Simulated Gameday Experience

Alabama 24, LSU 15

Go figure – one of the main storylines to come out of this game is yet another officiating controversy in a game involving one of the SEC’s two national title contenders.  This time, it was an overturned Patrick Peterson interception of Greg McElroy with LSU down six.  To some degree, it doesn’t matter what the call is, other than it happened.  Alabama likely would’ve won the game anyway (it may be a fortunate gift that Leigh Tiffin hit a 40-yard FG to create the final score) but really, the SEC doesn’t need this.  They don’t need more public questioning of their refs, but since Mike Silve opened that can of worms, no sense in putting them back now.

Alabama doesn’t need this, either, as it overshadowed what’s been a consistent message for them: win with defense, harass the opposing QB, and wear the other team down with your running game.  This week, they attempted to get Greg McElroy and Julio Jones re-engaged with, quite frankly, mixed results.  McElroy’s final line of 19-34, 276 yards, 2-1 TD-INT isn’t bad, but he went through long stretches of the game where he struggled.  Alabama’s WRs (and TE Colin Peek) did a great job all game of getting open, but McElroy offered up a consistent mess of overthrows, underthrows, sidethrows, and ducks that hampered a not-insignificant advantage the Crimson Tide receiving corps had.

By that, I mean most of the corps; for whatever reason, Julio Jones had a tough matchup with the aforementioned Patrick Peterson, notably beating him on a huge 73-yard TD where he just straight-up beat the entire defense.  By the aggregate totals, Julio had a good day for him this season (102 yards, 1 TD), but the details destroyed most of that picture.

Again, for Alabama right now that’s probably okay, and it’s hard to argue their pattern for games hasn’t been successful so far this season.  However, there may be some point where McElroy will need to win a game, and it’s starting to look like McElroy may not be capable of that.

On the other side of the ball, LSU has their own issues.  They’re still more or less the third-best team in the SEC, but like last year, third-best belies a pretty ugly secret: there’s one heck of a gap between two and three.  LSU was certainly game – they led 15-10 going into the fourth quarter, after all – but they were outgained 114 to 8 in the fourth, and outscored 14-0.  Their passing game was ineffective (in no small part due to Jordan Jefferson having to come out in the third due to injury, causing the apocaLeeypse of Jarrett Lee lining up under center – PTSD LSU fans everywhere probably cringed as soon as he came in) and the running game didn’t do much outside of a couple of decent runs by Charles Scott, who’s still mostly MIA.

In the national title race, though, LSU’s been relegated to an afterthought.  We’re now full steam ahead toward Alabama-Florida in what will likely be a BCS title game semifinal, which isn’t a bad thing.

Tags: ESS EEE CEE SUPERIORITY, weekly reflections