TIDAL WAVE - Chattanooga Edition
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What is there to say after the performance the Tide put in against the Mocs. Bama was dominant in every phase of the game. Here are a few thoughts:
Jalen Milroe was magnificent. There were very few missteps in his entire day. From the initial pass to Jermaine Burton to his final snap, he made the right reads and was cool and calculated in the pocket. Other than a couple of overthrows on really difficult occasions, he was flawless. Frankly, had he played this way all season, he would be neck and neck with Jayden Daniels for the Heisman.
The offensive line had one bobble giving up a sack. It was a rare breakdown in technique for a front 5 that has improved greatly in maintaining their fundamentals in the face of opposition.
The defense was stifling save a few really big breakdowns. The Mocs’ 10 points were mostly a result of 3 chunk plays. In all 3 instances, defenders fell prey to “eye candy” in the form of misdirection that caused them to over-pursue and over-commit. The most obvious was the bust by Caleb Downs on the long pass play that led to UTC’s field goal coming out of the half. No doubt those plays will get cleaned up this week since there are so few to focus on from the game tape.
Speaking of Caleb Downs, wow! Just wow! The athleticism he showed on the punt return for a TD combined with his intangibles tells us why Coach Saban said of him,
He’s a very instinctive football player, but this guy, there’s no arrogance about him, being one of the best players in the country at his position. He’s very focused, he’s very coachable. He wants to know everything that you can ever tell him about how he can play his position better. He takes coaching well when you talk to him about what he did or didn’t do. Wants to completely understand the whole defense not just what he’s supposed to do, so he knows exactly how he fits.
For a guy that’s a freshman, man, that’s really, really unusual. He’s bene a really, really solid player for us. He played really well, eh’s got a lot of production. I think he’s only going to get better and better.
Watching the game live, I commented to my son after Kool-Aid McKinstry fair caught the first punt of the day that he has a confidence problem. From our vantage point, he had 10-12 yards of wide open space in front of him. Kool-Aid is an amazing player, but he is not playing instinctively on punt returns. Mistakes in past games have him thinking instead of reacting and until he can get past them and return to the instinctual player of old, he’s more of a liability than an asset in that role.
Finally, IT’S IRON BOWL WEEK. The Tigers laid a huge egg on the Plains this week. As such, we should expect to get their best game, and we all know that strange things happen when the Tide head to the Native-American burial ground that is Jordan-Hare. Being the 10th Anniversary of the Kick-6, expect a belly full of reminiscing on the way to Saturday. Let’s hope the boys in white pay attention to none of it and lay down enough style points in the nations greatest rivalry game to force the committee acknowledge them!
