A look at Alabama's offensive line against Duke

Last week was a mixed bag for Alabama’s offensive line.

On one hand, the unit cleared the way for 512 yards of offense during the Crimson Tide’s 42-3 blowout over Duke. It kept Tua Tagovailoa relatively clean and allowed the starting quarterback to pick apart the Blue Devils on 26 of 31 passing for 336 yards and four touchdowns. On a whole, Alabama put up 367 yards through the air while averaging 10.19 yards per attempt.

On the other hand, there were a few frustrating moments. Alabama struggled to move the ball on the ground early and was stopped on its first three possessions. The Crimson Tide managed to rush for 145 yards, but a good bulk of that came on a late 37-yard touchdown run from Jerome Ford in the fourth quarter when the game was already out of hand. Take out that play and the Crimson Tide had just 108 yards on 41 carries, an average of 2.63 yards per attempt.

“I feel like it was a good first performance,” starting right tackle Jedrick Wills Jr. said. “We have new guys in new spots for the first time with those five guys. But, overall, I feel like it was a good performance for the first time. Just try to improve from that.”

Here’s a detailed look at how Alabama’s offensive line performed over the weekend.

Starters

LT: Alex Leatherwood — 85.7 pass block, 59.1 run block

LG: Evan Neal — 27.6 pass block, 56.4 run block

C: Chris Owens — 61.5 pass block, 55.7 run block

RG: Landon Dickerson — 76.4 pass block, 61.9 run block

RT: Jedrick Wills Jr. — 68.0 pass block, 80.9 run block

Notable reserves

Matt Womack — 74.5 pass block, 66.2 run block

*Grades according to Pro Football Focus

What it means: Evan Neal struggled in his first career start. The 6-foot-7, 360-pound freshman played tackle during high school before moving to left guard this offseason. He failed to provide much push in the running game and allowed two quarterback hurries and two quarterback pressures.

Even five-star prospects need time adjusting to the next level. It’s worth noting, Alex Leatherwood conceded sacks in his first two games at right guard last year and didn’t allow one the rest of the season. In short, things should get better for Neal moving forward.

Speaking of Leatherwood, he seemed to excel in his switch back to his natural position. The starting left tackle had Alabama’s highest pass-blocking grade at 85.7 and didn’t allow a single pressure over the weekend.

Another bright spot was the emergence of Landon Dickerson, who put up a solid performance in both pass-blocking and run-blocking. The gritty graduate transfer also got under defenders skin at times which led to Duke defensive lineman Edgar Cerenord losing his cool and being ejected from the game.

“I thought he played with a lot of toughness,” Alabama head coach Nick Saban said of Dickerson. “Had a lot of effort out there. Did a good job for the most part. One of the guys that we feel competed in the game like we like.

“And I’m sure that he would tell you and his coach would tell you that, are there things he could have done better fundamentally? Absolutely. But we certainly liked the competitive character that he played with.”

As evidenced by the grading, Alabama had a bit more success running the ball to the right against Duke. The Crimson Tide gained 79 yards on 18 designed runs (4.38 yards per carry) to the right side of the line compared to 51 yards on 15 designed runs (3.4 ypc) to the left side.

On paper, the most productive running lane was between the center and the right guard as it yielded 34 yards and a touchdown on five carries. Although, that was the path Ford took during his 37-yard touchdown run which skewed the numbers a bit. True freshman Darrian Dalcourt was at center while Matt Womack manned the right guard position on that play.

The Crimson Tide’s most consistent running lane was between the right guard and the right tackle as rushers gained 31 yards on six carries.

Both Alabama’s rushing touchdowns came on the right side as Brian Robinson Jr. found the end zone from 1 yard out with Wills and tight end Miller Forristall clearing the way on the edge.

Alabama was stopped several times in short-yardage situations, including third-and-1 in the second quarter where Robinson was blown up in the backfield after left guard Emil Ekiyor was beaten by his man off the line.

Still, not all of Alabama’s rushing deficiencies can be placed solely on the line.

“When you throw RPOs, you don’t always block the secondary folks,” Saban said. “I think when runners press the holes the right way and run where they’re supposed to run and people show up in the right places from the offensive line to be able to block them. And I think that there was a number of occasions where we had a hat on hat and we did not finish the blocks like we need to be able to run the ball effectively.”

LT: Alex Leatherwood — No pressure allowed

LG: Evan Neal — two QB hurries, two QB pressures

C: Chris Owens — one QB hit, one QB pressure

RG: Landon Dickerson — one QB hurry, one QB pressure

RT: Jedrick Wills Jr. — two QB hurries, two QB pressures

LT/RG: Matt Womack — No pressure allowed

*Stats provided by Pro Football Focus

What it means: The positive note for Alabama’s offensive line is that it kept its quarterbacks on their feet. Tagovailoa took just one sack against Duke. The offensive line wasn’t at fault for that play as the Blue Devils sent an extra blitzer on the right side who wasn’t accounted for.

As noted above, Leatherwood excelled at pass-blocking, while Jedrick Wills also did an adequate job of protecting Tagovailoa’s blindside. Some of that success was brought on by Alabama’s quick passing attack which didn’t leave defenders much time to get in the backfield.

Still, the line allowed Tagovailoa to complete 10 of 13 passes in which the quarterback held the ball for 2.5 or more seconds. Three of those passes resulted in touchdowns.

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