You have to be encouraged after that game. Even though the score ended up not being very close, it felt like we were in it. I talked to my buddies after the game and we all said that without the turnovers and special teams, we could have won the game. This may be the statistical evidence of that.

SUCCESS RATE

This is a measure of staying on schedule, getting enough yards on first and second down to have a manageable third down and converting those third downs. You will see later how much it matters, but we freaking won it. We were better than mighty Alabama in this measure. One thing this does not tell us is number of plays. For instance, in the fourth quarter, we had a 73% success rate, but we only had 11 plays. Alabama did a great job of taking the air out of the ball and sitting on it in the fourth quarter (9:48 Time of Possession). It also doesn’t factor big plays in, which we had very few of. We only had 5 plays of greater than 10 yards, 31 yard pass to Moncrief, 16 yard pass to Logan, 12 yard pass to Mackey, and 12 and 20 yard runs by Mackey. Alabama does a lot to prevent big plays which contributed to their win. They won the turnover battle and they won special teams. This stat can’t take those into account which is why we won this, but still lost by 19, but this is pretty incredible in my book.

PLAY CALLING

On Standard Downs (1st and 10, 2nd and 6 or better, and 3rd and 3 or better), the two teams called run plays at roughly the same rate. However, in passing downs (anything worse than above), Alabama was much more comfortable calling running plays. This is probably a factor of Alabama leading for all but 15 seconds of the game, but also the fact that they felt they could have more success running the ball. While not great, Alabama’s 3.7 yards per rush was enough to move the chains and end the game in the second half.

TARGETS

I have been hoping another WR would step up to take some pressure off Moncrief and give us a playmaker when Moncrief was taken away. I always thought it would be Ja-Mes Logan, but Vince Sanders really stepped up against Alabama. It wasn’t for a lot of yards, but Sanders had 7 catches on 9 targets for 46 yards. Watching the game, it felt like Moncrief wasn’t getting the ball much. Actually, he was targeted 8 times, but Milner did a great job of shutting him down. Everyone else did an ok job when they were called upon, but no one was able to produce much. Absent from the targets were the TEs.

For Alabama Game

For the year:

Neat is still outperforming Sanders in the "other WR" role, but look at Logan, in limited targets; he’s putting up good numbers. Mosley hasn’t been thrown a ball since Texas.

PASSING

Earlier I mentioned the importance of staying on schedule. Look at our QB’s number when ahead of the chains verses obvious passing situations.

As long as we were able to keep the down and distance in our favor, both QBs did fairly well. However, in passing situations, where Saban could dial up blitzes and confuse coverages – both did poorly. It’s pretty amazing to compare Wallace’s performance in passing situations against Texas and Alabama – almost identical.

OL AND RB PLAY

As you would expect, this was our OL and RB’s worst performance on the year. They didn’t get obliterated though. The OL opened up holes for 2.2 "OL yards" per carry. The OL yards are determined by giving the OL 100% credit for the first 4 yards of a run and any losses, splitting yards 5-10 with the RB, and giving the RB 100% credit after that, the "Highlight yards" The thought is that after a certain point, the OL has done their job and it’s up to the RB to break a long run.

Scott was held in check this game. Our most efficient runner was Mackey with 18.5 highlight yards on just 3 carries.

For the year, Scott is still our best big play threat.

All in all, you have to be pleased with our effort. We went to the #1 team in the nation, a team that beat us 52-7 last year and we held our own. While we were still beat by 19, you just have to wonder what would have happened with a stop on the kick off and a few throw aways.

I’ll leave you with this. We lost by 19 to Alabama. The home field is supposed to be worth 3 points, both ways, so that’s 6 points. How in the world are we 11 point dogs to A&M? Giving us full credit for the home field advantage, that puts A&M only 2 points behind Alabama. That looks like a good bet to me.