Alabama Football Midseason Report Card: Just A Minute
Alabama Football Midseason Report Card: Just A Minute
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00:00 Welcome in to another Bama Central Just A Minute
00:02 with Austin Hannon.
00:03 I'm Katie Windham.
00:04 And Austin, we are at the midway point
00:06 of the regular season for the Crips of Tide.
00:07 Six games in, the team's five and one,
00:09 three and O in SEC play.
00:11 So it seems like a good time to do a little
00:14 mid-season report card, mid-semester report card grades
00:18 for the team.
00:18 So we'll start on offense, go over to defense,
00:21 then finish things up with special teams.
00:23 So start off, we'll start with maybe the group
00:27 that has the most criticism, the offensive line.
00:29 What grade would you give the line?
00:31 I'm gonna go C-.
00:33 I think that there's been a couple good offensive linemen
00:36 in the group.
00:37 Obviously, J.C. Latham, Tyler Booker,
00:39 I think have been doing a pretty good job.
00:41 But the other three spots on that line,
00:43 they're struggling.
00:45 There's been a lot of moving in and out.
00:46 They've given up a lot of sacks.
00:47 I'm going C-.
00:48 Katie, quarterback.
00:51 Quarterback, this is a tough one
00:54 because we've seen some bad quarterback performances.
00:58 Jalen Milrow had the two costly interceptions
01:00 against Texas in the loss.
01:02 The two other quarterbacks looked pretty horrendous at USF.
01:06 But then we saw some really good stuff
01:08 from Jalen Milrow last week,
01:09 and really in the first game of this season, too.
01:12 So I think kind of in the middle,
01:14 I would maybe do B- for quarterback play.
01:16 Maybe bump it up to a B for what we saw from Milrow
01:21 this past week at Texas A&M.
01:23 But I think for Alabama fans,
01:26 there's been some encouraging stuff the last couple weeks
01:28 that shows that this is a group
01:30 that can maybe be graded even higher,
01:32 which really you're hoping that moving forward,
01:33 it's not a group that Milrow is your guy.
01:36 But moving on to a group that had a lot of post-season,
01:39 I mean, preseason height that maybe necessarily
01:41 hasn't lived up to it a ton is the running back.
01:43 So I want you to give the running back
01:44 through the first half.
01:45 I'm going to agree with you on the B-.
01:47 Look, I think the running backs are good.
01:49 And of course, they've had good games.
01:51 They ran the ball really well in Starkville.
01:53 They ran the ball really well in Tampa.
01:55 But against Texas and Texas A&M,
01:56 which has been the two toughest competitors up front,
01:59 they have not really shown up.
02:01 So I can't give them any higher of a grade than a B-
02:04 because they haven't done it
02:05 against the best of the best on defense.
02:07 So running back's going to be B-.
02:09 Katie, this is going to be the interesting one
02:11 because this is another group that has mightily struggled
02:14 just like it did last year.
02:16 Give me your grade for wide receivers.
02:18 - It's almost like some of the wide receivers
02:20 you want to give like an N-A to,
02:21 like an I, an incomplete,
02:23 because like Ja'Cory Brooks is a guy at the halfway point
02:25 you maybe expect it to be the leader
02:27 and has two catches all season.
02:29 But then last week we finally saw maybe the emergence
02:32 of your number one guy with Jermaine Burton.
02:34 And then tight ends-wise,
02:36 I think if you kind of split it up,
02:37 tight ends maybe a little bit of a higher grade too,
02:39 because of what we've seen from Amari Nyblack,
02:41 who he's really more kind of a flex guy
02:43 that could maybe play both,
02:44 but then also bring in C.J. Dupree to transfer.
02:47 So I guess a grade for receivers,
02:50 I think because of what we saw last week
02:53 with Burton and Bond, I would give them a B.
02:56 I think before last week,
02:57 the wide receivers maybe have gotten a C
02:59 for the first half of the season.
03:01 So what, now that we've talked about
03:03 all the position groups,
03:04 what would you give the offense overall?
03:05 - The offense as a whole.
03:06 So you got to take into account quarterback play,
03:09 all the sacks, struggling to run the ball,
03:11 no really consistent receivers,
03:14 but the team's five and one,
03:16 and they're starting to kind of figure it out.
03:17 Like these grades change as the season goes along.
03:21 I think a few weeks ago in Tampa,
03:23 you give the offense a D,
03:25 but now that I've seen some progression
03:26 and I've seen that they've been able
03:27 to kind of figure out how to,
03:28 where they're not doing it together,
03:30 but they've had games where they've run the ball,
03:31 they've had games now where they've passed the ball.
03:34 I'm going to go with overall C plus B minus.
03:38 I'll go B minus,
03:39 'cause I feel like they're improving
03:41 at this point in the season.
03:42 I'll go B minus as a whole for the offense.
03:43 What about you?
03:45 - I think I'd do B.
03:46 Look, it's not the LM offense
03:47 we've seen in the last couple of years,
03:49 or maybe not even last year with Bryce.
03:51 They weren't always putting up a ton of points,
03:52 but we're coming out of a run of Alabama quarterbacks
03:55 where Alabama would just put up 40, 50 points a game easily.
03:58 That's not going to be this year,
04:00 but like at a 5-1 record, top of the SEC West,
04:04 they've done what they needed to do to win.
04:06 So I'm going to give them a B.
04:07 So let's move on to defense.
04:09 This will be a little quicker.
04:10 - The fun part, a little more fun here.
04:11 - Yeah, LF3 groups, starting off with the D line,
04:14 the guys have been creating all that pressure up front.
04:16 - Yeah, I think the inside defensive tackles
04:19 need to do a little bit of work.
04:20 That's Tim Keenan, that's Jaheim Otis, Tim Smith,
04:22 those guys, I think that they've been a little inconsistent.
04:25 They've gotten gashed in the run game a little bit,
04:28 but I think Justin Dubois, I think Jermarian Latham,
04:30 all those guys are starting to kind of come around
04:32 on the defensive line.
04:34 I'm going to give them a B minus.
04:36 That's kind of been a common grade for me today.
04:38 That's kind of how I would probably grade
04:39 Alabama's season so far,
04:41 but obviously that has room to improve,
04:43 and I think that they're doing that.
04:44 And we saw a lot from Tim Keenan in College Station
04:46 to be happy about.
04:49 I think he's starting to improve.
04:50 The defensive line's getting better.
04:52 B minus to the D line.
04:53 - Okay, moving on to linebackers.
04:58 I'd say this has probably been
04:59 one of Alabama's best groups of the year
05:01 if you consider inside and outside linebackers.
05:04 - Yeah, go ahead, you go first.
05:06 - I think this group deserves an A.
05:08 Deontay Lawson has just been a machine for Alabama
05:11 in the inside, kind of directing the defense.
05:12 Your outside linebackers,
05:13 obviously Chris Braswell, Dallas Turner,
05:15 towards the top of the SEC and SACs.
05:18 They've been creating pressure.
05:19 They've been getting SACs.
05:20 They've been forcing fumbles.
05:21 They've been getting interceptions.
05:22 Even Jaha Campbell had the interception.
05:24 So they've been stopping the run.
05:27 They've been doing a better job of containing,
05:28 a much better job of tackling from last season.
05:31 Alabama has much less missed tackles than they did a year ago
05:33 so I'm going to put the linebackers in A.
05:36 And then to finish out the defense, the secondary,
05:40 what would you give the back end of Alabama's defense?
05:42 - I'm going A plus.
05:43 I'm going A plus.
05:44 I think this has been the strength of the team so far.
05:47 You mentioned the pressure and the SACs off the edge.
05:49 Linebackers, I think are right up there.
05:50 I think you could argue an A plus for them.
05:52 I think they struggled a little bit against Texas.
05:55 So you maybe can knock them down to an A.
05:56 I agree with that.
05:57 But the secondary has been great.
05:58 I mean, after struggling in that fourth quarter
06:00 against Texas, they've come back.
06:02 They've been dominant on that side of the ball.
06:04 You think about the progression we've seen
06:06 from Caleb Downs as a true freshman.
06:08 How about the coming out party this season
06:10 for Terrion Arnold?
06:12 Kool-Aid McKinstry is the guy that he has been.
06:13 He's locked down over there.
06:14 Nobody even throws the ball his way.
06:15 Malachi Moore looks like 2020 Malachi Moore.
06:18 Like, everything has come together for that secondary.
06:21 And I think it's really the strength of this team.
06:23 I'm going A plus.
06:25 And then to wrap things up, just special teams as a whole,
06:27 which honestly, I feel like we should separate
06:30 into punting and kicking because of how good
06:32 both James Burnup and Will Reichert have been this year.
06:34 But I'm going to give special teams an A,
06:36 maybe even A plus.
06:37 Will Reichert, I believe, hasn't missed a field goal yet,
06:39 hasn't missed an extra point.
06:40 James Burnup looks almost like a different punter this year.
06:45 Although, in hindsight, a touchdown wiped off
06:46 because of a flag.
06:49 And then punt return hasn't maybe been great so far
06:52 this year, but still because of Reichert and Burnup,
06:53 I'm going to give him an A. What about you for special teams?
06:56 Yeah, I think it's an A. I think all the things you said
06:58 are right.
06:58 Burnup's taken a giant step forward.
07:00 Will Reichert's still perfect.
07:02 They have-- yeah, like you mentioned,
07:03 Kool-Aid McKinstry's muffed a couple of punts.
07:05 And a couple of things haven't gone well in that respect.
07:07 But you also have some big plays that
07:09 have happened on special teams and blocking the kick last week
07:12 for the touchdown.
07:13 And even though it got called back,
07:15 it wasn't because of a holding or anything.
07:16 It was because of just something outside of the play.
07:18 So it won't show up on the scoreboard,
07:20 but I count that play in my brain.
07:22 So the special teams is getting an A for me.
07:24 I really think that that's another big, big time
07:26 strength for this team this year.
07:29 So that'll about do it for our midseason report card.
07:32 That's a lot to go through.
07:33 But we'll see.
07:35 We'll check back in at the end of the year
07:36 to see if any of those grades have gone up or down.
07:40 But that'll wrap up today's Bama Central Just a Minute.
07:42 Thank you so much for watching.