Alabama Recap: Tide keeps Eagles in Nest After Blowout Win

Alabama Football Recap: Alabama 52, Southern Miss-12

 

TUSCALOOSA– While Alabama wasn’t able to cover the spread, the Crimson Tide were able to easily walk all over the Southern Mississippi Eagles on Saturday evening with a final score of 52-12.

 

Alabama was off to the races again from the get go, scoring in three of their four drives from the first half. All the drives were also run by Senior quarterback Blake Sims. Sims finished off the day with 168 passing yard 2 throwing Touchdowns and a rushing Touchdown. The way things went today, Sims might be staying in that starting spot a bit longer.

“Blake’s been doing a good job, he’s done a pretty good job in the decisions that he makes and we’re just going to half to keep trying to get him to have the kind of confidence and continue to improve from there.” Head Coach Nick Saban said. “He has alot of confidence right now and I think he has confidence in our team and I think our team has confidence in him.”

While Sims was spot on today, another player who stepped up even more is wide receiver Amari Cooper. Against the Eagles, Cooper managed to make 8 receptions for 135 yards and add on another touchdown. Amari not only played fantastic, but also passed former Alabama players Marquize Maze for no. 2 in receptions and another Alabama great Ozzie Newsome for no.3 in receiving yards.

“They have me involved early,” Cooper said. “I’m just able to go out there and make plays.”

Cooper now on the season has over 30 catches for 454 yards and 2 touchdowns. It obvious who Blake Sims favorite target is after over 3/4 of his passes were to the junior from Orlando. While Cooper enters the Heisman talk race, the question still is; who’s going to be the one to throwing him the ball. Well in his mind, Cooper already has a good idea who’ll be throwing to him next week.

“Obviously, Blake is our starting quarterback right now,” Cooper said. “He’s playing more than Coker’s playing, and he’s playing well.”

Someone who might just begin to enter talks for top running back in nation is junior Kenyan Drake. While Drake has only played in the last two games, he has electrified the stadium. Tonight against the Golden Eagles,  Drake had 9 carries for 59 yards and three touchdown. For the season, this now puts him at 97 yards and four touchdowns, the most on the team.

“Kenyan did a great job,” Coach Saban said. “we got plays for him to run and he ran them very well.”

The defense this week came out playing strong but struggled from time to time. As mentioned by many before, Alabama’s secondary has struggled in the past against the spread offense and tonight wasn’t different. While the defense was able to hold the Eagles out of the end zone, they did give 13 first downs, 10 of them through the air against the defensive backs. While one could sit and cry about first downs, Alabama fans should be worried about losing starting safety Nick Perry. Perry was called for a helmet to helmet play in the third quarter and ejected right after. By rules set of the NCAA, Perry will miss the first half of next weeks game against the Florida Gators.

“I don’t question the call that was made against Nick Perry. I don’t think he did it intentionally but was it helmet-to-helmet? It probably was. I was standing right in front of it.” Saban said. “Do I think he’s a bad person? Absolutely not, but it is the rule and I can’t question the call.”

Probably the biggest surprise this season is the lack of use at the tight end position. Since the start of the season, Pre-season All SEC player OJ Howard has yet to even the touch the ball once. After tonight’s game, the tight end drought has ended; but it wasn’t who everyone thought it would be. Senior Brian Vogler would not only make his first reception of the season, but his first touchdown as well.

“It’s a big relief getting the first one out of the way,” Vogler said. “I takes the pressure off and hopefully the tight ends can make more plays for us.”

This season the tight ends have 2 receptions for a touchdown and yet none have come to the Tide’s number one man. Still, Vogler believes that with all the talent on the outside, that basically sums up the question.

“We’ve got great guys for us on the outside,” Vogler said “Why not just get it to them.”

One of the biggest if not the biggest takeaway from this game is the now dying situation at the quarterback position. After weeks of being lead on and having no decisions be made, It seems as if Blake Sims will be the guy to take this team further on into the season. Although quarterback Jake Coker’s performance wasn’t as up to par as the coaches would have liked it, he still managed to help out on drives when he could. While he did make a few mistakes, Coach Saban believes that his confidence is the one thing he really needs to work on.

“Jake needs to play and he needs to develop confidence. I think we’re going to have to make a decision on a week-to-week basis on what gives us the best opportunity to win” Saban said.

Coker is now into his third game with the Tide and probably will be in the same position next week as he has been since week 1. Ever since Sims has stepped onto the field this season, he has proven himself as the underdog and won. Even Coach Saban was afraid to make a change in the first half since Sims was playing so well.

“I didn’t feel real comfortable with the way the game was going, and it just didn’t feel right to make a change.” Saban said when addressed on Coker’s playing time.

Coker may still have a chance to start some game this season but for now; Sims most likely is the man the rest of the way out.

That comes to the issue of Blake Sims. While he has been close to a superstar on the field, he has yet to face against true challenging opponent. Next week, Alabama will enter SEC play against the Gators and Coach Saban believes that they will be a challenge.

“From here on out the schedule gets tougher,” Saban said. “If the team we play is not ranked they should be, they’re deserving of it.”

Sims will now have to step up more then he has this season. While the quick toss to Cooper works against small schools like Southern Miss, players like Vernon Hargreaves III will be able to pick on that fast. Sims this week in practice should begin working on passing towards the middle of the field rather then always to the outside. no matter what, Sims knows it’s time for him to step up once again.

“Everybody knows their time to step up because you get that feeling,” Sims said. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a freshman, sophomore, junior or senior, if you’ve got to step up, you step up at the time.”

Going back to the defensive side of the ball, Alabama will have to come up with a way to fix their defensive back situation with the loss of Nick Perry. Although Perry will be able to return in the second half for Florida, Alabama can’t afford to give up points to Florida and pray for a comeback.

“We’re already weak at that position,” Saban said. “We have guys all over the place and its hard to find guys when you’re going to run a nickel package like we plan to against Florida.”

The most likely option would be to move star corner Geno Smith to safety and have Maurice Smith move into  the star. However, another option one could see is moving Cyrus Jones from the inside to the outside and giving true freshman Tony Brown a chance to play the outside. Still, this week in practice, most likely all the defensive backs will be moving and switching in and out of positions.

“I don’t what the coaches are going to do with Nick being out, but whatever it is we got to be able to trust the next guy to step up,” cornerback Cyrus Jones said. “I think alot of people in our secondary have alot of experience in playing alot of positions so it can go anyway.”

As the night closes on another fantastic win for the Tide, SEC play is right around the corner. While Saban has multiple star on this team, he still believes that they can’t do it all alone.

“If we’re going to win, we’re going to win as a team,” Saban said “we need to get more people involved especially offensively.”

The Tide will play next Saturday at 2:30 in Bryant-Denny Stadium. Until then, Saban and the Tide will have alot of work to do in order to keep the perfect season look clean as any other winning season.

 

Cole Thompson is the Alabama beat reporter for WVUA-FM, follow him on Twitter at @ColeThompson32