Monday Morning Quarterback: Breaking down the win over Texas A&M
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We’ve had some time to digest Alabama’s 52-24 victory over Texas A&M. Now it’s time to break down what went right and what went wrong.
We’ll be using this space on Mondays to revisit key sequences, evaluate players and analyze trends in Alabama’s performance. Everything will be labeled into three different categories: Good, Bad or Different. The Crimson Tide’s victory over the Aggies had a bit of all three.
GOOD: Mac Jones’ deep ball
Game manager? More like game changer.
Mac Jones not only tore apart Texas A&M’s secondary Saturday, he did so in style. The redshirt junior passed for a career-high 435 yards and four touchdowns against the Aggies, completing 20 of 27 passes. Three of those scores came on passes that traveled 20 or more yards through the air, as Jones was 4 of 7 for 263 yards on his deep balls.
“It’s something that I’ve worked on this offseason,” Jones said after the game. “You know with all the receivers coming out, it’s hard to work with them, but I really put an emphasis on that. They’re fast and they can get behind the defense and make plays.”
Jones has had a knack for the deep ball over his first two games this season, going 7 of 12 (58.3 percent) for 366 yards and four touchdowns on balls that traveled 20 or more yards in the air. By comparison, Tua Tagovailoa completed 19 of 39 (48.7 percent) of such passes for 704 yards and nine touchdowns over 10 games last year.
BAD: Alabama struggles to cover backs and tight ends
Alabama’s young secondary continued to give up big plays over the weekend. However, the way the Tide is getting beat through the air is a bit interesting. Alabama actually did a decent job covering the Aggies receivers on the day, but the same cannot be said about picking up running backs and tight ends on delayed releases.
Texas A&M tight end Jaylen Wydermeyer recorded a game-high eight receptions for 82 yards while Ainias Smith, a converted receiver at running back, tallied a team-high 123 yards and two touchdowns on six catches. Tight end Ryan Renick also had a 17-yard touchdown on a blown coverage play.
"When you make mental errors and you don't cover them, that's a problem,” Nick Saban said when asked about stopping tight ends and running backs following the game. “When they have a good play that's a tight end, that's a problem. But I thought we did a pretty good job of covering their other guys when we had to play man-to-man, but 85 (Wydermeyer) was a problem for us.
“If you talk to those people, they'll tell you they think he's one of the best players in the country, and he certainly showed that today. I mean, it wasn't like we weren't all over the guy. He's just a big-body guy that can catch the ball.”
As Saban pointed out, many of Alabama’s problems with stopping tight ends and running backs came on mental mistakes. Smith’s 47-yard score in the first quarter came on a missed assignment followed by a missed tackle by safety Daniel Wright on the sideline. Going back to Week 1, Missouri’s first score — a 54-yard touchdown pass to running back Tyler Badie — also came on a blown coverage.
DIFFERENT: A much better day for Alabama’s backup backs
After landing on the bad list last week, Alabama’s backup running backs had a reversal of fortune over the weekend. Brian Robinson Jr. led the Tide with 60 yards and 10 carries, while Trey Sanders showed improvement over a small sample size, carrying the ball twice for 14 yards.
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