Bama 24 - LSU 15: Snap Judgments

1. We look confused on offense way to often for this late in the season. 6 men on the line cost us a big play early in game. In the second half it cost us at least timeouts.

2. Lack of talent and lack of depth on the D line. We get ripped by the running game, not just 4 or 5 yards per pop but 10+ yards. Play after play.

3, Seems like Alabama’s plan was to pass early to spread out the defense and tire the D line by making them chase, then turn to the running game. Don’t know if that was their plan, but sure how it played out.

I agree that Lee didn’t look sharp. He wasn’t bad, but he wasn’t good either. Maybe rusty is the best explanation. After we scored, I saw Jefferson jumping on the sideline. I wonder how severe his injury is, and if it’s not so severe that he can jump like a mad fool when we score, could he have played a bit? I don’t think Shepard played as QB once Jefferson left the game, either. Ordinarily, I really want continuity at QB, but this was a situation in which we should have mixed things up if only to keep BAMA off balance.

We got hosed on the Peterson “interception.” It was clear he had a foot down, and it was clear he caught the ball. When CBS was replaying it, there was a moment when the film went in reverse and it gave a great look at how he grabbed the ball and had control immediately. I can’t say we lost because of that bad call, but it was definitely bad, and definitely left us up the creek.

I agree with Pittman’s statement about the two teams—I don’t think they are more talented, and I don’t think they out-coached us. Bama won because their underproductive and overrated WR broke a big play after a bad attempt at a tackle, and because Ingram went wild in the 2nd half.

I liked the decision to go for two. Rules of thumb be damned, it was late in the third quarter. We had only found the end zone twice, but BAMA had been moving the ball all game and they were running very well in the second half. It looked very likely they’d score another TD, in which case a 7 point lead for us would have been huge to keep them from taking the lead with a TD. Moot point now.

1. Running into the punter. I’m not blaming the effort — you have to be aggressive to actually block punts and if it had happened there, it would have been huge. As it was, Alabama were able to put the game away by going up 2 scores.

2. The replay. In my mind, there was no 1 angle that showed enough to reverse a call on the field. However, if you put 2 together it does show it. One of the first angles showed that the right foot was inbounds (CBS never went back to that angle). The other angles showed that PP possessed the ball and that the foot was down, but you couldn’t see if it was in bounds or not. If A=B and B=C then A=C. Rule 12-6, Sec7, Art 1 says that you can use “one or more video replays provided to the monitor.” Should have been reversed.

Neither of these things mean we would have won the game, but they certainly made it harder for us to do so.

The officiating was very poor throughout this game and very one-sided. I’m not saying it was intentional, but there were a ridiculous number of calls and no-calls that hindered LSU and benefited UA. Several should be forwarded to the front office for review, including the helmet-first contact on Jefferson, the “interception” that wasn’t, and the facemask penalty victimizing Lyle Hitt which led to T-Bob Hebert’s injury.

Even out the calling, and LSU keeps the upperhand, even with the injuries.

as a gator who enjoys and respects both lsu and alabama, allow me to make the following neutral observations:
1-wow, patrick peterson was the best player on the field, enjoy him for the next couple of years.
2-i thought the officiating was actually excellent except for the obvious interception.
3-the reality of the game was that if patrick peterson was not hurt, jones wouldn’t have scored the go ahead td, it would have been an interesting last ten minutes. and two plays before that when lsu had 3rd and 2, charles scott would have made it but for his injury. so the reality is, alabama was very fortunate to have won this game.
4-at halftime, i started to dread the pounding the gators would have to suffer through if lsu won the game and the west. you guys got a respectable outfit.
5-alabama should stay quiet, and respect the sugar bowl this year. for that is where they will be. mcelroy is doomed against the gators. if you guys had your usual defensive line over the years, you woulda won this game.
this was one got the way. but at least you guys don’t have to have shame. it was two heavyweights in what i thought was a relatively clean game. and look on the bright side, we can all agree that georgia still sucks.

This game shouldn’t have been close, but McElroy missed 3 easy TDs: 1st QTR to Maze, who had 6 yards of separation on the DB; 2nd QTR to Jones in the end zone; the 3rd QTR to Smelley (although I’m not sure if he would’ve scored, but he had a lot of separation, they should’ve ran that play with a WR running downfield). Those miscues by McElroy is what kept this game close.

As far as officiating: there were missed calls on both sides of the ball, it wasn’t lopsided. Both teams O-lines got away with multiple holds. With the pick, I don’t know. The ball wasn’t tucked when his left foot was down and the right foot was awfully close to the side line. Remember it was initially called an incomplete pass. Was it the right call, I don’t think it was, but it’s easy for us to sit here and criticize the refs. I even heard people complaining about the pass interference on Arenas that was waived off, even though the ball was 10 yards over the receiver’s head and 5 yards out of bounds.

Even if the pick would’ve went LSUs way, I don’t think they would’ve won this game. Lee, as you’ve stated, was throwing inaccurate. LSU’s D-line was wearing down as the 2nd half went on. The LSU defense narrowly stopped both Richardson and Ingram from breaking away for TDs on at least 3 separate plays. Had Peterson been in on the Jones TD, he may have stopped it, he may not have, who knows.
What Bama did do, successfully, was throw deep. Some of the throws were well over thrown, but it was enough to make LSUs secondary worry about the deep pass, which helped Bama’s run game and intermediate passing game.

Next year will be a great one.