There is no way to sugarcoat what we witnessed yesterday. Georgia looked like a team that’s ready to compete for a national title, and Alabama looked like the team that lost to Oklahoma and barely survived Auburn. Ty Simpson put together a second consecutive abominable showing, managing barely more than 5 yards per completion with a critical interception on a ball that was late over the middle, a cardinal sin for quarterbacks. And, to be frank, many of those yards came after Georgia had the game
well in hand.
Just like the Florida State game, Ty was far from the “main problem” as we will highlight below. But, on a night when Alabama needed the quarterback to win a game, he just didn’t have what it took. There aren’t many bright spots to highlight, but let’s talk through a few impressions:
It’s tough to imagine an offensive line getting dominated any worse.
Alabama’s offensive line has been uneven this season. Running the ball has been a struggle all year, and the pass pro has had lapses while being solid overall. Against Georgia, this group looked FCS level in both phases. The interior of the line was particularly bad. Perhaps Parker Brailsford is still banged up, but he was whipped on a few occasions and we aren’t accustomed to seeing that. Geno VanDeMark, filling in for Kam Dewberry, looked like someone who has no business starting in the SEC.
As noted on the broadcast, Georgia was able to keep two safeties back and still shut down the run game. Daniel Hill and AK Dear got only seven carries total and managed a whopping 21 yards between them. With sacks, Alabama shows -3 yards rushing in the box score and are being rightfully trolled for it, particularly considering the committee’s previous comments about teams’ rushing effectiveness. After all, every team sitting at home rushed for more yards yesterday than Alabama did.
How embarrassing.
Special teams were an abject disaster.
Alabama’s special teams have come under plenty of scrutiny this season, and yesterday they contributed mightily to the outcome. I have no idea why Blake Doud took so long to kick the ball on the blocked punt, but that play turned out to be a bad omen. Kalen DeBoer said after the game that LT Overton is normally in the spot that allowed the free rusher.
Alabama also allowed a 24-yard punt return to set up a score, and Cole Adams inexplicably tried to catch a punt over his shoulder at his own 8-yard line. He was able to recover it, but Alabama was set up inside the 5 on what could have been a critical possession given the 21-7 deficit at the time. Perhaps Georgia would have downed it anyway, but you have to let that ball bounce and hope for the best.
Are Jam Miller and Josh Cuevas really that important to this offense?
Nobody who has watched Miller in action would deem him a legitimate difference maker with the ball in his hands, but it’s possible that he’s light years ahead of Hill and Dear in pass protection. Hill had at least one missed assignment that led to a sack. I didn’t notice any particular misses in pass pro from Dear, but there was the awkward looking miscommunication where he slid out to pass block while Simpson was holding the ball out as if he intended to hand it off. That was a pretty weak play from Simpson, by the way. On replay there sure looks to be some yards available had he turned it upfield rather than giving himself up for a big loss.
Tight ends can be a quarterback’s best friend, and it could well be that Ty has missed his security blanket these past two outings. DeBoer is politicking hard about injuries, insisting that Alabama will look completely different in a couple of weeks. If the Tide is selected for the playoffs, I guess we’ll find out.
You can’t ask much more from the defense.
Alabama’s offense was so pathetic that the defense didn’t have much of a chance. They started the game out in fine fashion, and didn’t allow points until the blocked punt. Alabama’s championship level defenses of yesteryear would likely have stood up in the red zone a bit more than what we saw yesterday, but in general the defense had a solid afternoon.
Georgia ran for 141 yards but took 41 totes to get them, only 3.4 per carry. Gunner Stockton had a very high completion percentage, but tried nothing down the field and ended with only 156 yards on 26 passes. Like Ty, the defense wasn’t the problem, but it also didn’t do much to make up for a struggling offense.
Kalen DeBoer still has plenty to prove.
There has been quite a bit of buzz around DeBoer’s choice to go for 4th and 2 deep in his own territory after the aforementioned Adams play, but I appreciate the aggressiveness there. He was concerned with trying to win the game, not impressing a committee.
That said, Kalen is going to have to answer for the fact that his team has underperformed too frequently, and for the second straight season seemed to trend in the wrong direction down the stretch. The Oklahoma loss this season could be chalked up to randomness, but the Auburn effort was lackluster and yesterday was simply unacceptable. Georgia is very good, but this team has too much talent to be uncompetitive against a team they beat on the road less than three months ago.
We’re now left to see what the committee does at 11am today. The oddsmakers, and CFP insider Heather Dinich, are pointing toward Alabama dropping one spot behind Notre Dame to grab the final at large bid, which would set up a likely trip to face Texas A&M at Kyle Field. Should the committee leave Alabama out, the SEC Championship Game wouldn’t be long for this world. That would be a feature and not a bug as far as I’m concerned, but I digress.
On the other hand, if Notre Dame and Alabama do grab the final two bids as projected, that means that the committee will be faced with a choice of ranking a five-loss Duke team that upset Virginia yesterday to win the ACC title, or leaving the ACC out of the playoff altogether. Many are calling for Alabama to fall out after getting blown out in favor of two-loss Miami, which would give the ACC a more reasonable entrant. That is certainly a defensible position. The reality is that nobody who is pushing for that last spot really deserves it, it’s just a matter of who the committee deems the least unworthy.
And if Alabama does make it, they’d better bring a lot more than what we saw yesterday or they’ll be utterly humiliated yet again.
Roll Tide.
