re: Calvin Ridley: Disparity in catches created an awkward setting in Alabama WR room

Ya'll missed the point. I did read the article.. I just felt like it painted whole different side of the story... That's all.

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jryanw

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I disagree


Of course you do

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I don't think its a big stretch at all to say that Hurts would have success in a Malzahn offense.

If I were a DC vs Hurts, I would stack the box and go after the QB until he shows me he can throw down field. I hard to run all that short stuff if the defense doesn't have to respect a down field threat.
But, the barn's QB made some very good plays on us.

I remember someone link Ridley's live video from IG or Snapchat from right after the UGA game. He was going around the locker room celebrating with everyone. Forgot which player he was talking to but I'll never forget him saying "Man..Tua's been doing that since Day 1!"

No doubt the frustration levels were high among the WR corps and the rest of the offense knowing what they had sitting on the bench while Hurts struggled to get the ball downfield all year.

Bama was never able to get to the Barn QB...time and time again and Stidham made plays in he passing game over and over and actually hurt us running several times.

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quote:No doubt the frustration levels were high among the WR corps and the rest of the offense knowing what they had sitting on the bench while Hurts struggled to get the ball downfield all year. For sure. On a couple of boards I frequent, posters gave hell to Ridley for showing his frustration but gave Hurts a pass, making excuse after excuse why it wasn't his fault.

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on this board for the most part for example, it was always Jalen's fault. If a WR dropped a catchable ball, they would hit Jalen with the shitty pass label. There was almost 0 accountability for the WR. Tua threw several shite passes in the natty that were caught. Had they been dropped, the WR would have been flogged not Tua, the double standard. It comes from people who have never been held accountable in their life. Jalen made plenty of bad plays but some of them weren't all on him either. Same for Tua.

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on this board for the most part for example, it was always Jalen's fault. If a WR dropped a catchable ball, they would hit Jalen with the shitty pass label. There was almost 0 accountability for the WR. Tua threw several shite passes in the natty that were caught. Had they been dropped, the WR would have been flogged not Tua, the double standard. It comes from people who have never been held accountable in their life. Jalen made plenty of bad plays but some of them weren't all on him either. Same for Tua.

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Personally, I completely admit that I have been much more critical of Hurts than the receivers. To be fair, I think my criticism has been more high level than granular and play by play. I wouldn't call this years receiving crew problematic. Drops? Sure. Bad routes? absolutely. Attitude issues at time? you bet. But all in all, they were a very competent unit, also very underutilized.

I'm not going to speak for anyone else; but a lot of my frustrations with Hurts performance isn't about the things he did, but about the things he didn't do. It's not making a bad play, those happen, but more about not taking advantage of opportunities.

Hurts had a hard time finding receivers when the were open, and making reads fast and on time. It became obvious that the receiving core, despite their faults, weren't going to be given the opportunity to flourish and work out their issues with Hurts as QB. No. 2 receiver with 14 receptions, that's hardly enough data to really judge how good or bad they could actually be. So yes, their faults are more diminished in my eyes. Is that fair to Jalen? Probably not.

That's also where the disparity is with Tua. Tua will make some shite plays, no doubt we've all seen that, but at least he is willing and able to use the full spectrum of play-makers on the roster and confidently pull the trigger. Tua, albeit in a small sample, has shown that he is willing to take a shot when the opportunity is there.

I don't think it's people having a flawed understanding of accountability. It's having a an understanding that you can only be so accountable when your contribution to the big picture issue is small, relatively speaking. Are a handful of drops and an attitude flare up bigger than the QB only able to connect with his #2,3 and 4 less than 3 times a game on average? I think that's why you see Jalen get shite on so much; he had the ball a lot and the receivers in question didn't. It's unfair, but it comes down to sample size.

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Hurts had a hard time finding receivers when the were open, and making reads fast and on time.

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This became the biggest issue by far. It even reached the point that he was making the wrong reads on running option plays. Not RPO's, standard running plays where you basically only read the DE and the LBers.

I think part of it is on Saban, he hammered "no turnovers" into Hurts so hard, that he caused him to regress as a QB. He was terrified to pull the trigger because he didn't want to be the cause of TO.

He also became too obvious in his tendencies, like ALWAYS scrambling to his right. No matter what, he always does it. I honestly think it's why Tua managed to escape, after the missed tackle of course, in the NC on the 3rd and long. The entire defense had "QB scrambles to our left" imprinted in their brains, and they had all gone in that direction, leaving a huge backside gap for Tua to run through.

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Personally, I completely admit that I have been much more critical of Hurts than the receivers. To be fair, I think my criticism has been more high level than granular and play by play. I wouldn't call this years receiving crew problematic. Drops? Sure. Bad routes? absolutely. Attitude issues at time? you bet. But all in all, they were a very competent unit, also very underutilized.

I'm not going to speak for anyone else; but a lot of my frustrations with Hurts performance isn't about the things he did, but about the things he didn't do. It's not making a bad play, those happen, but more about not taking advantage of opportunities.

Hurts had a hard time finding receivers when the were open, and making reads fast and on time. It became obvious that the receiving core, despite their faults, weren't going to be given the opportunity to flourish and work out their issues with Hurts as QB. No. 2 receiver with 14 receptions, that's hardly enough data to really judge how good or bad they could actually be. So yes, their faults are more diminished in my eyes. Is that fair to Jalen? Probably not.

That's also where the disparity is with Tua. Tua will make some shite plays, no doubt we've all seen that, but at least he is willing and able to use the full spectrum of play-makers on the roster and confidently pull the trigger. Tua, albeit in a small sample, has shown that he is willing to take a shot when the opportunity is there.

I don't think it's people having a flawed understanding of accountability. It's having a an understanding that you can only be so accountable when your contribution to the big picture issue is small, relatively speaking. Are a handful of drops and an attitude flare up bigger than the QB only able to connect with his #2,3 and 4 less than 3 times a game on average? I think that's why you see Jalen get shite on so much; he had the ball a lot and the receivers in question didn't. It's unfair, but it comes down to sample size.

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These are all good points. My biggest annoyance is that when Hurts did do well in 2016-17(and despite what many on here would have you to believe, he made plenty of great plays,) people would still bitch about him and give him zero credit. There were/are certain folks on here that would literally give you shite for supporting him when he did well.

I will also add that those same certain folks bitched and moaned their way through the 2017 NC season. Sad!

I'm going to voice a probably very unpopular opinion on here then: Saban needs to lighten up on the anti-gunslinger mentality. I get it, I really do. Turnovers lose football games. But so does a continuous stream of 3 and outs by the offense. And if Tua is careless with the ball and is making 3 TO's a game, by all means, bench his arse! But by the same token, don't handcuff the kid so that he can't play his game and make plays. He's going to make mistakes, all gunslingers do. The key is to use it as a teaching moment that you can't throw that ball in that tiny window...don't do it again. But the blanket statement, "don't turn it over...or else!" helps nobody. I agree that it's probably a huge reason Jalen regressed: fear of the TO. All I'm saying is let Tua play, let him make some mistakes, but don't shut him down. Our defense is usually good enough to bail us out if the O does screw up. If you handcuff him, you are crippling the offense.