Alabama Not Afraid to Let Many Handle the Ball Including Freshmen
By: Larry Burton
This week in press conferences, a point was brought up that many Alabama fans have just taken for granted: turnovers. Alabama has never been shy under Nick Saban’s time at Tuscaloosa letting freshman and rookies handle the ball yet surprisingly, it hasn’t come back to bite the team with turnovers as it does with others.
I think most fans may be shocked to know that it’s been about 300 days since the last time an Alabama player coughed up a ball that resulted in a turnover. So far this season, neither quarterback has thrown a pick, no running back, receiver and kick return man has let go of the ball and it’s not just luck, it’s something they work on every day.
“We’re doing a better job of taking care of the ball, and we want to continue to do that,” Hurts said Monday afternoon. “That’s that. … Protecting the ball is a key.” he concluded. And even Saban has commented that, “He’s (Hurts) done a good job so far. I think his production has improved in every game, his efficiency has improved in every game. He would be the first to tell you there’s things that he can work on, like every player on our team, and we’re certainly going to try to help him do that so that he can continue to develop and progress and be even more efficient in what he does. But we harp on ball security. The first thing we do in practice every day is ball security drills. We include him in those drills, and he has done a much better job of taking care of the football. And we’ve done a really good job of that on offense as a whole.”
But it’s not just the quarterback, but everyone who handles the ball including the freshman and rookies who are doing a great job holding onto the ball. In fact, if you go back through the entire Saban era, no team has had a group of running backs with fewer fumbles over a ten year period. It’s all about stressing the “little things”.
But before too much praise is heaped, it must be remembered that Hurts did go through some growing pains last season with turnovers. But looking at it over the season, by crunch time, those turnovers disappeared in Dec. and Jan when the money is on the table. Here are those turnover counts from last season:
Games fum. gained Int. gained Total + fum. lost Int. lost total – Margin total
In Aug/Sept 4 3 3 6 3 1 4 +2 +.50
In October 4 5 5 10 4 4 8 +2 +.50
In Novemeber 4 2 3 5 3 4 7 -2 -.50
In Dec/ Jan 3 3 5 8 0 0 0 +8 +2.67
But this season it’s a totally different tale. So far this season Alabama has just recovered one fumble, but picked off five passes against zero turnovers themselves. That puts Alabama second in the SEC in turnover margin and third in all of football nationally with a +6 turnover margin.
So you could say with the early season problems not existing, it could indeed be a great year statistically for turnovers and everyone knows that turnovers make a huge outcome when it comes to win totals, especially in big games. Can they go 365 days without a turnover? Hard to believe, but stay tuned.
Larry has been published in almost every media outlet for college sports and now primarily writes here for Touchdown Alabama. Follow Larry on Twitter for inside thoughts and game time comments at https://twitter.com/LBSportswriter
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