If the key to beating Bama is getting pressure on McCarron, then we are in trouble. Our front four has been unable to put pressure on QBs the entire season. Alabama has only given up seven sacks for 43 yards. Bama's offense is geared towards counteracting pas rush and blitzing with short to intermediate passing, a bruising running game, well-balanced ratio of run to pass, and a QB who does not make many mistakes. McCarron has only thrown 3 INTs. I do not see us putting consistent pressure on McCarron this game.

There is no single "key" to beating Bama. You have to play solid in all phases of the game for 60 minutes. Therein lies the problem, as we have a mediocre defense, especially up the middle and at safety. You can expect Saban to attempt to exploit these weaknesses over and over.

As I wrote in another thread, I believe one of the major keys to beating Bama is to limit "3 and outs" on offense. Saban's defensive philosophy is to go all out with pressure and challenge the opposing offense to get a quick stop, flip the field on a punt, and force the opposing defense back on the field after 3 plays. I understand that this the goal of every defense, but Bama is the best at doing it. Unless our offense creates first downs, Bama's style of play will wear down our defense quickly. Our only chance to win is to sustain multiple drives that keep our defense off the field. I believe if we have a 25/20 TOP advantage and NO TURNOVERS going into the 4th quarter, then anything can happen and we have a chance to pull it out in a close game, like we did in 2011.

This post was edited on 10/28/13 at 2:44 pm

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Posted by Mr. Misanthrope

Cloud 8

Member since Nov 2012

5586 posts

Posted on 10/29/13 at 10:28 pm to TigerfFaithful

quote:
Our only chance to win is to sustain multiple drives that keep our defense off the field.

This and the rest of your post. In Jan. 2012 our offense did nothing against the great Bama defense resulting in our defense being on the field about 90 plays with predictable results. As it was our great defense gave up only 15 points on field goals until late in the fourth when the inevitable exhaustion set in and Bama ran one in. If this offense were that offense we would have a rough evening. But it isn't, it is better and could be better yet if we are not predictable and make better use of all our receivers and give the Bama defense more worries than Beckham and Landry. As you note: