Alabama football: In praise of the non-offensive touchdown
By David Wasson
Want to demoralize an opponent quickly? Watch your defense or special teams score on them like Alabama football has in seven straight games!
Dear football fan,
We know that — in your world of one-handed OBJ circus catches and pylon cams and 6-zillion-yard passing performances — you’ve forgotten about the single most demoralizing play in college football.
The non-offensive touchdown.
That’s correct. You can keep your tip-toeing and your hitch-and going and your high-stepping. We will take our big guys rumbling, bumbling and stumbling to the house as the quickest and most effective method to bury an opponent.
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Nick Saban knows this. Alabama football has darn near perfected the practice of sucking the will out of opponents via the guys wearing numbers in the 40s and 50s breaking the plane. For the seventh consecutive contest (or 7 straight games, if you read at the Auburn level …), Alabama punched it in Saturday night against the perennially inept Kentucky Wildcats by means other than via their own center snap.
Whether Fredo Stoops will admit it or not, watching a linebacker separate his QB from the football is bad enough. But for a free safety to then grab the rock and take it to the house on his own offense is a back breaker. Always has been. Always will be.
And so it was Saturday, with Tide LB Rashaan Evans sacking and stripping Kentucky QB Stephen Johnson. Alabama free safety Ronnie Harrison picked up the fumble at the Tide 45 and rolled 55 yards for a touchdown and a 17-3 lead that might as well have been 1000-3.
Sez Saban: “We wanted to attack the ball, especially on the quarterback. I thought he was a little loose with the ball. I thought the players did a good job of noticing that today, and that was certainly a big play in the game because we were struggling a little bit on offense. The score was 10-3 and they were hanging in the game, so that was a big momentum swing for us. That’s what we work on – trying to strip the ball out – every day in practice, and that will be something that we can show the other players. When you do it correctly you certainly have a chance to get the kind of consequences that you like and get the ball out.”
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And Fredo, er, Mark Stoops? “We talked about it all week, about how many touchdowns (Alabama) scores non-offensively. At that point we were just hanging in the game, playing some good defense, but you can’t turn it over. I think with Stephen it takes some more reps and some more experience.”
Alabama football sports information department (a nifty bunch …) tells us that Harrison’s fumble return was the 53rd non-offensive touchdown of the Nick Saban era and the seventh for Alabama this season, which leads the nation. Five of the seven scores in 2016 have been on defense. Alabama football has scored non-offensive touchdowns in its last seven games – five on defense (two interceptions, three fumble returns) and four on special teams (three punt returns and a kickoff return) – dating back to the CFP semifinal vs. Michigan State on Dec. 31, 2015.
Think about that for a moment — as there are some halfway significant games in there. We’re talking Clemson to win it all, Southern Cal to show 2016 what’s up, Ole Miss to finally wake up from the Chad Kelly Nightmare once and for all …
So yes, heap all the praise on Jalen Hurts and Calvin Ridley and Joshua Jacobs. We’ll take our punt blocks and pick-6s and scoop-and-scores all day long.
Sincerely,
The Shrewd Football Fan