re: Auburn should be favored

Media - "No dominant team this year."

AP Poll Week 1-13
No.1 Alabama
No.2-25 Musical Chairs

His completion percentage while under pressure is not very good.

This didn’t really give me the warm & fuzzies
SEC Country AU-UA Breakdown

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Alabama’s offense ranks 36th in Passing Downs S&P+ and 69th in passing-downs success rate; Auburn’s defense ranks fifth and 11th, respectively.

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Hurts’ general pass progression has, on many occasion over the last two years, been as follows:

Look for Calvin Ridley.
Run.

Ridley has been targeted 78 times this season; he’s caught 52 of those passes for 858 yards and three scores. In Bama's last two games (a tight win over MSU and a laugher over Mercer), he has eight receptions for 274 yards; those were his first 100-yard games of the season.

It’s good to have a reliable No. 1 receiver, but if a defense can slow Ridley down, where might Hurts go with the ball? The next three top Bama targets (seniors Robert Foster and Cam Sims and freshman Jerry Jeudy) have combined for only 69 targets, 35 catches, and 545 yards.

Guys have had their moments. Jeudy had three catches for 48 yards against Tennessee but has zero since. Foster had a 52-yard reception against Colorado State. Freshman Henry Ruggs III has five touchdowns among his seven receptions. Freshman DeVonta Smith caught the game-winning score against MSU.

At some point, though, Bama might need a deputy receiver who can catch five, six, or seven passes in a given game. Who might that be?

Auburn’s done a mostly great job against No. 1 receivers this year. LSU’s D.J. Chark caught five of six balls for 150 yards, but he was the exception. Against seven other power conference opponents, the Tigers have allowed an average of seven targets, four catches, and 51 yards per game to No. 1 receivers. If that’s what Ridley ends up with, the Tigers would live with that

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This didn’t really give me the warm & fuzzies
SEC Country AU-UA Breakdown

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That is a lot of "ifs" and "mights."

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I agree that is our most valuable asset in this game.

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I know they are different teams and we have a different OC, but I can't help but shake how completely we dominated their defense last year. From the opening whistle we consistently churned up yards against them, and that was during the Jalen kind of falling apart throwing the ball stage, too.

Now, their offense stunk, so that had something to do with it........but it wasn't one of those the levee breaks late things. We had something like 260 yards of offense at halftime. We whipped their arse the entire game.

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I think the hidden matchup here that really favors us is Jalen's legs.

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But in the same article linked above, there is this...

Alabama’s offense ranks 103rd in Adjusted Sack Rate, and Auburn’s defense ranks eighth.

Hurts is one of the best rushing quarterbacks in FBS. He picks his spots well, he’s big enough to break weak tackles, and in two seasons as Alabama’s starter, he’s rushed 272 times (not including sacks) for 1,855 yards and 21 touchdowns. Under new coordinator Brian Daboll, he’s cut his rush frequency from 11.5 per game to 9.1, but he can still scoot.

The problem with a lot of good runners, however, is that they trust that their legs will bail them out of trouble, and they’re not always correct. While the national sack rate tends to hover around 5.5 percent, only one of the top 10 non-option rushing quarterbacks (Mississippi State’s Nick Fitzgerald) is under 5 percent. And of the 10, Hurts’ 9 percent sack rate is lower than that of only UNLV’s Armani Rogers (10 percent).
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I also think we have a "hidden matchup". One that can run and pass, but I don't expect he will play much, for whatever the reason.

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Auburn should be favored by Huddie Leadbetterquote:I think the hidden matchup here that really favors us is Jalen's legs. But in the same article linked above, there is this...

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Yea, that is part of it, but this is specific to the matchup with Auburn and the way they traditionally play. They don't play how LSU/A&M played. They generally attack up the field. They either have to change the way their DL approach things (difficult, to say the least) or Jalen will have lanes in front of him, because they do not like to and are not very good at playing zone in the back. LSU and A&M played the BEAR. They made it impossible for Jalen to run with their dome look in the first 7 yards, and when he tried it generally was stopped for very little. That strategy has to be coupled with your guys on the back-end playing 1-on-1 coverage.

Auburn does not play that way.

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I also think we have a "hidden matchup" that can run and pass but I don't expect he will play much, for whatever the reason.

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Oh for frick sake Huddie

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I also think we have a "hidden matchup" that can run and pass but I don't expect he will play much, for whatever the reason.



Oh for frick sake Huddie

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Huddie so you want Tua to have his first start against AU in the IB that decides the west?

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Oh for frick sake Huddie

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Listen, man. You have opinions, and you post them pretty often, and I don't generally freak out about them even though I may not agree with them. As strange as it may seem, I also have opinions and, likewise, you may not always agree with mine either. Get all offended about them it you want to. Doesn't matter to me.

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Listen, man. You have opinions, and you post them pretty often, and I don't generally freak out about them even though I may not agree with them. As strange as it may seem, I also have opinions and, likewise, you may not always agree with mine either. Get all offended about them it you want to. Doesn't matter to me.

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Nobody is offended (who the hell would get offended at that?). I'm just replying to the notion that a true freshman with zero game on the line experience who has looked talented but raw in his last 2 appearances against sub-par competition is the better option and hidden matchup in the biggest game of the year against a Top 5 defense on the road.