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Bama News
With trounce of TAMU, Alabama football steadily improving with next real test against LSU
Alabama had no trouble putting away Texas A&M. Tennessee is next but no real test.
www.montgomeryadvertiser.com
One of my favorite things to do after an Alabama football victory is to read the sports sections of local papers and sports blogs of their opponents.
For instance, the Austin American-Statesman talked mostly about Tua Tagovailoa throwing darts and the soul-crushing play of Alabama’s special teams, for which Texas A&M had no answer. They summed it up as follows, "It’s all why top-ranked Alabama left Kyle Field with a 47-28 victory over the Aggies. Most of the record crowd of 106,749 had left before the Aggies scored with 8 minutes, 48 seconds to play in the game to cut the Alabama lead to 19. The score was misleading because the contest wasn’t that close.”
Doesn’t that just warm your heart? The Aggiesports.com headline was “Aggies' best game of the season was not enough to take down the No. 1-ranked Crimson Tide” What game were they watching? Texas A&M head coach, Jimbo Fisher summed it up more succinctly saying “The field position game, they kept winning it.” He was so right as the Alabama special teams had a career day giving the Tide’s offense an average starting position on the A&M 47-yard line, unlike the Aggies, whose average starting position was their own 22.
The Alabama offense gained 448 yards of total offense, setting a new school record for 400-plus total yards per game. They had 25 first downs, 30:56 time of possession and produced 40 points. The Tide defense, steadily improving, had seven tackles for loss (five sacks), forced and recovered a fumble, broke up 10 passes and blocked a punt for a score. All of Alabama’s eight scoring drives, except for the first one, started outside the Tide 40-yard line and their first three TD plays occurred on third-and-long situations. The Tide were 8 of 13 on third down for a 61.5% conversion rate. Not bad in such a hostile atmosphere.
All of this was set up by the punt and kickoff returns of Jaylen Waddle and Henry Ruggs III who combined for 311 yards and averaged 30.4 and 31.8, respectively. Waddle had four punt returns for 128 yards, the third most in Tide history, and all four of the returns resulted in Bama touchdowns. For this superb effort, Waddle earned the SEC special teams player of the week. He also leads the nation in punt return yardage, averaging 22.3 yards per return. Ruggs was upset when tackled in the open field by the A&M kicker that looked, for sure, like he was going to the house. Ruggs said “for me to get tackled by the kicker, that’s unacceptable!” I bet he got teased about it in the locker room after the game. On the flip side, TAMU had only 25 total return yards all day.
The game started in a completelydifferent manner with Texas A&M receiving the opening kickoff and grinding out a 15 play, eight-minute drive for an early 7-0 lead before Alabama ever touched the ball. This was the first time A&M had scored a touchdown on an opening drive this season. Was this going to be an early spooky Halloween game for the Tide? One might think that after watching South Carolina upset Georgia earlier in the day. The opening Aggie drive was a bad omen-ball possession which kept the Alabama explosive offense on the sidelines. That formula is every opponent’s strategy against the Crimson Tide offensive juggernaut. However, on the ensuing kickoff, the Tide went on a 10 play, 73-yard drive of their own to tie the score at seven apiece. Waddle made a spectacular jitterbug run after a short pass from Tagovailoa, and the rout was on squashing out any voodoo-like occurrence in College Station on this Saturday. Alabama’s unstoppable QB Tagovailoa had another great day with four touchdown passes but tossed his first interception of the season, so everyone can quit talking about that now. Tua passed AJ McCarron as Alabama’s all-time leader in touchdown passes with 81, all accomplished in just 22 games for the Hawaiian gunslinger. He is really a special player, almost generational, and unlike anyone we have ever seen in Tuscaloosa. I thought it was amusing that the NFL Miami Dolphins were holding up signs which said, “Tank for Tua”, anticipating the first pick in the 2020 draft.
The defense forced three straight three-and-outs, killing any Aggie momentum. The presence of Terrell Lewis seemed to bolster the entire defense, as he is a force against both the run and pass. He harassed A&M QB Kellen Mond all day and sacked him twice. Lewis summed up his thoughts on the Alabama defensive philosophy saying “We kinda basically, as a defense, wanted to nut up and come out there with the intensity that we need to make people earn it. We have to make people earn everything they get because that’s the Bama way of doing things.” I like the way he thinks, but the Tide defense had some fourth-quarter lapses allowing Mond to escape out of the pocket, and he passed for two late Aggie scores after the game was effectively over.
All in all, it was a dominating lopsided win against a top-25 ranked, division rival on the road, with the Tide covering the spread, and improving Nick Saban’s record against former coaches to 18-0. The 47-28 score didn’t reflect the overwhelming nature of the Bama victory, and the Houston Chronicle revised its 2019 A&M prediction downward to a 6-6 season from here on out.
So, the Tide are ranked No.1 in the country, and stands at 6-0 with only Tennessee and Arkansas before the big showdown with LSU on Nov. 9. It’s interesting to note that Alabama has been ranked No. 1 in the polls for at least one week in every year since 2008.
The Tennessee Volsuse to be a huge rivalry, second only to West Georgia U., but Tennessee hasn’t won in 12 years, since five of my six grandkids were born, so I would say the bloom is off the proverbial rival rose.
I hope to see you on the Quad this Saturday afternoon. As always, a big Roll Tide to you all. RTR!
