The fact remains that a decent O can move the ball on AU. AU's D is good, but not like a few believe. On top of everything else Kevin Steele is their DC. Last year Bama put up 500 yards on their "terrific" defense. Their D is better this year, but Bama's O is much better this year. Not predicting anything, just stating what I think to be true.
Now that AU is proving to be good, I'm afraid that a few Bama fans are going to be spooked into losing sleep. It's just a football game and more to the point Bama has beaten AU 7 of 9, including 3 of 4 at J-H. Their two wins were by 2 of their 5 or 6 best teams of all time, ranked #2 and #4, one won a NC and the other played in the game, and it took multitudes of breaks and strange plays to pull it off.
Seriously. It's a good problem to have when you pretty much have a 3 score lead alkyl bought, and end up with a comfortable 2 score win. This is A&M, on a night of celebration for the school's history, with a coach coaching for his job. They are the second best team on a schedule, and should be undefeated until we got through with them. I did not sweat one bit all night. I just wanted to see how they dealt with adversity and I was really entertained with the outcome.
The defense made key stops when needed and the offense had a long scoring drive. A Long successful drive mixed with passing and rushing without Calvin Ridley. I personally feel like this was a strong outing for Jalen Hurts. If the receivers actually make plays as opposed to expecting the ball to fall in between the facemask as they run in for a touchdown, then everyone would be highly impressed with his down the field passes. For weeks we have seen receivers allow the ball to fall right next to them without even putting their hands out for it. Finding the ball in the air is a big part of ball skills, and Foster allowed the deep pass to fall next to him. I know Todd call out Jalen for not putting the ball directly on the open man, but he put the ball in the air right before Foster actually got open and that ball should have been caught whether he was open or not. He then goes on to drop a pass and then fumble. Not to mention the smart played by the Texas A&M Defender that was called pass interference instead of what should have been a touchdown pass. My inclination is that it would have been dropped too by the receiver.
I feel like they wanted to test the passing game a bit in 3rd quarter with the sizable lead. Due to the fumble it may have hurt them a little bit. I am personally in love with Brian Daboll as of now. I don't think it was a bad time to do it, though the running game, including Jalen, was what created the lead primarily.
Defensively they were strong all day long. When Texas A&M finally got some momentum after the fumble, it took two 4th down conversions and great plays to score the first touchdown ; and another magical series in order to score the second touchdown where the defense had the QB dead to rights for what was essentially a garbage touchdown.
This wasn't exactly a narrow win such as Tennessee 2009 or even 10-0 LSU 2016. This team has spoiled us a little bit, because I don't think there are too many weaknesses that you can truly point at. It's hard to win on the road in the SEC vs quality competition. Best of luck to Texas A&M the rest of the year.
excuse my rambling as I'm typing from my phone via voice text
