re: Clay Honeycutt is Answering Your Questions

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It was just a bad play, I don't know how it can be defended.

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This was a very well designed play by Bama and it was almost certainly audibled into vs the coverage switch. I'll break this play down but here it is in gif form to see it a little easier - I hate having to rewind

We showed a cover-2 shell with Jacobs covering Bell and Jenkins the slot. We ran very little cover-2 or cover-3 vs Bama this year but we almost always lined up and moved late to disguise. This is well into the game when Bama has seen we have brought people from multiple angles and played a ton of cover-0 (which I believe we moved to here but it's hard to tell with how quickly this play went off).

The gif starts after Jenkins shows blitz as he walks off the slot. Jacobs correctly maintains position outside the slot but our coverage is actually a switch with Jacobs taking the slot and Honeycutt the outside receiver (Bell). Neither is supposed to show that before the snap and the idea is to confuse the QB. Jenkins walked off a bit too soon though and it led to an audible to the bubble. Since we are switching coverage here, it's a very dangerous design if the corner doesn't have good recognition.

Unfortunately, this time Jacobs had what Snyder would call "bad eyes." On the snap he was focused entirely on his man (the slot). Despite starting outside him, he ran a circle to get inside without recognizing the bubble was on. He took himself completely out of the play and all but blocked himself. There is no way given our rolled coverage that Honeycutt can get over there. Jacobs doesn't have to make the tackle (it would be nice) but he has to has to has to, force Bell back inside for help.

Once he circled around inside the slot, that play was going to be huge. He was trying to jump a route rather than keeping his head up. Now Clay also needs to force Bell inside and he failed at that. He also oddly takes a step back on the snap showing poor recognition himself. If that step had been towards the LOS he gets to Bell before Bell hits that next gear and has a much greater chance to stop the play. So he certainly isn't blameless, but trying to hang that TD (or multiple TDs as you said because what he actually did apparently wasn't enough) solely on Honeycutt is simply ignorant. That play involved 3 major errors, not 1 (which is almost always the case on a big play).

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in this very small community, I know of at least one former player posting here btw

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Sup. How bout my holds on Sunday?

On this play - tmc94 is correct. Major Props... I actually thought the biggest screw up was Jenkins showing his hand way to early. But in the end...it was a comedy of errors and there were three of them made by three different players.

I'm guessing he's referring to himself.

That was a very lengthy explanation that doesn't refute my point at all. There were other mistakes on that play (as I mentioned) but Honeycutt's was the most fundamental and the one that resulted in the play being a TD instead of a modest gain. The fact that that particular TD happened to give Bama the lead which they never relinquished didn't help.

I don't have time to break down every play from Bama and Sam, perhaps that was his only play he was directly responsible for a TD as most of Bama's scores were from sustained drives. I do remember a play against Sam where he bit badly on a Zone Read and allowed his man to be wide open with no one within 15 yards of him and do a pitch and catch score. I recall another play (can't remember if it was Rice or Sam) where he had a straight up position on an RB and got juked (similar to the Bell TD) for a long score.

I don't hate the kid. I don't even think he is our worst defensive player from the Sam and Bama games (that would be Baggs imo). I just think he has a lot of flaws and the team has paid for them. Unfortunately as a Safety your flaws are more expensive.

More than that though, I just don't think he needs to go out asking for questions on the internet and taking cheap shots at fans who may have criticized his play. Or if he does I don't have much sympathy for him.

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and the one that resulted in the play being a TD instead of a modest gain

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Of course that's true. But if Jenkins doesn't tip the blitz, they don't audible into the play and it never happened. If Jacobs does his job, Bell is funneled back inside and the play goes for virtually nothing. Each was a point of failure. I'm honestly not sure how you judge Honeycutt's error as more egregious than the others. It's irrational

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I don't have time to break down every play from Bama and Sam, perhaps that was his only play he was directly responsible for a TD

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Do you honestly think Mark Snyder sat in the film room and said, "Honeycutt was directly responsible for that TD?" Because I can assure you he did not. He broke it down just like I did. He's got many things to fix. Defense is about team. When one guy screws up you hope the next guy cleans it up. When you have multiple points of failure, you give up explosive plays. That's what happened here.

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I don't hate the kid.

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No matter how many times you say it isn't that you hate him, it certainly comes across that way because your pov seems entirely irrational which leads to this...

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More than that though, I just don't think he needs to go out asking for questions on the internet and taking cheap shots at fans who may have criticized his play.

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You keep coming back to this. He's a college kid. He's having fun. You take that as a cheapshot while everyone else in this thread laughed at it. Hell 99% of the questions were about girls and his hair. He wasn't arguing with people on Texags. He was fielding random inane questions on ask.fm (and it seems more than anything he was trolling for girls)

Life will make more sense when you quit taking everything a college kid says or does so seriously. I think we're about the same age but you really come across like a stiff old guy, not a young cool cat like myself. They still say that, right?