Takeaways from game one and my two, big questions...

Bama OL played really poor ( interior OL was miserable at times last year that was coached by the current OL coach--- coincidence?) Jalen didn't play well either regardless of the pressure....still tucks and runs too soon, only looks for Ridley with open receivers running open, ran timid, and doesn't seem to read the defense yet either. Daboll and the play calling was suspect too. Hello... They are going to load the box, blitz and spy on Jalen until he can prove he can read defenses, go thru his progressions and make better decisions. And oh by the way ... Daboll is not a true QB coach.... So Can he teach that? Can he make adjustments on the fly to help the offense? Wienke, Werner, Locksley, Daboll, Key, Pannunzio and Burns need to get it figured out soon.

The offense has a lot to prove.....hopefully They can because I doubt the defense is going to go on a scoring fest like last year.

Improvement starts this week!

3rd_and_long said:

I'm so with you on this. Everyone has raved about how good the defense was and don't get me wrong they are great. BUT we weren't getting the pressure with only 4 down lineman as we were accustomed to last year. It's still early and I think we will develop into a defense remnant of last year if we can stop losing linebackers.
I think so many were so focused on our offensive woes that we missed that we were having to blitz to get pressure on Francois.

Offensive line will improve. They might have to do a little juggling against inferior teams the next few weeks but King Saban will dial up the best possible solution. He usually does..


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I think most folks knew we were not going to get the same amount of pressure with just 4 guys as we did last year so that's why it's not a topic. Going back to when Saban arrived, the top three guys in career sacks are Allen, Williams and Anderson. just those three guys account for 22% of the TOTAL sacks bama registered in 10 years. It's doubtful we are able to completely replace that, especially since we had all those guys out there at once, meaning the opposing OL didn't really have good choice on who to double team.

I think the plan going into this year was that we would have to do things differently to get the pressures and that's why we saw so many guys working at so many spots. Hootie, Minkah, Brown and harrison all worked at the money spot against FSU where they could be close enough to blitz, in fact minkah played like an LB for big parts of the game. minkah and tony split time at Star for the same reason. Before he got hurt, Evans played ILB and OLB in some alignments - I'd expect we see Wilson, Holcombe and maybe Moses play that same role since Saban mentioned they could. The staff has spent a lot of time making players more versatile this year. We have specific zone blitz alignments with 4 Lb's on the LOS and only two would rush, but the OL never knew which two where coming and which two would drop. Pruitt didn't just make all that stuff up on the fly during the game; it was planned and practiced knowing we would have to be a bit more creative (i.e. how Saban knows mack and holcombe can play OLB is that it's been planned to have packages with the traditional ILB move down to create a different look).

Net - I think we are going to see something pretty different from what we are used to from an Alabama defense. It'll still all start with the big guys doing their thing up front, just with a lot more flexibility behind them.

I don't think Francois is a first round draft pick. My guess is fourth or fifth round (maybe not even as a QB). I believe our OL will improve but not a significant amount. The play calling will be about the same going forward. The coaches recognize some limitations on offense and will continue to call safe plays. Our running game will carry us this year on offense. Our passing game will be good when the first option is open. The defense will win more games just like they did against FSU. JMO.

https://www.saturdaydownsouth.com/a...review-jalen-hurts-play-versus-florida-state/
https://www.rollbamaroll.com/2017/9...state-noles-handily-outpaced-tides-efficiency

Personally on the offensive line play , I look at it like this. We played probably the best defense we will see all year long in the first game of the season. I tend to cut them a little slack until we get farther into the season. I hoping for big things from them...RTR

We always seem to start slow and gel as the year goes on. We are 1-0 against a legit top 3 team. Saban won't allow talk like this but Bama won't be challenged again until LSU or Auburn. Both may likely have a loss or two by the time we play them. In years past, I've worried about A&M on the road but we have owned them since the shootout in 2013.

techster79 said:

We always seem to start slow and gel as the year goes on. We are 1-0 against a legit top 3 team. Saban won't allow talk like this but Bama won't be challenged again until LSU or Auburn. Both may likely have a loss or two by the time we play them. In years past, I've worried about A&M on the road but we have owned them since the shootout in 2013.

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We may not be challenged much until LSU and Auburn, but remember that Ole Miss and Mississippi State both have really good QB's that could give us fits. I don' know yet about the rest of their team (run backs, defense, etc) but Patterson and Fitzgerald are both legit.

The thing that bothered me most about Bama on offense, was the lack of checking at the line-of scrimmage. FSU stacked a LB, and Safety on the right side of Bama's OL several times during the game. Hurts either didn't see it, or was not able to check out of a play for other reasons. The play calling was not inspired by any stretch. Apparently Daboll has scrapped Kiffin's approach of "Check with me". It seems to be a major step back.

Hopefully the next three weeks will allow the offense to mesh, and the defense to heal up.