Brian Branch shows off his pass-rushing abilities against Mississippi State
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Brian Branch went far too long without a sack.
After recording one against Louisiana Monroe on Sept. 17, the junior went five games without recording a sack or a tackle for loss, despite recording more than 20 total tackles during that span.
He even admitted it may have been a bit too easy for the opposing offense to read his intentions when No. 14 would creep down to the line of scrimmage.
"I love blitzing and I need to work on a little more on my disguises when I blitz so the quarterback won't know," Branch said. "A lot of times the quarterbacks will kind of point me out and it'd be like, they already know I'm coming, so they'll kind of shift the line out to kind of shift the line so they can block me."
While it wasn't an ideal situation to be in, the good news for Branch is he has a trio of pass rushers, who have combined for 10 of Alabama's 23 sacks this season, who can give him a pointer or two.
"(Chris Braswell), Will (Anderson) and Dallas (Turner) will give me pointers when I come off the edge," Branch said. "They tried to teach me how to work my hands and I kind of did it in this last game. I'll never turn down helping points from them."
The advice paid dividends against Mississippi State as Branch flew around the Bulldog right tackle and introduced himself to quarterback Will Rogers with a thundering tackle for loss.
It was Branch's second sack of the season and one of four takedowns in Alabama's bounceback performance against the Bulldogs.
"He’s done a very great job working on his blitzes and coming off the edge," Braswell said. "I kinda was telling him, sometimes he was spinning a lot. I kinda was telling him not to spin a lot because you know when you spring you kinda can’t see what’s coming on the other side. So I was just trying to tell him to use his speed, his athleticism and just bend the edge cause a lot of tackles can’t block someone with speed. So I was just telling him, just bend the edge and just use your hands more."
Branch's performance was one of a litany of defenders who got back on the right track after the loss to Tennessee the week prior. After allowing more than 560 yards of total offense. The Alabama defense, more specifically the secondary, stymied the Bulldogs' air-raid offense, allowing 231 yards passing through the air.
Alabama will take this week to fine-tune things a bit more before traveling to Baton Rouge to face LSU on Nov. 5. With that, Branch will have more time to learn from Braswell, Anderson and Turner which could lead to more quarterback takedowns with four games left int he regular season.
“Brian’s played well for us all year. I thought he had a really good game tonight. He’s the sixth DB. He plays the fifth DB a lot. Malachi plays it when we go to dime. He’s in a position where he’s actually almost playing like an outside linebacker, and he does a really good job of that because he’s a physical guy and he’s very instinctive. That’s how we got to stopping the run a little better by having some edge pressure with him, and that took them out of that. He did a good job the whole game.”