So I rewatched the replay last night w/o the emotions involved. Again, I’ll always take a W, but here’s what I noticed:
1. UAB stalled their drives a couple of times by having unforced penalties and dropped passes to move the chains.
2. Their receivers were running free dang near all game long. The QB was super focused on Watkins, but the TE was open a lot. If UAB had any sort of a QB, that 14 would’ve ballooned
3. We blitzed a lot, I mean a whole lot, and didn’t get home. That’s most likely why UABs receivers were so open.
4. Ivey looks like Tarzan, and at this point, can’t even say he plays like Jane. He needs help rotated to his side.
5. Not sure why we aren’t pressing when we are blitzing.
6. D King was like Gumby out there. I can honestly say if Perry, Williams, or Kaaya was back there, we don’t score 31 points. The OL gave up a ton of pressure; so while we may have improved from the run standpoint, we are still **** poor on pass protection. King could’ve easily been sacked 7 times last night if not for his improvisation as a QB.
7. Harris was a man last night. He ran hard, aggressive and fast, and I pray he’s not seriously injured.
8. Rooster looked good in practice, but Chaney looked good in game. He has a grown man’s body to hit the hole, and bounce off of people now. He explodes in those first 3 yards; so he may not have the long speed like Rooster, but he’s coming out as fast & powerful as any RB in those first 3 yards which overwhelms. (Future is bright at RB)
9. With this being our first game coming off the heels of going 0-3 to finish the season, I did not, DID NOT like the fact that we started to play not to lose the game when we were up 17. This was the perfect opportunity to put CFB on notice. I don’t want to hear we’re holding back the game plan. We said that during Richt’s tenure as OC & Enos’ tenure. We were this close to not scoring an additional 14 points. Again, Harris’ hard running, breaking tackles and King’s improv to keep drives alive did that. Not so sure that same strategy works against P5 comp.
10. I can’t continue to defend this WR core. King only had 141 yrds passing, and its for good reason. Who would’ve known Wiggins, our 3* prospect, is our most reliable. I’ve said it before last yr, Harley’s legs move fast, but I always see DBs attached to his hips. Pope......Pope is really bothering me. He’s our highest touted WR per 247, yet I never feel any impact from him. Payton showed toughness, including running over a DB covering him. But our WRs don’t look or feel any better than last season, and that has me worried.
All in all, we came away w/ a W....but like I said when we beat BCU last yr 63-0, something didn’t feel right about it. Yeah we won 63-0, but it was a vanilla 63-0, one where we struggled w/ BCU for the first half, before our talent just out-talented them. It kinda felt like that last night; in the 2nd half we out-talented them, and then disunity happened on their sidelines due to poor QB play & penalties stalling drives that gassed their defense, which we benefited from.
I’ll, optimistically, chop this up to first game kinks. If we come out the same way against UL next week w/ the same game plan on both the O & D.....we might not catch that W.