re: Bama vs. Top 50 Opponents

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You keep saying that like it means something. He was behind the #2 and #12 overall picks

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Still doesn't mean Francois was a great QB. Fine, put him against the SEC QB's of last year.... which were NOT particularly a stellar group:

Francois would be 4th in Passing Yards/Game... behind Chad Kelly (OM), Drew Lock (MIZ), and Austin Allen (ARK)

Francois would be 5th in QB Rating... behind Dobbs (TN), Kelly (OM), Allen (ARK), and Sean White (AU).

Francois would be 6th in TD thrown per game... behind Kelly (OM), Dobbs (TN), Allen (ARK), Lock (MIZ), and Tevor Knight (A&M).

Francois would be 7th in Completion Percentage... behind White (AU), Dobbs (TN), Hurts (AL), Kelly (OM), Allen (ARK), and Danny Ettling (LSU).

So put him in the less-than-stellar SEC pack of QBs last season and he'd still be middle-of-the-pack... probably 5th or 6th. That does not make him a great QB.

Everyone is assuming that he'd automatically jump forward in his sophomore season and suddenly play incredible football. We don't know that it would have happened that way. For all we know he could have regressed this season. All we do know is that he was a semi-decent QB last season, who went down with an injury this season. His absence should not derail a team from Preseason Top 5 to a team with 2 wins at the start of November. And furthermore, FSU is not the only team in the history of college football to have a key player sidelined with an injury. It's part of the game. Sorry, FSU was never a Top 5 team. Not even close.

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Your stats and proposed methodology are fine. It's just that the data set is way too small to draw meaningful conclusions.

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I admitted it was a small sample that might easily be corrected after another game or so added to the mix (such as LSU this weekend). No one ever said that these stats were set in stone and bama was doomed. All I said is there were red flags worth paying attention to.

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About all you can say is that Alabama SOS has kind of sucked so far so we don't know how good Alabama is. I don't think you can make the conclusion that Alabama is better worse or same as last year based on the FSU and A&M games.

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Totally agree. We simply do not know.

But I do believe there are more red flags at this point in the season than any of the past Alabama teams going back to 2011. Those red flags might get corrected before someone is able to sneak up on Bama. We will have to wait and see.

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But I do believe there are more red flags at this point in the season than any of the past Alabama teams going back to 2011

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Going into LSU week since 2012...........

- The 2013 defense gave up 42 points to Johnny Manziel and Texas A&M.

- The 2014 team lost to Ole Miss on the road and then barely beat an Arkansas team that had lost 14 straight SEC games by 1 point the next week.

- The 2015 team lost at home to Ole Miss at home and wasn't even sure who their QB was 1/3 of the way through the season. They also trailed Arkansas 7-3 deep into the 3rd quarter at home and had to score late in the 4th quarter to beat Tennessee.

- The 2016 team gave up 43 on the road against a 5 win Ole Miss team and 30 on the road at Arkansas.



So, I'd argue the small snippets of offensive sluggishness in games that were not in doubt is not even in the top 4 or 5 of red flags Alabama teams have shown pre-LSU the last 5 years.

FSU gave up 40 to Boston College so yes they are bad were overrated.

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The 2012 team lost a home game to Texas A&M.

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That 2012 Texas A&M team was as good or better than any team in the country during the last half of the season. Losing a close game to Johnny Football in November of 2012 does NOT constitute as a red flag.

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The 2013 defense gave up 42 points to Johnny Manziel and Texas A&M.

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Again, that Texas A&M was not like this year's Texas A&M. It was a road game against a Heisman Trophy QB who put up gawdy offensive numbers all season long. Yes, Bama gave up a shocking number of points that day.... but A&M was still kept underneath their Scoring Average for the year. That team scored 40 or more points in 11 of their 13 games.

Was it a bad outing for the Bama D? Sure, but not necessarily a red flag.

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The 2014 team lost to Ole Miss and then beat an Arkansas team that had lost 14 straight SEC games by 1 point.

The 2015 team lost at home to Ole Miss and wasn't sure who their QB was 1/3 of the way through the season.

The 2016 team gave up 43 on the road against a 5 win Ole Miss team and 30 on the road at Arkansas.

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Those Ole Miss teams were built to give Bama trouble. They also had group of 1st teamers that were actually comparable in talent to Bama. Ole Miss had no depth though. And as injuries piled up each year, their teams collapsed down the stretch during the Freeze era. Bama always played Ole Miss at the worst time.

I'll give you the Arkansas game in 2014. That was indeed a head-scratcher that by all accounts at the time looked like a major red flag.

But guess what? Bama played Tennessee (7-6) closer than anyone probably thought they would... winning 34-20... They needed a last-second field goal and OT to escape a 5-loss LSU team... They hung on to beat Mississippi State by only 5 points... They trailed Auburn for a good portion of the game, finally pulling ahead in the 4th quarter and allowing Auburn 630 yards and 44 points.... and they were ultimately upset by Ohio State in the Playoff.

Bama was still a great team that year, but that squeaker against Arkansas probably was a red flag worth paying attention to.

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So, I'd argue the small snippets of offensive sluggishness in games that were not in doubt is not even in the top 4 or 5 of red flags Alabama teams have shown pre-LSU the last 5 years.

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I would say knowing now what we know about Florida State, the offensive stats Bama put out against FSU would rank as one of the Top 3 or 4 most shocking single game stats of the Saban era. And seeing how Texas A&M will in all likelihood finish 7-5 on the season, those stats aren't too far off.

In fact, if you look at the Football Study Hall S&P+ Grades for each individual Alabama game against FBS opponents since 2015 (as far as they go back), here is Alabama's worst individual Percentile Grades of the past 36 such games:

1. Texas A&M 2017- 68%
2. Ole Miss 2016- 71%
3. Texas A&M 2015- 76%
4. Florida State 2017- 79%

So two of the 4 worst individual grades for Bama games since 2015 were these two exact games... including the very worst.

As for the worst Offensive performances over the same time period:

1. Florida State 2017- 22%
2. LSU 2016- 38%
3. Arkansas 2015- 42%
4. Texas A&M 2017- 47%

Again, 2 of the worst 4 offensive performances for Bama since 2015 were these two games. ANd if you look, that Florida State percentile is unbelievably low compared to the next worst. Furthering my opinion that Bama's offensive stats against FSU this season were one of, if not the most, shockingly poor performances of the Saban era.

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Are losses red flags? Because Alabama already had losses by this point in the season in 2014 and 2015.

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Bama had also played half decent teams by this point in the season in 2014 and 2015.

Eye candy for "Y'all haven't played anybody".

I think you are right fwiw. Our offense annihilates the terrible teams like Vandy and Mississippi but FSU and Texas A&M are not good defenses yet they slowed the running game enough to limit our offense.

The elephant in the room that Bama fans don't want to see or talk about is that if you keep Hurts from running you pretty much shut him down. He can hit wide open receivers and short throws but he can't do much else. If Ridley is covered he takes off or holds the ball. Etling is a better passer.

LSU will load the box and sit on the short throws and force Hurts to win with his arm. He won't be able to. We are going to win because I doubt LSU scores a single point. We will probably win with a similar score to last year.

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I think you are right fwiw. Our offense annihilates the terrible teams like Vandy and Mississippi but FSU and Texas A&M are not good defenses yet they slowed the running game enough to limit our offense.

The elephant in the room that Bama fans don't want to see or talk about is that if you keep Hurts from running you pretty much shut him down. He can hit wide open receivers and short throws but he can't do much else. If Ridley is covered he takes off or holds the ball. Etling is a better passer.

LSU will load the box and sit on the short throws and force Hurts to win with his arm. He won't be able to. We are going to win because I doubt LSU scores a single point. We will probably win with a similar score to last year.

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I feel like we are similar to last year except with an offensive coordinator that is a little more committed to running the ball and running the RBs in particular. Defense seems as solid as always particularly now that they have regrouped from the 4 LB injuries from the FSU game.

I think much like last year the limitations of the passing game won't hurt us until we face a great team. However I'm hopeful that Daboll's commitment to the run will help protect the defense in a game like a Clemson game from last year. Kiffin bailed on the run game after Scarbrough went down in the NC game and it cost us dearly because Hurts could not win that with his arm. The quick three and outs left our defense out to dry (99 offensive plays by Clemson). I think Daboll will not abandon the run game. Plus I think we are working on a Tua emergency contingency plan with all of the snaps and legitimate passing work he is getting.

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When does Bama NOT have a game in which you sit on a gigantic lead in the 4th quarter? How is this any different than 90% of all other Bama games?

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Because 90% of the time we are playing teams that even when they KNOW what we are doing it doesn't matter. That wasn't the case with FSU. That is the case with Ole Miss and Tennessee.

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Your're the guy who espouses the merits of the S&P+ rating system on a weekly basis. It rates Bama's offensive performance against Florida State as the absolute worst (by a landslide) for any individual Bama game over the past 3 seasons. I'm also guessing it was by far Bama's lowest yardage output of the past several years... maybe the fewest during the entire Saban era. So don't act like this is being stated on a whim with zero facts to base it on.

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I haven't insulted you, your point or your stats yet. I'm simply telling you that I don't agree with your overall analysis based on observation of the facts.

I didn't disagree the FSU game was ugly. I do, however, think that there were reasons why it was such a low number, and part of it was what we did in the 4th quarter combined with 10 quick pts basically from non-offense. S&P+ is looking at it like we scored 14 pts, because that's what the drive chart tells it. It wasn't a great game, but we basically conceded yardage for time in the 4th quarter.

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But did they have one in the 22nd percentile?

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Nope, never had one in the 22nd percentile.

They consistently had games in the 40th and 50th percentile, though, against good and bad defenses. The 2015 offense concerned the hell out of me from day 1 until the literal last second ticked off the clock in the national title game.

We had a 38th and 29th percentile offensive showing last year and were 60 seconds away from winning another national title.



We'll see what Alabama is offensively against Auburn and, hopefully, against Georgia. If things on Saturday shake out the way C. Data said above and we win 10-0? We are in serious trouble. I don't think we'll really know if we are complete enough on offense and/or good enough running the ball until we go to Auburn.

I DO have concerns about Hurts and the downfield passing game. But, I don't see massive red flags yet in the stats (outside of general things like his downfield throwing %). I think both of those games have pretty specific reasoning for why the numbers were so much lower than other games. However, I reserve the right to be wrong. We could just be Auburn and be able to manhandle bad defenses and struggle against above average/good ones. Only time will tell.