re: In the stretch between A&M and LSU we wanted to see 2 things

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Although he'd choke anyone out who suggested it,

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He would choke you to death, cremate the body, and cast the ashes into the depths of the ocean.

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I think Saban uses games he knows they're going to win as practices, more than any coach I've ever seen. He doesn't coach to beat teams as badly as possible. He coaches to be able to beat everyone down the road.

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He starts doing this the very second he thinks he has any game under control. His ability to not waste a single chance to work on improving the team is incredible.

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So his bad mishit went farther in the air than the other guy's 2 year average. Says a lot.

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Well I did say he's been better than who we had.

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Well I did say he's been better than who we had.

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I'm really curious where DeLong's 2018 and 2019 season averages for punting rank all-time at Alabama and generally in the SEC.

They have to be really close to the worst ever.

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I like it but do you have the corresponding stats for 40+ and 50+ yard plays produced by the offenses we have faced? They have all looked very unexplosive against Alabama and I'm just wondering if they are unexplosive in general or if Alabama's defense is actually proficient at limiting explosive plays this year.

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Good question - and I do agree. We haven't played a ton of explosive offenses. However, the fact that we haven't gotten burned deep or on a quick hitter run so far is pretty incredible. A lot of it has to do with our secondary.

SEC Ranks

30+ Yards Offensive Plays
4. Ole Miss
6. South Carolina
11. Tennessee
12. South Carolina
13. Texas A&M


40+ Yards Offensive Plays
4. Ole Miss
6. South Carolina
9. Arkansas
9. Tennessee
13. Texas A&M

Bearden averaged about 40 while playing with a torn ACL.

I’m looking forward to this game for two reasons.

1. LSU now has to gameplan for 2 QBs, and two different styles of play. Potentially means overloading their below-average (for them) defense.

2. Tendencies and deficiencies they may see on film of our defense could not exist by the time we play. Our defense is young, which means most of the errors are likely due to youth, and that’s something that lessens with each passing day obviously. A lot of our woes have been lack of understanding of assignments, and overrunning was he play. Both of those could be dramatically remedied after two weeks of prep.

Glad this game is at home, but this past week did a lot to ease any discomfort I had heading into this matchup.

Bring on L9U

Yea - it'll be interesting to watch. We will clearly force LSU to march down the field on 10 play type drives much like Auburn did. Your hope is that at some point during that stretch we cause havoc (sack, turnover, etc) to stop the drive, or bow up in the red zone.

Burrow is really damn good though - he'll gladly dink and dunk and move around the pocket and find open guys.

It's truly gonna be a really damn interesting game.

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My biggest concern with the LSU game is them getting tons of mismatches against our LB's in their passing game. I think our secondary guys can mostly hold their own against their receivers.

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Agreed - my two concerns are that and CEH popping runs outside.

I'm guessing we see a lot of Christian Harris + 5 DB sets, and try and bait them into running the ball (ala Belichik's Super Bowl vs Bills philosophy of hoping Thuman Thomas ran for 100+ yards), and I think we have quite a bit of confidence in guys like Battle and their ability to come up and tackle in addition to play in space.

It'll be a helluva chess match.

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I'm guessing we see a lot of Christian Harris + 5 DB sets, and try and bait them into running the ball

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Assuming we do that, who calls the defense? McKinney, if he walks down to the LOS? I don't think Harris has the experience yet.