TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Since it’s Halloween the natural comparison to make is either a Dr. Jekyll-Mr. Hyde or Two-Face reference, although in this case the numbers are not quite that extreme.

Nevertheless, when it comes to University of Alabama senior quarterback Blake Sims he’s not exactly the same player on the road as he is at Bryant-Denny Stadium.

His record alone demonstrates that. Sims’ only loss as a starter was at Ole Miss on Oct. 4, 23-17.
“I wouldn’t say there’s very much for us to change,” he said before last week’s 34-20 victory at Tennessee. “We just need to stay with the same attitude, keep improving and learn from the mistakes we’ve had in the past.”

Overall, Sims has completed 131 of 200 passes for 2,034 yards, with 15 touchdowns, three interceptions

He’s third in the Southeastern Conference in both passing yards and total yards, but the statistic that Alabama coaches pay attention to the most is passing efficiency. He’s fourth in the nation with a 172.68 rating, which is better than A.J. McCarron’s rating last year as a senior, 167.2.

Sims has played four games away from Bryant-Denny Stadium, including the neutral-site game against West Virginia in the Georgia Dome. In them he’s completed 68 of 109 passes (62.4 percent), for 925 yards, with four touchdowns and two interceptions.

His efficiency rating is 142.11.

During the four home games, Sims has completed 63 of 91 passes (69.2 percent), for 1,109 yards, with 11 touchdowns and one interception.

That adds up to a 209.29 rating.

Additionally, Sims has been sacked five times, of which four were on the road. Consequently, his rushing numbers are similar with 20 carries for 153 yards (7.65 average) at home, and 26 for 97 everywhere else (3.73).

Some of this is normal, of course, as it’s obviously tougher to play on the road and the crowd is against you. It should also be noted that Alabama has played much tougher competition away from Bryant-Denny Stadium including No. 20 West Virginia (6-2), No. 4 Ole Miss (7-1), Arkansas (4-4), and Tennessee (3-5).

It’s hosted Florida International (3-5), Southern Miss (3-5), Florida (3-3), and Texas A&M (5-3), which was ranked No. 21 at the time, but after November all games are played at neutral sites.

“You can’t have a basketball mentality and be a football player,” Coach Nick Saban said. “You can’t play in spurts. You can’t be in the NBA and go on a 20-point run and then let the other team catch up and it was 85-65, now it’s 87-85. In football, you have to play for 60 minutes and you can never let up in the game, and you have to focus and stay focused for 60 minutes in the game and play every game like that, especially when you’re playing on the road because you let the other team gain the momentum and come back on you and give them too many opportunities, which we did (at Tennessee). Turned the ball over twice in the last 12 minutes of the game when we could take the air out of it.

“Blake has played well. We really keep striving for consistency. He’s made a tremendous amount of plays for us. He’s very instinctive. But most of the time when we have a bad play, it’s self-inflicted. I mean, we’re in the wrong formation. We didn’t call the play right, or we didn’t read things right. Those are things that are correctable and we keep fixing and we keep getting better at those things. But for us to be really good, we have to eliminate as many of those as possible.”

Alabama closes its regular-season road schedule net week when it visits No. 19 LSU (7-2).