Nick Saban comments on John Metchie's bone-crunching hit to force a Florida fumble
Alabama QB Mac Jones doesn’t often throw interceptions, but he tossed one in the first half of the SEC Championship Game on Saturday night in Atlanta.
However, as Florida DB Trey Dean returned the pick, he was taken down with a bone-crunching hit by Alabama WR John Metchie. And, as he fell, Dean fumbled, giving the ball back to the Crimson Tide.
It was a key play in the game. Afterwards, coach Nick Saban praised the talented receiver for not giving up on the play (via ASAP Sports):
“That was a great play, no doubt,” Saban said. “I mean, not a great play for us, for them to get an interception. But for guys to keep hustling. We do every day for the first five minutes of practice, we do maybe eight or nine different sort of take-care-of-the-ball-type drills. He’s always on the other end of that. We do circle chase, we do midline, we do stumble bum, stiff arm. He knows exactly what the defensive players are trying to do to get the ball out because we do it every day. He’s the other guy, aight?
“Tonight he had a chance to strip it out. I’m sure that those experiences of working every day against the defensive players, trying to get it out on him, was where he got the idea of how to get it out. But it was a big play in the game. We were down in the red zone. When you turn it over down there, it’s a double whammy lots of times. So to get the ball back was really important. Then to be able to score was huge because we stayed two scores ahead in the game until the end of the game. That was critical against a good Florida offensive team.”
Metchie also had 4 catches for 62 yards in the game, so he made an impact in more ways than one.
That was the play of the game. Florida had the chance to make it 14-7 and instead Alabama made it 14-7
The rest of the game florida was playing catch-up.
It was also one hell of an interception from Dean, but that’s irrelevant now.
It was probably also targeting…
Wasn’t targeting at all… he didn’t make any contact to the head and neck area…
Not even close to targeting. Great football play.
He hit him in the side, with his shoulder. What part of that is remotely targeting?
Not even close, that play was perfect and a hit that will be in every Bama vs. Florida hype video from now until eternity. On another note, charging Jones with a pick is ridiculous. The defensive guy made a great play and literally stole it from the receiver, thus the turnover should be on him not the QB.
FD, you need to brush up on targeting. That was in no way targeting.
Thanks for the info Gary Danielson.
Targeting? Really? How can it be targeting when the Bama player hit the DB in the chest with his shoulder pads? I was a high school DC and an LB coach before that. In a perfect world , that’s how you teach your kids to “lay a lick” on somebody. That, my misguided friend was SEC football back in the days of Coach Bryant, Shug Jordan, and Vince Dooley.
That was one of the greatest hits I’ve ever seen by ANY player, let alone a WR
Two crazy back to back plays.
Two points. 1 – it was not an interception. I don’t care what the dumba$$ scorers called it. The receiver caught it with both hands and the defender ripped it away from him. Technically it was a recovered fumble.
2 – Metchie did not use any prcticed technique to get the ball out. The tackle happened was too fast for him to be thinking about technique. He wasn’t even thinking about a fumble. All he did was knock the living $hit out of the guy and the fumble was the byproduct of extreme violence .