Alright, after letting my emotions calm down I am no longer sold on firing the DC. I think Sheridan is ultimately fine, the things he did this game which were annoying are things I've seen Kiffin and Sark do before where we try to line-up and just beat teams with talent. I think eventually everyone will realize you have to out work people if you want to win in this league consistently and that means the coaches and the players.
I think we're eventually going to land in the right direction and so far I believe DeBoer and his staff are the people for the jobs they inherited. I'll do a quick breakdown of how I feel on everyone so far. I think we need another year to let DeBoer and Courtney Morgan cook on the recruiting trail and also we are playing SO MANY True Freshman this year on offense and defense that speaks to the talent of the team. Our talent is lacking this year, people perceiving that we're some juggernaut talent level right now after losing 20+ players to the portal, some actual returning starters and some guys who were backups that would be starting now, is hard to overcome in 1 brief off-season. Now if we continue our recruiting run like we are, I like our position in year 2 and 3 as the Freshman mature and can adjust their game to the College level but right now, the majority of things happening are because we're having to sub in inexperienced players and let them try to learn on the job. Even the positions where we have older players, the talent level of those players is not up to standard that we're used to. I mean just look at the D-line we're fielding Seniors and Juniors that are making mistakes left and right and none of those guys are world beaters they look pretty average to me so far. I don't know if that's a development issue on the coaches side or the player's side, but it's something we desperately need help on.
Defense:
Safeties/DBs (Hitschler and Lingquist)
They've done a good job in fixing some of the issues with the old regimes of not turning your head and locating the ball which has paid dividends in some games. One thing I'd like to see them do is teach the young guys about keeping inside leverage and not letting them inside on those 3rd and medium plays where we keep getting beat on slants. Second, they just need the young guys to be more physical whether that is through coaching or experience playing the game. They are a step slow on defending in man coverage especially on the deep balls. That's something that will come with time and practice though. Safeties look good but need better eye discipline on deep balls, need to learn to be able to trust your gut and follow the QBs eyes.
Linebackers (Wommack)
I think the LBs are playing very well though the season so far. Are they playing like top LBs off the board? No, but they're definitely making some great plays if you watch the film. A few times they over-pursue or they miss their gap assignment but usually that's because a D-lineman messes u-p their gap control and they have to guess which gap to cover. I'd really like to see them playing DOWNHILL more, really the only problem I've seen throughout the games is waiting at times for the RB to decide then attacking him once he's through the D-line. Get up field, trust your teammates and hit him in the hole or in the backfield. That's something that we did really well for the 1st half of this game and the 1st half of Georgia, then inexplicably we stopped doing it in both 2nd halves.
OLB (Christian Robinson)
I think he's done a good job
Defensive Line (Roach)
Probably the most average unit on the team. The DBs might be the worst defensive unit because of their age but their ability and their talent lets them make some great plays in-between their screw ups. All offseason a lot of us had heard that the D-line was finally looking legit again and we'd be impressed with them. I just haven't seen it, some flashes from some of the younger players have helped but the older guys like Tim Smith, Lathan, and Keenan are just not up to par with what we would expect from an Alabama D-line. It's probably the only area that may warrant a change, but I don't know how you move on from Roach one year after he essentially helped hold together a large chunk of the team. I believe you gotta ride with him for another year or two and let him have more talent. What he's done with some of the younger crew has been promising, I think it's just a matter of time if we fill his cupboard back up he will be able to go back to developing some good D-line guys.
Offense:
WR (Shepard)
Honestly one of the bright spots IMO is the WR room, they seem smart, they aren't selfish and they are willing to help block for the run game and each other. I think similar to the D-line, we have a lot of upper classmen that are just average players and the younger guys are more talented but don't have the experience to take the top spot yet. I think Odom and Williams will be a great Duo next year and I'd look for Cunningham to shuffle into that mix as well. I think Bernard and Law have a future here if they want to stay, I don't think anyone outside of those guys is going to be kept unless they just want to stay. Shepard can really develop, I'd look for the jump from Year 1 to 2 for Odom and Jalen Hale returning will help that group have 5-6 good to great options IMO. I also think if we lose Law - Lotzier Brooks would fill that position perfectly and he's a underrated guy he's like Josh Jacobs, he's just so quiet and such a hard worker. He gets the job done, doesn't like flashiness and has incredible 5-star talent and work ethic for a highschooler. I think our WR class this year is special and I think last years was too.
TE (Bryan Ellis)
I think similar to the DL the talent level here is just not there. I think we've got a bunch of tweeners that we're just not sure what/who they are. It should be noted in CKD offense and Sheridan's offense the TE is usually featured quite a bit, the fact that these guys aren't featured as much in this offense and there's not 1 standout among them lends me to believe they're just not good enough to warrant consistent passes. They're very good in blocking though, which has been helpful. Outsz and Dippre have been solid on that aspect. I think Cueavas (Hope I spelled that right) is looking to slide into a full time spot next year and not sure if Lockwood or Lindsey will be in the rotation but we'll see next year. I think we need to give them some to develop talent here.
OL (Chris Kapilovic)
Honestly, great job this year compared to last year. Night and Day difference from the last 2 years where QBs have been consistently running for their lives. Left side of the line is very very good, Proctor had his worst game against UT, he got tricked twice where they overloaded the defense to that side and he got stuck with 2 defenders. That's on the QB and OC there, we need to check to a WR or TE to a hot route there to have an option if they come on the blitz. I think we all understand that RT is a bit of a sore spot this year but given another year to develop I think we're going to be just fine next year on the OL. I think Booker is gone but Roberts and Vandermark look very solid to take over those spots, Formby or Pritchett will establish themselves at the RT spot given another year. I tend to think Formby will have the edge given he's younger and will be able to put on some more muscle and he's got the smarts, just lacking some of the bulk Pritchett has. We shall see though. I think run blocking fits need to be better, but I also believe we need to stretch the field more so they aren't constantly putting 7-8 in the box on us and daring us to throw like teams have been for the last 2 weeks.
QB (Nick Sheridan)
I loved what I saw from Milroe in the first 4 games of the season maybe outside of USF where he struggled a bit. I think Milroe played confidently, was able to command the O-line and WRs and he's definitely been better at fixing pre-snap things this year. Unfortunately after the last two games, he's regressed to even worse than he was last year. Sheriadn has his work cutout for him of the next week or two, you gotta build him up and fix his confidence. I think it starts with some screens and letting him throw up some deep balls. He needs to stretch the defense, something we did not do this week. We completed 0 deep balls and rarely stretched the defense at all, side to side or vertically. That's a staple of this offense is to stretch both sidelines and the safeties away from run support and then we can really start finding running lanes with less guys crowding the LOS. Gotta fix Milroe seeing all these ghosts, having bad timing, not willing to run when he's got plenty of room in front of him, not wanting to throw the ball away on bad situations, and trying to play hero ball way too much.
RB (Robert Gillespie)
I think the RBs are talented and good, I think we're in good hands here but I feel some dread and worry that our RB room is about to be very young next year. They are great in pass protection and great on routes. I think some mistakes Haynes and Miller have made are not recognizing north and south vs east and west movement. They don't always do this, but sometimes they try to go east and west too much and don't just pick-up the yards we need for the 1st down. This happened twice against Vanderbilt and it definitely cost us some points in that game and I've seen it in a few other games in less critical situations. I think we're fine here though, even the young talent is exceptional...Daniel Hill and AK Dear will be a combo out of the backfield in the future IMO I also think Richard Young will be a good option sucks that he's injured this year but he wouldn't have seen a ton of playing time anyways.
ST (Jay Nunez)
I couldn't be less impressed with this unit so far. I mean, from top to bottom nothing about this unit screams good. Kicking has been average at best. Punting maybe the only bright spot on this unit because of Burnip and even that's not been stellar this year. Coverage on Kickoffs and Punts haven't been too bad but the return game on Kickoffs has been so abysmal and has almost cost us greatly in many tries. The punt returns are kinda meh and the blocking for returns has been pretty awful. I'm not sure how you fix this unless you start playing more starters on these units.
HC and Coordinators:
Head Coach (CKD)
Good start so far, I've got some particular things I'm unhappy with. I think he needs to go re-take a few courses on clock management in tough situations. This week we let the clock run to the 2 min timeout in the 4th when we looked to have been 1 yard short with 20+ seconds still left. The referees were content with not reviewing the play until we did that, we could've easily run up to the line and run a quick run over the 1st down and avoided that disaster 4th and 22 situation completely. I don't think the 4th and 22 call was a bad idea. I think it was unfortunate that it was 4th and 22 because of the penalty but I agree with it there. If you kick it away, even with 3 timeouts there was no guarantee that you get the ball back again and even if you did you'd likely be with less than 1 minute left and needing to drive the entire field and needing a TD. I think Milroe checked down to the hot route when they brought pressure and it was exactly what UT wanted. We probably should've had a trick play there like a quick hook and lateral or something because that was not going to be thrown deep they expressly blitzed to make sure we didn't have time there.
OC (Nick Sheridan)
Covered and touched on this earlier. I think he's done a stellar job in most games calling plays. Even in this game, despite a few drives where he got into that old Sark/Kiffin technique of just dialing up slow developing man beaters and letting our talent win. He still called some great plays and we had chances to win this game on offense easily. As much as Iamaleava missed shots down the field, Milroe himself missed a ton of easy over the middle throws that would've been big gainers. We also missed all the deep balls which is not normal for Milroe or the offense in general. I think the one thing I would change from Sheridan is that inside the 5 yard line with a 1st down we should probably stick to the run game more. We didn't need to throw THAT much from inside the five, especially on 1st down.
DC (Kane Wommack)
Alright, this is likely going to be me just rehashing things I've said before but we've GOT TO LEARN FROM OUR MISTAKES. We've been beaten by the same zone beater slant routes on 3rd and medium for 4 weeks now. Since Georgia we've been giving way too much coushin to the WR and we're not playing or willing to bump them off their timing routes. Please for the love of all that is holy, fix this, I'm baffled by how teams haven't been using this MORE to score against us. Truly a baffling situation there. Please learn to use blitzes in general, we're too content to drop back and let a sub-par defensive line struggle to pressure the QB. Especially against teams where their QB struggles against the blitz and pressure. Nico is probably going to beat you here and there with athleticism but if you let him sit back there like you let Beck earlier in the year, you are going to get carved up eventually. Better QBs will roast this team if we don't learn how to rattle them. Look at Milroe, he's incredible against pressure this year and the last two games he's been abysmal. He's a good QB but even good QBs get rattled when facing large blitzes and pressure. Their internal clocks go faster, they make hasty and sometimes bad decisions, and they tend to not read their routes correctly.
