The Good, The Bad, The Stupid From the Alabama – LSU Game
By: Larry Burton
If you were an LSU, Alabama or just college football fan, there were good, bad and stupid things to see in Saturday’s 38-17 win by the Crimson Tide of Alabama. Here they are with brief explanations of why they made the list:
The Good
1. The Outcome – At least if you’re an Alabama fan, the outcome was almost better than most had hoped. While Alabama was favored by as much as 21 by Las Vegas, that line had moved back down by game time. Still few expected the game to be the blowout win that it was.
2. Lack of Injuries – Everyone knew this would be a physical game, but no one in Crimson sustained any injury that would keep them from playing at full strength next week.
3. The Offense – Maybe AJ McCarron needs to drink a pint of transmission fluid before each game, because he’s slow to get in gear early in most every game, but once he does, he’s almost flawless. The running game was hitting on all cylinders and the offensive line were begging for more running plays in the huddle as they simply dominated the LSU defensive front, especially in the second half. Overall, putting up 38 points on LSU is something only one other team has done.
4. The Defense – For forcing key turnovers that could have changed the outcome of the game and yes that bad snap was caused by the defense changing at the line and Mettenberg realizing he had the wrong play called. For holding LSU without a touchdown in the second half. But the biggest thing is for shutting down the running run more completely than any team has been able to do against LSU all year.
5. The Game Plan – Kudos to all the coaches who helped develop what was a great game plan and for key adjustments at halftime that made it an entirely different game.
6. Lack of Penalties – for both sides of the ball, although there were four, they didn’t come at bad times or kill drives.
7. Cody Mandell – Mr. Consistent boomed punts that made punt returns all but impossible, great hang time. This was more important than most people realize with LSU’s deadly return men.
8. The People on the Good List –
AJ McCarron – Nothing fancy, just all the right reads all day long and making it look so easy
OJ Howard – Who now gives defensive coordinators one more reason to become alcoholic. Tight ends aren’t supposed to be able run away from corner backs.
TJ Yeldon and Kenyan Drake – Who had fantastic yards after contact and ate up both yardage and game clock at will.
The Bad
The Stupid
