Game Thread: OFFICIAL POST-GAME THREAD - Bama vs. Barn...

[KrAzY3]

The Auburn game is important, but it's still just an obstacle. If Alabama can get into the playoff, the Iron Bowl loss becomes almost meaningless.

 

[ReturnToGlory]

It is more important to me to win championships than beating AU, but we have allowed them to ruin our 2013 chances and maybe this year. Gotta figure out how to beat them down there when they have an equal chance of winning SEC and national title.

 

[TUSCALOOSAHONOR]

Okay, I couldn't sleep (it's earlier in the west, but not that early) so I looked back at the game, not completely but to make a rough assessment. Here's what I took away from the 10 possessions we had and why they failed.

1. The first possession had lots of quick passes and runs off tackle (just as folks said they wanted). The drive stalled when a couple of short runs, the last by Jalen, came up a yard short and Saban elected not to go for 4th and 1. Punt. (Reason stalled: stuffed run).

2. Second possession ended when Jonah William's clipping lead to 1st and 25. Hurts made a bad decision (I think) and ended up losing two more. On 2nd and 27 he fumbled. (Penalty and Turnover)

3. The third possession started with bad field position, and ended with a Jalen driven from the pocket and throwing OB under duress from bad pass protection. (Pass Pro)

4. Fourth, ended with Jeudy's touchdown catch.

5. Fifth, started with very bad field position, Bo ran twice and on 3rd and 4 Jalen lofted up a pass which Ridley made a play on. He didn't bring in a makeable but not easy catch. (dropped pass)

6. The second half began with the dominant, 5 play 79 yard drive mostly runs off tackle. Bama 14 - AU 10, and I think we were all feeling okay at this moment.

As you know, we didn't score again in the second half.

7. The seventh drive was a three and out. Run for 5, Run for 0, Pass to Bo on 3rd and 5, he got 4 due to a good tackle. punt. Note: it's hard to blame the play calls as we had just had success running in the previous drive. The key was second down, but it was an off tackle run. It's not like we went away from it while it was working. They just stopped it. (Credit AU tackling well)

8. The eighth drive started with great field position due to the return by Diggs. Started with a false start, but first down on a long pass to Ridley, DPI called. Two runs by JJ lead to another first down. An incomplete pass and then a screen to JJ for 6 lead to 3rd and 4. Delay of Game penalty made it 3rd and 9! HUrts is run out of the pocket and this is the ugly throw back across his body, tipped in the endzone almost reeled in by Hentges. Then a muffed field goal attempt. (Blame the Penalty)

9. The ninth drive was going fine, we came to a 3rd and 4. THis is where the two crazy snaps lead to 4th and 9. But the weird penalty on AU brought it back to 4th and 4. Jalen completed the pass to Foster who simply failed to lean forward. Turnover on downs. (Bad snaps)

Additional note: The next AU drive would have been stopped with over 7 minutes left but there was an off sides by 34 on the punt team. Aub killed two more minutes and the next drive started with bad field position.

10. So, tenth, we had to move quickly but Hurts did more damage with his legs. He was flushed from the pocket too quickly with only a 4 man rush. Interestingly, Jonah wasn't much more reliable than Womack. But then the next play JH has time and finds Ridley over the middle under some soft prevent coverage for 26 yards to the AU 30. Then terrible pass protection leads to a 2nd 10 (JJ catch and run back to the line). Then we have a false start by Womack. The next play is the sack of Jalen when he should have thrown it away. On 3rd and 22 Jalen threw to Ridley. Ridley was hooked by the CB and probably could have drawn a holding call. HOwever Jalen also missed wide open Jeudy for a touchdown. 4th and 22 was again weak pass protection and fell incomplete (wouldn't have mattered as Jalen threw over the LOS). (Bad OL play)

My Summary:
*2 drives were TD
*Give AU credit, they stopped us on 2 drives. Both ended with punts when we could have gone for 4th and 1.
*Errors like penalties, turnovers, muffed snaps, lead to 3 failed drives.
*You can pin 2 fails on the OL pass pro breakdowns.
*1 drive failed on a dropped pass

Observations:
*We had some bad field position except for one drive. That is due to not getting off the field on defensive 3rd downs.
*In my opinion the issue was NOT bad play calling. I can't find a single drive that I'd blame on bad play calling as the major reason the drive failed. This surprised me given the great animus being directed at Daboll, but to me it was just clear that drives failed for other reasons.
*Most of our problems arose from self-inflicted problems (penalties, turnovers, failing to reach the line to gain when it required a dive forward, muffed FG, bad snaps), and then credit Aub for some good tackling at a few moments. Again, I cannot blame Daboll for any of that.
*If you want to blame coaching, blame the mistakes and lack of focus, not the play calls. Noise was a factor -- in the delay of game and in the bad snaps.
*Those focusing on the offensive line play are closer to the truth than anything else. But AU's defensive line was their strongest unit and I feel like without the other errors, the OL would have played well enough. They were, however, in trouble once we were in all passing situations.
*Hurts missed a few opportunities but in general he played well. However, a drive stifling delay of game and a fumble were on him.
*Our problem was not that too much of the offense went through Jalen, but that we kept putting ourselves in terrible positions, and didn't really give JH a clean pocket frequently enough to save our bacon, especially near the end of the game.
*We screw up one field goal, then decided not to try another because we were then too far behind for it to be useful. But if we had made the first field goal, then we would have tried the second field goal, and in making that we would have been down only one score with plenty of time left. Can't ignore the failed field goals again played a role in a loss at Jordan Hare.

Maybe now I can sleep.

The second drive shouldn't have ended with the fumble. It should have kept going with, at the very least, a first down for a personal foul. And at most kept going with a personal foul and an au player ejected.

 

[LA4Bama]

The second drive shouldn't have ended with the fumble. It should have kept going with, at the very least, a first down for a personal foul. And at most kept going with a personal foul and an au player ejected.

I agree. I was specifically looking at our offensive plays and why drives stalled. I didn't consider things like non-calls since those are out of our control.

 

[Tidewater]

Four national championships. Does your life depend on beating Auburn? Pathetic.

Not at all. There is just a contrast between 11-0 against Tennessee.
9-2 against Ole Miss
10-1 against Miss State (first year loss).
9-3 against LSU (and that included some very good LSU teams; one national champ and one who played for a national championship.)
Now contrast that with 7-4 against Auburn. Against Auburn teams with 9 wins: 0-4 (0-7 including his tenure at LSU). 0-7. The Auburn teams Coach Saban has defeated (including the LSU years) were 62-52. In other words, Coach Saban can beat mediocre/bad Auburn teams and is 0-7 against good (9+ wins) Auburn teams. It is just weirdly out of character with the rest of his coaching success. I do not know why, but it is remarkable.

Coming when it does in the season (last game of the regular season), losing to Auburn means not playing for a national championship and frequently means not playing for an SEC championship. You can lose to Ole Miss and even LSU and still play for a national championship. Lose on the last game of the year and there simply is not enough season left to recover from that loss and somehow manage to play for an SEC championship and or a national championship.

So Auburn is not just a rivalry game. It is a rivalry game in which losing means not being able to compete for a national championship.

So to address your concern, my life is just fine (thanks for your concern), even when Alabama loses to Auburn. Alabama's football program, however, should be aiming for competing for national championships and losing to Auburn in late November renders that impossible.

 

[TideEngineer08]

So to address your concern, my life is just fine (thanks for your concern), even when Alabama loses to Auburn. Alabama's football program, however, should be aiming for competing for national championships and losing to Auburn in late November renders that impossible.

It remains to be seen whether or not it renders it impossible this year. But I share your frustration. No doubt it is a trend. It's weird that it has occurred across two different programs. LSU and Auburn had a nice little rivalry going back then, though.

I say part of the problem while at Alabama is that Auburn has just so happened to have 2 of it's really good teams in odd years, when they have the home game. That has made a HUGE difference. I guarantee you if the 2013/2017 games had been at Bryant-Denny we would have seen a different outcome. Yes, point to 2010, but they were clearly the better team that year. We fought them off their feet for a half, but just didn't have the depth to finish the game.

 

[drwho]

Coming when it does in the season (last game of the regular season), losing to Auburn means not playing for a national championship and frequently means not playing for an SEC championship. You can lose to Ole Miss and even LSU and still play for a national championship. Lose on the last game of the year and there simply is not enough season left to recover from that loss and somehow manage to play for an SEC championship and or a national championship.

So Auburn is not just a rivalry game. It is a rivalry game in which losing means not being able to compete for a national championship.

So it is, essentially, the first playoff game?

 

[BamaMoon]

I've been saying for years, playing Auburn is not the problem. IT'S WHEN WE PLAY AUBURN THAT IS THE PROBLEM.

The timing of the game, for both teams, is bad, but especially for us since we are more often in a title chase.

I agree they are an OBSTACLE to our NC pursuits, but the problem is we are an OBSESSION to them and that's why we always seem to be flatter than they are.

I really wish we could start playing them around the end of September every year. I think it would be to our advantage, but I realize it would require them agreeing to this and scrambling the whole SEC schedule.

 

[Saban4Ever]

It remains to be seen whether or not it renders it impossible this year. But I share your frustration. No doubt it is a trend. It's weird that it has occurred across two different programs. LSU and Auburn had a nice little rivalry going back then, though.

I say part of the problem while at Alabama is that Auburn has just so happened to have 2 of it's really good teams in odd years, when they have the home game. That has made a HUGE difference. I guarantee you if the 2013/2017 games had been at Bryant-Denny we would have seen a different outcome. Yes, point to 2010, but they were clearly the better team that year. We fought them off their feet for a half, but just didn't have the depth to finish the game.

I wish we'd play Auburn at the beginning of season, maybe the 2nd or 3rd game.

Also, I think if this year's game would have been at home, we would have had at least 10 more points. (the botched field goal 3 points, and less penalties/no bad snaps leading to more 1st downs and a TD). Not sure if we would have scored more points to win, but it would have been closer. The score would look better for us and the committee if we'd lost by 2 or 3, not 12.

Credit to Jarrett Stidham and their gameplan though. I guess I am a bit jealous because our coaches and players did not adjust and execute like Auburn did. I read a stat saying Auburn only had 30 more yards on offense than we did. That's just crazy. They were more efficient than us.

 

[Tidewater]

So it is, essentially, the first playoff game?

Not necessarily, as TideEngineer08 has pointed out. This year could be the exception, but generally, lose the Iron Bowl, and lose and chance of playing for an SEC championship and therefore a national championship.

 

[KrAzY3]

Not necessarily, as TideEngineer08 has pointed out. This year could be the exception, but generally, lose the Iron Bowl, and lose and chance of playing for an SEC championship and therefore a national championship.

I kind of get your point, in theory one could argue that Alabama has to win a 4 game playoff every year now, which is pretty lousy in my opinion. But in the playoff era that to some degree changes things. You can lose late now and still get in.

 

[B1GTide]

I kind of get your point, in theory one could argue that Alabama has to win a 4 game playoff every year now, which is pretty lousy in my opinion. But in the playoff era that to some degree changes things. You can lose late now and still get in.

We are in the same boat with Michigan as our last game every year. It has cost us a couple of championships through the years, losing that last game when we were undefeated.

 

[BamaMoon]

We are in the same boat with Michigan as our last game every year. It has cost us a couple of championships through the years, losing that last game when we were undefeated.

There would be some advantage to playing these games earlier.

But in the vile rivalry that the IB is, after losing it the whole off season looms (with the exception of the post season) and the loser is often out of the running except for some bowl game.

Playing earlier would help both fan bases (winner and loser) move on because there's still 2/3 of the regular season left to play.

 

[TIDE-HSV]

Not necessarily, as TideEngineer08 has pointed out. This year could be the exception, but generally, lose the Iron Bowl, and lose and chance of playing for an SEC championship and therefore a national championship.

This is particularly true in the face of the very real Bama fatigue on the part of the whole country and probably the committee. Call me paranoid, but I believe the committee intends to keep us out, if we give them something to hang their hats on...

 

[JustinT256]

THIS. Gheez.

 

[Nolan]

This is particularly true in the face of the very real Bama fatigue on the part of the whole country and probably the committee. Call me paranoid, but I believe the committee intends to keep us out, if we give them something to hang their hats on...

You're paranoid, Earle. :wink:

 

[Tidewater]

You're paranoid, Earle. :wink:

 

[CrimsonForce]

Quote deleted.

Alabama is the strongest program to pull viewership. Why would ESPN, amidst all the turmoil of losing subscribers and ad revenue, want something that would cause them to generate even less revenue?

 

[RTR91]

Heard Cecil on the radio a few minutes ago. He said he felt Auburn deserved to win the game but continued by saying he believes the botched FG was pretty much the turning point in the game.

Although Auburn was up 20-14, Alabama had the great kick return and had gotten the ball to the Auburn 12. Then, we have a delay of game on 3rd and 4 followed by the horrible pass across the field that was almost a tip drill TD for Hentges. He mentioned how the game might have been different if Alabama is able to score a TD to go up 21-20. Instead, the game was pretty much sealed with the botched snap.

When asked about fans wanting more running plays, he admitted he is always in favor of running the ball more but also the defense can dictate those things as well. He ended his answer by saying he would have loved to see us run the ball on the opening drive when we had 4th and 1 at the Auburn 48. "But by punting, that showed Nick Saban didn't feel they could dominate the LOS and get a first down."

 

[CrimsonForce]

Heard Cecil on the radio a few minutes ago. He said he felt Auburn deserved to win the game but continued by saying he believes the botched FG was pretty much the turning point in the game.

Although Auburn was up 20-14, Alabama had the great kick return and had gotten the ball to the Auburn 12. Then, we have a delay of game on 3rd and 4 followed by the horrible pass across the field that was almost a tip drill TD for Hentges. He mentioned how the game might have been different if Alabama is able to score a TD to go up 21-20. Instead, the game was pretty much sealed with the botched snap.

When asked about fans wanting more running plays, he admitted he is always in favor of running the ball more but also the defense can dictate those things as well. He ended his answer by saying he would have loved to see us run the ball on the opening drive when we had 4th and 1 at the Auburn 48. "But by punting, that showed Nick Saban didn't feel they could dominate the LOS and get a first down."

I was screaming the same thing as this was happening. I said you have to go for it. Even though it was the first drive of the game everyone knew that our defense would not be able to play at a high level for 60 minutes. That was such a soft move to punt there..