A cluster 17 without Spring practice?
Why can't they improve?
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The only thing that might save us from a 62-10 blowout is Saban believing his 5* players are so superior to our WRs, that he stubbornly plays man to man. I expect to watch the first quarter and that's about it.
Long post alert on this one. You also can't recruit another line in a bye week. It's like I've said for 3 weeks. We have 3 GLARING problems right now and 1 and 2 are intertwined. 1) Costello can't read a zone. 2) Our line was recruited to run block, not pass block. 3) Our receivers are having trouble finding where to sit down in zone coverage.
Costello not being able to read the zone is 1) because he hasn't consistently faced elite defenses week in and week out. Now I know we poke fun at some of the D's in the SEC from time to time, but these defenses that give up 30-40 in our league would be in the top half and probably at the top of any other conference not named the Big 10. Oregon St. and Cal's D is just not comparable to Kentucky and Arky's D. It's not that KJ is throwing the ball any differently, it's that the split second he had in the Pac 12 isn't there anymore against zone. Now all that to say his other problem is 2) He has NO TIME to throw the football. When teams are able to get pressure with 3 then there's no reason to rush anymore. Our tackles are regularly getting absolutely whipped everytime. And it's not like these ends are using next level pass rushing techniques. They're just straight beating us. And beating us inside, which is WAY worse, because your G needs to be protecting that gap as well. Cross is the only O lineman we have that can consistently provide protection for our QB which is good since he's protecting blindside. We're going to need an entirely new line next year. There's no way around it. But having a NFL left tackle is a good building block for any line.
The last problem, and I see it improving a little, is our WR's not knowing where to sit down in the zone. I noticed this against both Arky and UK. Williams, Shavers, and Mitchell don't look like they know where to settle. But that looks to be improving because we did a better job of it against A&M. This is something that is going to be very important this week because whoever is at QB is going to have at max 1.5-2.5 seconds to get the ball out. Because make no mistake, Bama will blitz more than the last 3 teams we've faced. Saban is just arrogant enough to try and run zone blitzes and man blitzes against us that could open up some quick throwing lanes.
EDIT: Guess we don't have to worry about Shavers anymore.
QB is not the issue. I know that's what fans focus on. But QB is not the main issue!
Who cares? I advise you all to enjoy other games, so you don't ruin your Saturday night
I said this a while back.
just take a nap for a year and half and you'll wake up to a top 10 team. But it's going to take time and will be painful
Starting KJ ain't gonna help our future. I'm just shaking my head IF KJ starts.
This would be the only way I'd be even slightly OK with this. Unless KJ throws for 500 and 0 int and we give Bama a scare, I want to see Will every game after this. If it is any other reason, I hate it. I really don't like it either because if you are trying to gain trust in locker room keep trotting KJ out there is a bad move too.
It's Leach and he could care less about the locker room, I don't mean this as a negative statement, but he is just hell bent with dealing with players and I am ok with this as long as we win. Saban is the master with getting respect from players but he has a rooster full of 4 and 5 star players. Msu has 2 and 3 stars, big difference.
Alabama will shut us down defensively but this is extremely poor logic. Alabama isn't that good on defense. They are slightly above average. If we will play Will against Kentucky and A&M there is no reason to be scared against Alabama. If that's the case then let's just shut Will down until we get someone who can block next year maybe.