Alabama Offense : A tale of 2 Halves

As everyone knows we've struggled to put together 2 good halves of offensive football all year. On the flip side, we've yet to have 2 horrible halves of football this year (USF aside, which truly doesn't matter from this perspective due to the QB situation).

Keep in mind these stats are only offensive drives (any pts scored by defense aren't included) and do not include drives where we killed the clock to end the game (A&M last drive, Ole Miss last drive) or garbage time drives (last 2 drives vs State up 20 in the 4Q, every 2nd half drive vs MTSU after the 1st of the 3rd qtr).

Just to give an idea of how numbers compare, here are the Top 5, fringe Top 25 and bottom 5 in points per drive for the season nationally.

1. Michigan (4.42)
2. Oregon (4.11)
3. LSU (3.91)
4. Georgia (3.73)
5. Washington (3.62)

23. Maryland (2.77)
24. Memphis (2.72)
25. Louisville (2.71)
26. Ohio State (2.71)
27. Penn St (2.71)

129. Akron (1.11)
130. Indiana (1.07)
131. Charlotte (0.99)
132. East Carolina (0.89)
133. Kent state (0.89)




The 2.49 1st half PPD would rank #44 nationally (Texas St is #44 at 2.49).

The 2.97 2nd half PPD would rank right around #16 nationally (Mizzou is #16 at 2.96).




We average about 12 drives per game. Below are if you used our 1st half, 2nd half, and broke it out by caliber of defense played.

LSU is ranked #62 and is missing their most disruptive interior player (Wingo - #2 sacks, #4 TFL) and both cornerbacks. Against the 3 worst defenses we've played (2 of which are statistically better than LSU, one worse) we've come out and scored 20+ 1st half points. In 2 of them, the 2nd half was pretty quickly out of reach and hit garbage time in the 3rd or very early 4th. In the 3rd, the Arkansas game happened.

The offense has shown extended periods of very good play against good defense (3rd qtr Texas, 2nd half A&M, 2nd half Tennessee, 2nd half Ole Miss) but have also shown long stretches of rough (1st half Texas, 1st half Ole Miss, 1 half Tennessee, 2nd half Arkansas).