, if the ploy to tire out the defense early and misdirect late is even necessary. If we get in holes (as with Ole Miss) will we always be able to clamber back out if we aren't more aggressive and less coy in the early quarters? Just thoughts I have. Can't say either way.

I think the real question of the thread is: "Why can't we be more consistent on offense in the 1st quarter?"

capnfrog said:

Inexperience. JH missing wide open WR's and taking 5+ yd. losses when he runs out of bounds. I think we will be fine even with 2 possible losses that will only humble us as we get better. On the D side we need to stop the long pass plays we are giving up.

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He is missing throws but did anybody notice his recognition and chemistry with Ridley make HUGE strides against Kentucky? One issue was getting the ball out on time on deep passes and in front of the receiver. On the deep pass to Ridley on the right-side he recognized man-coverage instantly and got the ball in the air on time and in front of his guy. Those are big steps, but there is still recognition that needs to progress like missing Howard down the sideline.

Also he only ran out and lost yardage once. I haven't seen that consistently happen but someone can correct me.

No consistency on long throws.

CajunCrimson said:

I think it's about being able to run out the clock in the second half......

But surprisingly -- we have scored 109 points in the first half, 111 in the second....

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With the majority in the 2nd and 3rd quarters (72 of 109 and 66 of 111)...

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I worry about turnovers with freshmen but hopefully this won't be an issue. There has been only one interception so far but there have been 8 fumbles (4 lost). Turnovers can make a difference against quality teams. Bama has not lost many (any?) games recently when they haven't been a factor.

I really hope Hurts can get the ball out quicker on his throws and hit the deep ball. He had good protection on several opportunities vs UK.

The scoring average is very good but remember that a chunk of the points have come from the defense and special teams.

B1GTide said:

IMO, too many wasted plays in the first half of games running jet sweeps and WR screens. I know that it opens things up later in the game, but why not try and see if you can run on a team before you start that stuff? Those plays have no chance at all of being explosive, so they force your offense to dink/dunk down the field on 10+ play drives with an inexperienced QB and an o-line which is still making too many mistakes. Result - you don't start scoring until you stop running those plays and start attacking the defense a little further down the field.

Once your offense has gone into attack mode, you have been almost impossible to stop.

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I think you kinda nail it but this only describes our "slow starts" which have become the trademark of this offense so far this year. We came back against OM after a super slow start, but we can't afford to do that in the next three games IMO or we'll be lucky to win 1 out of those 3 games.

But this doesn't explain the inconsistency of our downfield passing. I think it's been properly assessed earlier in the thread and the only thing that can fix it is reps, but I do think JH needs less reads/progressions and more quick routes, roll outs and sideline patterns that require less time in the pocket.

oooh whew! lot of good comments here in this thread. I can't reply to all of it, but I have few things to say:

1) TIDE-HSV is right, I noticed Bo is playing hurt and Everyone keep saying he's fine, but You can tell he's struggling somewhat. I have a feeling he'll explode sometime before the season is over. I'm not worried about Bo just yet.

2) Ridley and Hurts are roommates and they spend lot of time together, so that's why you see the chemistry there. If he can get Howard, Sims, Dieter and Foster involved little more then the game will be balanced. Stewart should be back against Arkansas and hopefully that opens up the game to a whole new level now that they're playing little better.

3) On calling the jet sweeps, screen plays early in the game, This has been explained several times, by several people including Coach Saban. The first 12 plays tend to be scripted to test left and side of the field. lI used to complain about that but I started to pay attention to the play calls throughout the game and I realized that lot of them are the same but in a different ways, so that makes it hard for Defense to figure out what we're doing. I have a feeling we'll see lot of running game against Razorbacks.

3) People have complained a lot about Hurts and his inability to throw deep ball and finding receivers... and it's valid, but I need to remind everyone that Coker and McCarron struggled early in the season. We have to be patient and understand Hurts is going to figure it out. Last year Coker finally figured it out against Arkansas... Hurts confidence went to a new place last weekend against Kentucky when he threw the deep ball. so I expect him to have a big game this weekend. I'm very pleased that he has only thrown 1 int this year so far.

4) Defense is real good, but I'm very concerned about our secondary especially with Tennessee and TAMU coming up.

Stewart being out is what is really hurting us.

The biggest things that is hurting our offense is unforced errors. The next biggest problem is inconsistency with the interior pass protection then poor efficiency on downfield passing. I think we're developing into quite the lethal rushing offense despite the fact that our best offensive talent coming into 2016 is at WR and TE/H-B. It is encouraging though because we're going to be special when the passing game can consistently look like it did in the 3rd quarter last weekend.

81usaf92 said:

Stewart being out is what is really hurting us.

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Foster not being 100 percent is what hurting us as well.

Re: What is hurting our offense wose.....

theballguy said:

Everything's gonna be all right.

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Used to work with a guy that wore a lapel pin with the initials ETGBAR when we went to the trade shows in Chicago and Vegas. He always got a lot of the desired questions and laughs when asked about the pin.

Re: What is hurting our offense wose.....

ALA2262 said:

Used to work with a guy that wore a lapel pin with the initials ETGBAR when we went to the trade shows in Chicago and Vegas. He always got a lot of the desired questions and laughs when asked about the pin.

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I know of a guy in Memphis who liked to wear TCB on his jewelry. Fans need the ETGBAR and players need the TCB.

Re: What is hurting our offense wose.....

False starts hurting drives,then you follow up with a throw behind a receiver or over throw a deep ball which may come from not wanting to throw a pick,young QB. Then he turns around make a great play or run. Which creates a lack of consistency.

Re: What is hurting our offense wose.....

fans

Re: What is hurting our offense wose.....

I think that Hurts is not trusting himself enough. The guy is not always going to be wide open, gotta throw it sooner and trust the separation. Waiting too long is costing him on the deep balls. I did notice that after Coach Saban exploded on him about OJ being wide open down the sideline he started to throw it deep and man he does have a gun.