We’ll cut to the chase on the elephant in the room with the University of Alabama football team, special teams.
It could have been raining Vaseline instead of water on Saturday and there’s still no excuse for having four fumbles on returns, with two lost in Crimson Tide territory.
“All of those were poor decisions made by good players who I have a lot of confidence in,” Coach Nick Saban said. “They’ve been good decision-makers in the past, and I think sometimes they want to make a play so bad that they push it a little too hard and get anxious then make poor judgments.
“One of these days we are going to focus enough on it in practice that they won’t happen in games, but I’m not giving up on these guys, I promise you that.”
Four of Alabama’s eight lost fumbles this season have been on returns, three in the past two games.
In the first half, senior Christion Jones tried to dive in at the last moment and field a bouncing punt (causing Saban to scream, “Why?” on the sideline), and sophomore Maurice Smith had the ball hit him after he was waived off by the return man. In Smith’s defense he was pushed into the ball by the Arkansas player who recovered the fumble, which TV didn’t show, but he was still close to the bouncing ball.
“We practice this stuff all the time, and I think our returners need to do a better job of letting everyone else know where the ball is,” Saban said. “They give the signal to get away from the ball, but they do not know where it is, so we have to get that corrected.”
In the second half, junior Landon Collins fumbled after fielding a short kickoff, which sophomore Ryan Anderson recovered, and junior Cyrus Jones lost a punt that hustling senior Trey DePriest came back and jumped on.
Should Saban show up for his Monday press conference with no hair because he pulled it out, no one will blame him.
- Play of the game: It didn’t get any style points, but when Arkansas went for it on fourth-and-1 and had three tight ends in the game, junior linebacker Reggie Ragland shot the gap, sophomore defensive lineman A’Shawn Robinson pushed his man back and senior linebacker Xzavier Dickson stopped running back Jonathan Williams short of the first down.
- Player of the game: Ragland had a career-high 12 tackles, including seven solo, and broke up a pass.
- Hit of the game: It wasn’t exactly due to the hit, but the game might have been very different had Arkansas scored following the first turnover. Instead, after making a short reception fullback Kody Walker fumbled just before reaching the end zone as DePriest reached him, with the ball bouncing through the end zone for a touchback.
- Statistic of the game: After recording a season-high 672 yards of total offense against Florida, Alabama had just 227 against Arkansas, and a combined 623 in the last two games against SEC West opponents.
- Did you notice? For the second straight week Alabama made a change at right guard during the game, inserting senior Leon Brown in the third quarter. Against Ole Miss he was replaced by sophomore Alphonse Taylor for the fourth quarter.
Here are 10 other things of note from Saturday’s 14-13 victory at Arkansas:
1. Offensive line: There’s no way to sugarcoat it, Alabama’s offensive line didn’t play well. The Crimson Tide couldn’t establish the running game, had no interior presence and senior quarterback Blake Sims was constantly on the move. Both of his touchdown passes came after the initial play started to break down. “We need to work to get better,” Saban said. “I think our offensive line is very capable of doing a good job, they did a good job earlier in the season. We’re only missing one guy (center Ryan Kelly) … We just didn’t play very well on offense all the way around. I think we’re going to have to play with a lot more consistency down the stretch and make some huge improvements in our ability to have more positive plays. Just positive enough to stay ahead of the sticks so we can get first downs.” With senior guard Arie Kouandjio limited to two days of practices last week Alabama only ran to the left five times.
2. Explosive plays: This ties in with the previous item, but Saban defines an explosive play a run of 13 yards or more or a pass of 17 yards or more. Alabama’s goal is nine per game. It had just three, and none on the ground.
Game-by-game
West Virginia 12
Florida Atlantic 14
Southern Miss 14
Florida 11
Ole Miss 7
Arkansas 3
Game-by-game opponents
West Virginia 8
Florida Atlantic 1
Southern Miss 5
Florida 5
Ole Miss 4
Arkansas 7
Season totals
Alabama: 61
Opponents: 30
3. Mistakes index: Basically, it’s a measure of mistakes, but it could arguably also be an indirect indicator of maturity and discipline. The mistakes index is fumbles lost + interceptions + penalties + sacks. Alabama appeared to have done something about the penalty bug from the previous two games, but then had three of its four penalties while trying to run out the clock. Ragland drew the other flag when he was called for pass interference, but considering it likely would have been a gain of 40-plus yards it was a good penalty to take.
Game-by-game
West Virginia 0+1+7+0 = 8
Florida Atlantic 0+0+6+1=7
Southern Miss 1+0+3+1=5
Florida 3+1+11+1=16
Ole Miss 1+1+8+1=11
Arkansas 2+0+4+2=8
Game-by-game opponents
West Virginia 0+0+6+3 = 9
Florida Atlantic 1+0+3+3=7
Southern Miss 0+0+6+1=7
Florida 1+2+5+0=8
Ole Miss 1+0+3+2+7
Arkansas 2+1+4+4=11
4. Yards after the catch: Alabama did manage to top 100 yards, but most came on O.J. Howard’s 47-yard reception off a play-action when he was left unprotected.
Game leaders
O.J. Howard 39
T.J. Yeldon 23
Amari Cooper 15
DeAndrew White 15
Cam Sims 8
Jalston Fowler 1
Total: 101
Per game
Opponent, YAC, Receptions, Average
West Virginia 116/24 = 4.83
Florida Atlantic 246/26= 9.46
Southern Miss 101/17= 5.94
Florida 246/24 =10.3
Ole Miss 117/18 = 6.5
Arkansas 101/11 = 9.2
5. Injuries: Junior wide receiver Amari Cooper’s knee injury didn’t appear to be from anyone landing on him, rather linebacker Martrell Spaight still had a hold of his leg when he got hit. Cooper pulled himself from the game on his final touch, an end-around that lost yards. On the play Arkansas quarterback Brandon Allen got drilled by A’Shawn Robinson, defensive lineman D.J. Pettway appeared to turn an ankle, and senior tight end Brian Vogler’s ankle injury occurred when sophomore running back Derrick Henry landed on him on his final carry. Linebacker Reuben Foster appeared to hurt his shoulder on kickoff coverage.
6. Most around the ball: Our equivalent to what Alabama calls production points, defensive “touches” is found by adding together tackles, assists, sacks, passes broken up (interceptions are included in that statistic), hurries, forced fumbles and fumble recoveries.
Game leaders
Reggie Ragland 13.5
Landon Collins 11
Xzavier Dickson 9
Jarran Reed 8
Trey DePriest 7.5
A’Shawn Robinson 7.5
7. Who was thrown at: Arkansas went after sophomore Eddie Jackson at left cornerback, especially by lining up its tight ends wide, and threw five times in his direction in the first half with two completions, but three times in the second half with no catches. The only reception on junior cornerback Cyrus Jones was the 11-yard bobble and catch by wide receiver Demetrius Wilson. We counted 11 times that the Razorbacks threw to someone out of the backfield, but with only three receptions for 13 yards in the second half and the interception. On the 54-yard touchdown by quarterback-turned-tight end AJ Debry, he started on the left side and appeared to be left open due to a blitz. Defensive back Geno Smith couldn’t get to him fast enough and Jackson failed to push him out of bounds.
8. Third-down passing: Statistically it should have been worse since Sims was sacked twice on third down, but during the nine times he attempted a pass on third down the average yards needed were 9.2. No one would have much success given those circumstances.
Sims, Game-by-game on third downs
West Virginia 8-9-0 0 TD, 90 yards, six first downs
Florida Atlantic 1-1-0 0 TD, 10 yards, one first down
Southern Miss 2-2-0, 0 TD, 26 yards, two first downs
Florida 6-8-0, 1 TD, 89 yards, five first downs
Ole Miss 5-7-0, 0 TD, 36 yards, five first downs
Arkansas 5-9-0 2 TDs, 72 yards, three first downs
Total 27-36-0 (75.0 percent), 3 TD, 323 yards, 22 first downs
9. Who played: As promised, Alabama went a little more veteran on special teams, with Foster, Ragland and Jabriel Washington added to kick coverage, and Vogler on kick returns. Freshman wide receiver Cam Sims made his first career reception, a 15-yard gain to help set up Alabama’s second touchdown. With the Crimson Tide able to play its base defense, reserve nose guard Darren Lake played for just the second time this season and made his first tackle. With Denzel Devall sidelined (ankle) junior linebacker Dillon Lee made his first career start.
10. Records chase: For the season Cooper has 54 receptions for 768 yards and five touchdown catches. The Alabama single-season records are 78 and 1,133 (Julio Jones in 2010) and 11 (Cooper in 2012). He’s on pace to finish the regular season with 108 catches, 1,536 yards and 10 TDs.
With 2,504 career receiving yards he 420 to break the Alabama record held by DJ Hall 2,923.
With his 45 rushing yards Yeldon has 2,795 career yards. He needs 770 to break Shaun Alexander career record of 3,565.
Bonus — Alabama’s fourth-and-1: If like most people watching you were wondering what the Crimson Tide was trying to do, Sims was not supposed to jump but find a hole to dart through for the first down. Offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin could be clearly seen from the sideline saying “What is that? What’s he doing?” Said Saban: “Well that was the ugliest looking quarterback sneak I ever saw. I mean we run the quarterback sneak and we teach a guy how to run a quarterback sneak and we never ever taught that. Lane wanted to run a different play and I didn’t really want to hand the ball off. I thought we could make two inches on a quarterback sneak. But I was wrong and it was my fault on that one.” For the season Alabama has converted 2 of 5 fourth-down chances.
Christopher Walsh has covered Alabama football since 2004 and is the author of 19 books. In his free time, he writes about college football.
