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Alabama Football: Penalities made Aggies look prettier than they were

ByBrandon Nickel|
TUSCALOOSA, AL - OCTOBER 22: Jalen Hurts
TUSCALOOSA, AL - OCTOBER 22: Jalen Hurts

Alabama football head coach Nick Saban has a reason to be upset; however, the Texas A&M Aggies were benefactors of penalties rather than their own success.

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Michael Casagrande of AL.com reported that Saban felt frustrated with his players, during last night’s press conference: “I’m trying to get our players to listen to me instead of listening to you guys […] All that stuff you write about how good we are. All that stuff they hear on ESPN. It’s like poison.[…] Like rat poison.”

However, before Crimson Tide fans start looking like rats leaving the proverbial ship, they should listen more to Saban’s further comments more closely:

"“I’m asking them are you going to listen to me or are you going to listen to these guys about how good you are? Just like your question right now, we get stopped three out of four times like that’s a bad thing? […] We’re not going to beat everybody 66-3.”"

Arguably, the combination of poor play by Alabama in key moments and the Aggies’ home crowd at College Station, housing 101 058 fans going crazy for anything Texas A&M did, was what made the game seem close.

Seems? Nay, a good football team knows not ‘seems’.

If the Alabama football players actually looked at what was happening in the game, they would have noticed that the Aggies were not doing much on offense unless given the opportunity.

Texas A&M starting quarterback Kellen Mond completed 19 of 29 passes for 237 yards and a touchdown, but much of that came from Alabama taking costly penalties or ‘miracle’ escapes that extended the drives. If it wasn’t for Mond’s ability to escape the pocket, as Alabama was in the backfield much of the night, the Aggies might never have scored.

Alabama’s defense sacked Mond four times and made seven tackles for yards lost. Alabama defensive back Minkah Fitzpatrick made much of that possible. He made three solo tackles, two of them for losses, and intercepted a pass marked for the end zone, just as the Aggies looked to get back into the game.

In fact, Mond’s 14 times rushing only amounted to 14 total yards, which helped keep him in check. The problem would be the occasional long bomb that he would throw that would be completed after he was flushed from the pocket.

That comes from a lack of discipline by Alabama’s DBs, not the efforts of the Aggies. Yes, Mond had to make those passes accurately and the Texas A&M receivers had to make the catches, but if the DBs did their job then the rushed QB wouldn’t have had receivers to throw to when he scrambled.

Also, it wasn’t like the miscues were only on the Alabama defense:

Then, there were the penalties.

The Aggies didn’t even look to come close to scoring a touchdown until Robert Foster muffed a pass while Bama was called on a penalty for an ineligible man downfield. It backed up the Crimson Tide offense just enough to make a second incompletion to Foster and Foster’s fumble on a basic one-yard pass play all the more tragic. It led to the Aggies having the ball on the Alabama 36, on their way to punching it in for their first touchdown of the game:

Another Aggies drive was extended because of an illegal use of hands to the face, costing Alabama 15 yards and a first down. Fitzpatrick’s interception stopped that drive from punishing the Crimson Tide, initially. However, by running the ball out of the end zone, Fitzpatrick put the Tide back on their own one-yard line, pinning them back for their punt to be blocked through the end zone and giving the Aggies a safety.

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The only touchdown where Texas A&M solely were responsible for was their last one in the fourth quarter, marching down the field with their aerial assault of 9-12 yards a pass. Even then, it didn’t look like they were going to score until Mond escaped, once again, and threw a 39-yard pass to Camron Buckley, after his defenders stopped running with him when they thought he was going to be sacked for the fifth time in the game.

Not to say that Mond and the Aggies offense do not deserve much of the credit for making plays, as all good football teams should; however, if Alabama football didn’t keep shooting themselves in the foot, Texas A&M may never have scored more than three points all night. Instead, the score was 27-19.

More focus should be made about Alabama’s players not staying focused, themselves. The Aggies crowd was so loud, even when they only gained two yards on an everyday run up the middle. Only when Alabama ran one play for a rushing touchdown by Damien Harris did a hush fall over the crowd:

Even then, the hush did not last long.

That’s the power of a home crowd when the opposition isn’t seeing the results that they expected. That’s what Saban meant when he said that the players shouldn’t expect to just destroy every opposition that they face if they don’t focus on each play like it has its own history. That’s when one gets a pathetic punt off of JK Scott’s foot for 19 yards. That’s when one fumbles the ball because he was worried more about the run afterwards before securing the ball first. That’s when players get dumb penalties and give up on their defensive assignments, even though the play is still going.

That’s how Alabama football may have taken their first loss of the season. Not because the Aggies were so great, but because it was an undisciplined and uncommitted performance by Alabama on both sides of the ball.

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Even then, that’s a sign of how good this team can actually be. If they can win by eight points and play that poorly, imagine what they could have done against the Aggies if they were focused. Instead, Alabama doubters get to run their mouths while the supporters have to worry if this mentality is a one-time deal or a trend. Saban needs them to listen to him, not the hype around them.

Or even the hype of another team by their fans during a game.

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