quote:
Alahunter
Grade your team
Offense
Defense
Special Teams

For Bama, I give:

Offense - A .. Ran the ball at will, looked good passing, good decisions by McCarron. Overall, very pleased.

Defense - A- .. Great run defense, pass defense was good, but spotty at times. Youngness in the DB's showed in a few plays. Milliner looked great, as did Lester.

Special Teams - C .. I'm not sure we could kick into the endzone from the 50 yd line. Foster nailed a nice 50+ yarder, and just missed another over 50. Punting was solid and coverage was overall, pretty decent.

Penalties - C .. First game, lots of new starters. Some were expected, maybe had more than they should have though. IMO, a couple were iffy personal fouls, when they were good hits. Nico's on Denard was one example. He didn't hit him in the head and his feet weren't even on the turf from the throw, but he was called for a personal. I expect this will show the biggest improvement moving on.

How do you grade your team?

1. Agree with you about the offense...A

2. A- for the defense. Too many lapses in pass coverage, any one of which can get us beat in two weeks.

3. Now I'm not sure which game you saw. Special teams...A. Who gives a crap about touchbacks with the new rules? On 8 kickoff returns, Michigan's average starting point was the 23.75 yard line, not counting a block in the back penalty. Two returns were to the 15 yard line or less. Only one was beyond the 30. I'll take those results over an automatic touchback and giving them the ball on the 25 any day. The risk-reward of stopping them inside the 20 as opposed to busting a long return is worth it.

I'll also take 50% of FGs beyond the 50.

As for punting...more than solid and coverage a helluva lot more than decent. 47 yard average on 4 punts, two inside the 20, with one downed on the 2. They only returned 1 punt for 3 yards. I'm not sure what more you would want from our punting game. And Jones averaged 14 yards per punt return.

Penalties...I'd agree with you there...C.

This post was edited on 9/2/12 at 12:25 pm