🏈 Bama open as a 14.5 to beat Texas A&M

[BigAl]

I agree with all you guys i think somebody must be on drugs. I dont understand that at all.

 

[the Bookie]

We're opening at BAMA -11.5 (-500.) I suspect this will move a little more with people taking A&M to cover; not much more.

http://www.rolltidebama.com/forum/index.php?sportsbook/texas-a-m-vs-alabama.97/

 

[Rolltide24]

As of today, I'll take the points, even the 11.5. A&M is struggling, no doubt, but Hill is still putting up big numbers. The main thing killing their offense is turnovers. As you know, we're not doing so good at causing turnovers (but I'm sure thankful for those 2 against Arky). There's potential for Hill to light up our secondary, but it doesn't mean he will. It doesn't help us that they don't have a big run offense, but I do see us getting decent pressure on Hill. I want to say we'll end out fumble and special teams woes but we sure are NOT trending that way. I think we win, but in a tight one.

Is Bobby Williams still on the coaching staff as of Tuesday morning? Hard to believe if he's not at least on watch given our S/T woes. I know I'd be fired for oversight of an area at work if results were anywhere similar to that...

 

[planomateo]

Saban mentioned in the presser the S/T woes were due to execution, so infer what you will from that with regards to coaching changes.

 

[Rolltide24]

I agree with him, to a point. A lot is execution, but it's not a one-off thing. It continues to happen, and may be getting worse. But heck, the Target card breach could be called a lack of execution of company information security practicves/policies, but the CEO had little choice but to hit the road. If my teams at work don't get their engagements and projects completed timely and on budget, etc... then I'll lose my job. Even if I've given them the tools, training, and expertise to do the job. There comes a point when continued lack of execution costs folks their jobs, whether it was their lack of execution or not. It was their responsibility.

My question is, why do we keep putting the same guys out there when they continue to not execute as they were coached to do. I would like to know if there is another team that has fumbled more kick-offs/punts than us this year. We keep going back to the Jones. Do we not have another stud from all these top recruiting classes that can field a punt? I don't know where to find this while including fumbles each team has recovered of their own. I bet we're near the bottom, if not the bottom. Also, we seem to let a large number of punts bounce, which was true of the 2 first half muffed punts... Go back and watch the tapes and you'll see we don't field many punts. This has cost us a lot of yardage for starting field position. Maybe this is the best strategy with Jones back there but it's a terrible strategy for a team. Are we backing up too far adn respecting punters' legs too much or what? It was a big problem in the Ole Miss game. The ones we don't catch are a lot more than just the punts that hit inside the 10. I'll do like the rest of the fans and hope it gets better, but at my job, hope isn't a strategy. I hope Williams is on it and will finally be able to affect the way our kids execute...

Ironically, special teams have won 2 games for us. A bunch of field goals were the difference in the WVA game and we needed the blocked extra point to beat Arky. So I'll give our special teams credit for that. I'm guilty of looking at the role they played in the Ole Miss game and Arky game more than the good they have done. But we expect the best from all three phases of our teams and that area is obviously not giving their best. On the bright side, our punter could win the Ray Guy award. I thought after the first couple of games that he may not have anough attempts to qualify, but that has corrected itself... Scott is incredible. Griffith though, 1 of his last 5 FG's, not so incredible...

Saban mentioned in the presser the S/T woes were due to execution, so infer what you will from that with regards to coaching changes.

 

[planomateo]

Here is what Saban said in is presser with regards to special teams play.

Keeping in mind these are teachable moments, if the guys continue making the same mistakes over and over, I don't think they'll be put into the same position. If they were, that would mean Saban/Williams are insane (doing the same thing over and over expecting different results)

I said we have to play smarter. That applies to a lot of people, but when that comes to judgements, we have to play smarter. We’ve had these same people in these positions before and they have not made these choices and decisions. Same coaching. Same (practice) time on special teams. Same everything. So what creates that? I’m not sure. I think we might have some guys on our team that play with too much anxiety. They need to relax and compete. That’s what I enjoyed about in how we played in the Arkansas game, especially in the second half. Guys just played with a lot of heart and they competed. They made mistakes, but they played hard and if we can get that out of our players, we’re going to have a much better chance of being able to fix the problems that we have and be able to compete in the games like we need to to have a chance to be successful.

 

[riz]

Saban mentioned in the presser the S/T woes were due to execution, so infer what you will from that with regards to coaching changes.

He executed Bobby Williams?

 

[UAgrad93]

Taking CNS comments, it is true. You can see that some of these guys are wound up tighter than a top and you couldn't drive a tenpenny nail up their butt if you tried. They need to relax and compete and stop worrying about screwing up. They are thinking too much. I think Christion Jones is trying to hard to make that "big play" that he is getting careless.

 

[TerryP]

@Rolltide24 there were personnel changes last week...

 

[JoshB]

Gotta love the pessimism.

 

[TerryP]

Gotta love the pessimism.

Perspective.

So many people look at the same football game in so many different ways.

Thread coming about whats good this year...one where pole smoking is called out. Look for your input.

 

[JoshB]

pole smoking @TerryP :shock:

 

[bamatommy]

He executed Bobby Williams?

:rolf:

 

[Rolltide24]

You might call it pessimism, I call it reality. We fumbled 4 punts in one game. My goal wasn't pessimism, it was to seek out why we started the game with Ch. Jones returning punts. I saw him back there and told my brother, "here we go again". And here we went again... We did change punt returners after that, it was one punt too late.

I won't talk about special teams any more. And if you read my post, I mentioned a lot of the good things we've done on special teams during these last couple games (punting and blocked E/P, Griffith's early season FG's). That was good play.

Gotta love the pessimism.

 

[TheChief]

@Rolltide24 I think you're spot on. Any time you point out a weakness that Alabama has there are people on this board that immediately attack. I've been called names and shouted down continually. Then, what usually happens is you're proven right. At that point no one says a word and goes on about their business like they knew what was going to happen all along. Quite a few people on here want to think that Alabama does no wrong.

Go to the basketball board. It's the same way.

In your case I hope what happens is Saban will fix the problem.

 

[UAgrad93]

@Rolltide24 I had the very same thoughts run through my mind when I saw [HASHTAG]#22[/HASHTAG] back to field punts. After coaching HS ball for 13 years, I can understand from a coaches' perspective in wanting a senior back deep that is explosive and who has also had big returns in the past. Right now, CNS is Fredi Gonzalez and Christion has been Dan Uggla if you catch my drift? You try to be uplifting and encouraging but it is SO DAMN HARD when you keep getting the SAME RESULT the last 2-3 weeks!!

 

[JoshB]

Here's a cpl stats for some of you, especially a certain person who thinks hes "always proven right"...

- Greg McElroy first start (vs. Virginia Tech): 15-30, 230 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT (struggled early)
- next four games (vs. nobodies plus a horrible defense in Arkansas and horrible Kentucky): 58-89, 856 yards, 10 TD, 0 INT
- next three games (vs. Ole Miss, South Carolina, and Tennessee): 43-83, 359 yards, 0 TD, 2 INT (including the worst game of his career with just 92 yards and 2 INT against SC, so bad in fact that he was only in on one play on the last drive and that was just to pitch it to Mark Ingram for the final TD).
- final six games (vs. LSU, MSU, Chattanooga, Auburn, Florida, and Texas): 77-123, 1,063 yards, 8 TD, 1 INT (turned season around with big game against best defense he faced all year, LSU)

- Blake Sims first start (vs. West Virginia): 24-33, 250 yards, 0 TD, 1 INT (struggled at times)
- next three games (vs. nobodies and Florida): 46-64, 841 yards, 8 TD, 1 INT
- next two games (vs. Ole Miss & Arkansas): 30-52, 389 yards, 2 TD, 1 INT

So they both started off with up and down first games against Virginia teams, then had some big numbers against weak defenses, before struggling against tougher defenses. G-Mac bounced back and still won the games he struggled in. We dont know if Blake will bounce back but one thing that will be a big factor in figuring that out is the running game... in the games that G-Mac struggled in Alabama ran for 218 yards, 1 TD (Ingram 148 yards) against Ole Miss, 302 yards, 2 TD (Ingram: 248 yards, 2 TD) against SC, and 141 yards (Ingram: 99 yards) against Tennessee averaging well over 4 yards per carry in each game. Alabama has run for 168 yards, 1 TD (Yeldon: 123 yards) against Ole Miss with 3.8 yards per carry and a putrid 66 yards, 0 TD against Arkansas with 2.1 yards per carry...

 

[UAgrad93]

Good job @Birdman37! I'm glad you took the time to look those up. G Mac did put up some putrid numbers in that 09 season. How quickly we forget!!

 

[TerryP]

You might call it pessimism, I call it reality. We fumbled 4 punts in one game. My goal wasn't pessimism, it was to seek out why we started the game with Ch. Jones returning punts. I saw him back there and told my brother, "here we go again". And here we went again... We did change punt returners after that, it was one punt too late.

I won't talk about special teams any more. And if you read my post, I mentioned a lot of the good things we've done on special teams during these last couple games (punting and blocked E/P, Griffith's early season FG's). That was good play.

Your seeking an answer to a question that'll likely never be answered. Logic tells me that Christion isn't having ball security issues in practice.

I'm not sure where you're getting four fumbled punts in one game; we had two against Arkansas. Christion with the first and Cyrus with the second. It's important to note that it was Cyrus, not Christion, who fumbled the kick against Ole Miss.

You mentioned why haven't there been changes; there have been changes (with the same result in fumbles.) Considering Cyrus dropped the last kick he'd been ask to field it makes sense why they'd go back to Christion. These drops are concentration issues...issues that can and should be corrected by the player.

Those aren't the only changes we've had in the special teams units. As example, Foster and Ragland were added to the kick coverage unit this past weekend. If you recall, it was pointed out last week that Arkansas came in with one of the best kick return units in college football. Last Saturday, their best starting position was the 19 (second kick returned to the 15.)

 

[planomateo]

I haven't noticed, who took Drake's spot on special teams?