Game 1 Thoughts from an amateur

[basedog]

The only thing I was extremely displeased with was the fumble on the batted swing pass and the bubble screen to Tulu right before it. Those are two pick sixes in the SEC, and the former was a horrendous playcall after they'd demonstrated an aggressive attempt to jump a flats route just one play prior.

Yep, playing calling wasn't smart in the red zone, yes, we scored but against fast aggressive defenses in the Sec those silly swing passes want get it. Leach's play calling in the red zone is his weakness.

[DEDawg]

Overall I give this a B+. Came out throwing haymakers and put them down 28-3 early. Receivers look excellent, Will looked above average and his arm has more pop than last year. His timing was off on that INT but he will clean that up. Biggest gripe with him was I believe 3rd quarter and it was Walley who broke free and had an easy TD and Will just overthrew him by 5 yards. Can’t miss those in SEC play, have have have to connect on the deep ball there. That 35 yards pass to Ducking for the TD could not have been thrown better, just need to get consistent.

OL looked excellent. D-Bill may have finally figured it out and could be an All SEC LT if he plays like that each game. Run game didnt have much push but that’s just the offense we run. Running it on first down is a refreshing change of pace and I hope we keep sprinkling that in. Think I saw 4 runs in a row at one point for a first down which not sure I’ve seen here since Leach showed up, was nice to see. Marks/Dillon are legit.

Defense looked great minus pass rush. Jett is playing himself into NFL territory and our secondary looked serviceable. Arnett is a really good coach we have to keep him here. Pass rush is a concern but ill wait another week before really worrying. If we look the same against AZ and get zero pressure it can cost us some games. The fact we couldn’t get home when brining all pressure wasn’t great but like i said I’ll worry about that next week.

Great start to the season with good film for us to study and clean up. Hailstate

[TrapGame]

Out of curiosity, what makes you think Leach isn't demanding excellence when up big(not being sarcastic, generally curious). Played college and professional baseball albeit a completely different sport but all of the coaches that I had "demanded" excellence regardless of the score. Didn't mean we didn't let teams slide back into a game when we were up big on occasion.

It's difficult to stay mentally focused when you're up 4-5 scores at the half, especially when you sat through a 2 or 3 hour rain delay after being jacked up to play in front of a good crowd to open the season and then come out and nobody is there, weather is nasty, you're playing exceptionally late etc.

I think one thing that helps saban and his teams come out with a killer instinct is that if you don't, you'll be replaced by someone just as talented as you. The competition in house keeps those guys going. We don't have quite that type of luxury. Our best players are as talented as some of bamas best, our depth isn't close to what bamas is.

Not making excuses for them, they shouldn't let that happen and hopefully it will improve at some point. Simply stating it's dang hard to get 18-22 year olds to do what they need to 100 percent of the time. We've seen it under jackie, Dan and now leach. If you watch just about anyone not named bama they have the same issues at some point in the season.

Look at the om game, ky game, Texas a and m, etc. there were a pile of games like ours.

Excellent post.

And folks need to remember that teams usually improve from week one to week two. Leach and Arnett are going to chew some ass about taking a quarter off. But, this weather delay may just have helped us with the Arizona game.

[Homedawg]

Shotgun, Memphis had the same rain delay but they came out shooting, but we didn't. You made LordMcBukethead's point. Taking time off is never acceptable.

What? We killed them out of the delay. It was the third q from about the 7 min mark where we stunk.

[Dawgology]

Y?all are insane. We looked good early but got tired in our 6 playing at midnight up 24 points hahah. I?ll give them a pass on that. It was laaaaate I was having trouble staying awake just laying on my couch watching it. Offense was scoring late with backups and defense was still getting some pressure while playing at about 75% late.

[MetEdDawg]

There's some damned revisionist history going on here folks.

It was 35-3 when we started coasting and it was 7-0 at the rain delay. And Memphis sure as hell didn't come out after the rain delay firing. After the rain delay, we scored to make it 14-0. Then Memphis went punt, FG, punt, punt to get us to the end of the first half and had 15 total yards in doing that. Then to open the 2nd half they went punt and punt.

So 5 of their 6 drives after the rain delay ended in punts and the one scoring drive they accumulated a total of 4 yards on after the Rogers pick.

So let's not freaking act like we didn't dominate that ass. We let backups start playing considerably more 2nd half and they didn't play well. It happens. We can be upset about that. But our 1st team other than a few errors completely dominated Memphis.

Some of y'all need to chill out.

[ShotgunDawg]

Shotgun, Memphis had the same rain delay but they came out shooting, but we didn't. You made LordMcBukethead's point. Taking time off is never acceptable.

We dominated after the rain delay until we thought the game was over, which is was, and the relaxed.

[Tater]

There's some damned revisionist history going on here folks.

It was 35-3 when we started coasting and it was 7-0 at the rain delay. And Memphis sure as hell didn't come out after the rain delay firing. After the rain delay, we scored to make it 14-0. Then Memphis went punt, FG, punt, punt to get us to the end of the first half and had 15 total yards in doing that. Then to open the 2nd half they went punt and punt.

So 5 of their 6 drives after the rain delay ended in punts and the one scoring drive they accumulated a total of 4 yards on after the Rogers pick.

So let's not freaking act like we didn't dominate that ass. We let backups start playing considerably more 2nd half and they didn't play well. It happens. We can be upset about that. But our 1st team other than a few errors completely dominated Memphis.

Some of y'all need to chill out.

The 35-3 portion of the game felt like watching our 2014 game against USM, minus will's one misread. The rest of the game felt like Geoff Collins 1Amazing / 1Bad schtick against 2014 UAB.

This team gives off a lot of 2014 vibes to me, (lots of seniors everywhere. a returning QB with dark horse heisman hopes that is fully the leader of this team, a tough sec schedule, but a west that has no clear #2)

[R2Dawg]

The 35-3 portion of the game felt like watching our 2014 game against USM, minus will's one misread. The rest of the game felt like Geoff Collins 1Amazing / 1Bad schtick against 2014 UAB.

This team gives off a lot of 2014 vibes to me, (lots of seniors everywhere. a returning QB with dark horse heisman hopes that is fully the leader of this team, a tough sec schedule, but a west that has no clear #2)

Agree with that. At 35-3, we seemed to take foot off gas. We got to not do that but we are just human.

[Tater]

Agree with that. At 35-3, we seemed to take foot off gas. We got to not do that but we are just human.

We stepped on the throat when needed to and kept them from ever being within two scores. That last TD felt so ****ing good.

[Catfish]

We stepped on the throat when needed to and kept them from ever being within two scores. That last TD felt so ****ing good.

Agreed, Robinson made a good catch.

[WhiskeyPirate]

Overall I give this a B+. Came out throwing haymakers and put them down 28-3 early. Receivers look excellent, Will looked above average and his arm has more pop than last year. His timing was off on that INT but he will clean that up. Biggest gripe with him was I believe 3rd quarter and it was Walley who broke free and had an easy TD and Will just overthrew him by 5 yards. Can’t miss those in SEC play, have have have to connect on the deep ball there. That 35 yards pass to Ducking for the TD could not have been thrown better, just need to get consistent.

OL looked excellent. D-Bill may have finally figured it out and could be an All SEC LT if he plays like that each game. Run game didnt have much push but that’s just the offense we run. Running it on first down is a refreshing change of pace and I hope we keep sprinkling that in. Think I saw 4 runs in a row at one point for a first down which not sure I’ve seen here since Leach showed up, was nice to see. Marks/Dillon are legit.

Defense looked great minus pass rush. Jett is playing himself into NFL territory and our secondary looked serviceable. Arnett is a really good coach we have to keep him here. Pass rush is a concern but ill wait another week before really worrying. If we look the same against AZ and get zero pressure it can cost us some games. The fact we couldn’t get home when brining all pressure wasn’t great but like i said I’ll worry about that next week.

Great start to the season with good film for us to study and clean up. Hailstate

Agree with about all of that. I knew Jett was pretty good, but I was a little surprised how darn good he is last night. He will get a shot at the nfl if he keeps playing like that. Very smart player..knows where the ball is going before the play develops. He’s also a punishing tackler.

[MBDawg601]

Am I missing something? People act like Memphis is a pushover.

They have been getting increasingly better over the past 4-5 years. I'll take a 26 point win any day. Without the delay, I am quite sure we destroy them 63-3 or something similar, but let's not act like this is Utah state or Sam Houston. Memphis is much improved from the Memphis State days.

[Commercecomet24]

What? We killed them out of the delay. It was the third q from about the 7 min mark where we stunk.

This. I wonder if some people actually watched the game. We dominated for the first 2.5 quarters and then lost some focus but to our credit we answers every time they scored in the second half.

[Lord McBuckethead]

The last TD is exactly what I expected when the other coach called a damn timeout. That was ridiculous of them.

[thf24]

Am I missing something? People act like Memphis is a pushover.

They have been getting increasingly better over the past 4-5 years. I'll take a 26 point win any day. Without the delay, I am quite sure we destroy them 63-3 or something similar, but let's not act like this is Utah state or Sam Houston. Memphis is much improved from the Memphis State days.

They've slid back a little the past two years since their peak under Norvell, but they're still sneaky talented and always show up ready to fight. They're definitely better than the Troy or Miami Ohio teams OM and UK struggled with yesterday.

[TrapGame]

They've slid back a little the past two years since their peak under Norvell, but they're still sneaky talented and always show up ready to fight. They're definitely better than the Troy or Miami Ohio teams OM and UK struggled with yesterday.

Memphis is also better than San Diego State. Watching the AZ/SDS game this morning and SDS's defense was bad. Way too many missed tackles and not a lot of push from their front. Even with that they got a couple of turnovers. SDS's QB missed wide open receivers that Will won't.

[WhiskeyPirate]

Usually a big difference between MAC teams...which always play the big boys tough early in the season and the Sun Belt teams IMO....

[Commercecomet24]

Memphis is also better than San Diego State. Watching the AZ/SDS game this morning and SDS's defense was bad. Way too many missed tackles and not a lot of push from their front. Even with that they got a couple of turnovers. SDS's QB missed wide open receivers that Will won't.

Yeah I watched it too and it was a battle of 2 really mediocre(at best) teams. Not much team speed for either one but az does have a legit qb in De Laura, not much else though.

[HeCannotGo]

Shotgun, Memphis had the same rain delay but they came out shooting, but we didn't. You made LordMcBukethead's point. Taking time off is never acceptable.

We handled the rain delay much better than Memphis.

First five drives for Memphis after the delay: 4 punts and a FG (only because we gave them great field position after a pick).

First five drives for us after the delay: 3 touchdowns, a pick, and a few plays that ended the first half. We also had a TD on our first drive in the second half.

Yes, we went to sleep for awhile in from mid-third to mid-fourth quarter, but we definitely "came out shooting" after the delay more so than Memphis.

Edited to add: I see that others made this same point first. Apologies for piling on and not reading all responses before posting mine.