AJ McCarron has been critical of Alabama football this season, but he is optimistic about the Crimson Tide ahead of their game against LSU.
McCarron is picking the Tide to beat the Tigers on the road but feels it must be an emphasis on the run game.
The National Champion explained his decision on the McCready & Siskey Podcast.
“They got to be able to establish the run game for Jalen,” McCarron said. “They’re not going to go in there, and Jalen’s not going to beat this defense throwing the ball. They somewhat seemed like they figured out a rushing attack with their running backs versus Missouri late in that game. They got to be able to run the ball, and the thing that gives me hope for them is because LSU struggled just so bad with the zone read versus A&M. Granted, they didn’t prepare for it.”
McCarron also believes Alabama should take some pages out of the Texas A&M Aggies’ book on how to attack the Tigers’ defense.
“A&M ran some different blocking schemes when they were facing them,” said McCarron. “A true zone read, we’ve called booking the D end and working up to the backer. They were blocking the defensive end, slipping the three-tech, and they were reading the three-tech. And so it messes up the scrape because now when the linebacker, he’s used to the defensive end being the guy that’s free. So, now when he scrapes the linebackers crashing down, all of a sudden, if he’s scraping out too wide, you create a blocking advantage for the O line…I think if Bama can mix up different zone reads where are we reading the defensive end now? Are we reading the three technique?
Do we have a jet sweep motion with it as well? And now we could possibly hand it to there. It’s more of a power concept zone read for the quarterback.”
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