afTeRmath: Post-game reaction to Alabama 63, WKU 0 | CFB, SEC

welcome back to the ryer on YouTube channel Travis ryer in the aftermath of Alabama 63 Western Kentucky zero win number one game number one for kayn dbor the successor to Nick Sabin and we've got a lot to talk about on the program we are live so if you'd like to jump on board in the chat let us know what you're thinking after game one of the dbor tenure boy fireworks a plenty I'd say right couple of takeaways for the defense Keon Sab is your front runner early front runner for the Jim Thorp award at this point with those two picks in the first quarter and look there were some not so good things it still is a season opener it still is game one for a new regime so you anticipated some hiccups there here and there and there were penalties certainly teaching tape for kayin dor coming out of his debut in the days and weeks following the WKU game you got South Florida coming up next weekend and of course a road trip that a lot of people will be anticipating in a couple of Saturdays to the University of Wisconsin but as for Saturday night at Bryant Denny Stadium pretty much what you would want to see pretty much what you anticipated seeing I would think from an offensive perspective explosive plays you know Alabama ran 21 plays in the first half still scored what 42 points pretty good ratio also averaged 17 yards per play Jaylen milro in the first half averaged 28 yards per pass attempt and what about Ryan Williams wasting no time as a true freshman a 17-year-old at that two catches 139 yards and two touchdowns so the ratios were pretty good in some areas of the offense we'll talk about the Run game a little bit but it really was kind of just a bizarre start in a lot of ways it just couldn't be without some without some turbulence right going to kayn deor you had the delay with the headsets and I just tuned in by the way the kayin deor press conference so he offered kind of an explanation on what was going on there western ky's headsets were not working so the Alabama staff was forced to take off their headsets for those few moments uh that led to you know some upheaval with the coaching staff Nick Sheridan's typically upstairs he has to come downstairs now because there's no communication from the Press Box or there didn't appear to be that there was going to be for perhaps an extended period of time boy you had Kaden Proctor go out before the game even started so before the opening kickoff before the opening snap I guess more like it you had headsets out Kaden Proctor out at left tackle with what looked to be a left shoulder injury kayin dbor in the postgame did say it's something that they'll evaluate obviously more in depth tomorrow and see where it takes them from there but Elijah pritchet has to jump in as the starter at left tackle you know kayin talked about this a little bit postgame two how that competition at right tackle had had Elijah pritchet taking pretty much all of his snaps in the last week or so at right tackle so now you're asking a guy who hasn't prepared really for that left tackle position uh in the leadup to this opener to go out there and start and there were some bumps I thought for Elijah pritet early on but I felt like also once he settled in and had an opportunity to kind of get his feet under himself he got better as the game wore on so these are a couple of the things that you had happening before you could even take a snap um early in the game you got a couple of offensive linemen who go out with headgear issues so you had a snap there in the first quarter right Parker brailsford goes out with a headgear issue at the center position uh Tyler Booker same play loses his helmet so he's out and now you got Elijah pritchet as your left tackle so you're looking at Gino vanderark at Center and then Olas Al leening at left guard with with pritchet as your left tackle it was it was a little bit of everything man early on again you had the picks by Keon Sab on the defensive side you had the Deep ball to Ryan Williams His official introduction to college football I thought the second touchdown by Ryan Williams was as impressive as anything you'll see because the ability to stop change directions and after the catch turn that play into a touchdown very very interesting to say the least you still had a snap issue all right you thought you were done with that you thought the PTSD had been sort of settled down for the time being but then you have a turnover off a snap issue uh with Parker brailsford and Jaylen milose so again it was uneven at times but at the end of the day the numbers look good the stats look good and we look forward to hearing from you here on the program and let's do it absolutely text titer our guy checking in here let let's go let's do it TCH Matt checking in so glad you are still putting out content hey look I got to do something right Matt um Bob checking in here in the comments as well you know Matt talks about two here loved how many players saw the field it's a good point Matt and it wasn't just once the game was under control or in command for Alabama boy that's secondary it felt like defensively in general throughout the first half we just saw two and a half deep perhaps of defensive guys and you knew that going into this game there was still some competition going on at a couple of spots maybe the wolf position we saw Quay Rous to start the game we saw uh zaven Brown the true freshman get the start at the corner opposite deanii Jackson but boy it didn't take long before we saw Jaylen and bway uh we also saw um we saw the other defensive backs back there Z meny another true freshman we saw pretty early in the game uh the Husky position it was Devonte Smith but we saw a lot of red Morgan there saw King Mack as the game were on uh you know the safety positions were Sab and Malachi Moore but we saw Bray hubard rotate in there I thought pretty early on as well too so Cameron Howard the transfer from Charlotte we saw a good bit at safety so plenty of guys with plenty of playing time Walk-Ons all over the place as it got late in the fourth quarter I like that I like it from a morale perspective too I think it's a good thing for your football team if you can do it now look there's a line that you got to walk between getting your guys the work that they need and being able to reward others that you're typically not going to count on as the season moves along but it's been a while since I've seen that many people play that many snaps at the University of Alabama it's a good point Matt and even on the offensive side of the ball you know getting into that second offensive line as we talked about Saul pritchet start uh out of necessity Saul alenin Saul vanderark pretty early out of necessity saw Joseph ayanat rep in there at the center position saw Rock Montgomery saw William Sanders saw Casey Poe uh Nel at offensive tackle um boy it was just miles McVey at offensive tackle just pick a position really across this team and you saw a lot of guys on Saturday night so for the most part Kaden Proctor injury aside and again Kaylin deor postgame says that's something that's going to be evaluated further in the days and hours to come uh you wonder about how that impacts this offensive line is it as simple perhaps as just sticking with pritchet on the left side I thought wilin forby did some really good things in this game uh at the right tackle position ran the ball effectively as the game moved along I like that kayin incorporated Jaylen into the Red Zone running game that was something that I didn't think we saw as much of a year ago as we might have uh so look if you were wondering if kayin was going to follow through on some of the offseason and talk about making Jaylen a part of that from a design perspective I thought that a that question got answered pretty much on Saturday night and you got to understand too this was not a revealing type of game in terms of Concepts and what this offense has in its book or in its tank when it comes to Personnel groupings saw a lot of two tight ends it was pretty much 12 Personnel 11 personnel pretty basic for the most part um depth at wide receiver I thought was good to see Ryan Williams obviously the guy everybody's GNA talk about and understandably so I thought maybe though jaylen's best ball of the night came on the corner route to Jeremy Bernard and the reason why I say that is because jayen threw with anticipation on time and with accuracy um there are still some things obviously that they can clean up and will clean up on the offensive side but some of the Run game scheme that we had talked about you know we didn't see a lot of the screen game we didn't see a lot of the quick game with Jaylen we saw a little bit more of it I thought with Tai Simpson you know as the game were on but the Run game with getting those guards out in front GT counters things like that pulling tackles pulling the center you saw all those guys used in that sort of fashion uh for the Alabama offensive line that was good to see as well so mostly positives for Alabama in this win again the injury to Proctor most concerning I would say things that can certainly be addressed uh and will be with South Florida coming up next South Florida almost feels like a Revenge game even though Alabama won the game so in terms of focus and attention um yeah there's guys that are no longer with the program but the core guys I would think Jaylen milro is going to be excited about playing against South Florida this year given that he was benched for South Florida a year ago so starting with your quarterback capturing the tension the undivided attention of your team uh this week shouldn't be much of an issue and I think there's still a lot of competition going on uh and now depending on Proctor status you know you got to really figure out from a debt perspective if you don't have Kaden maybe for an extended stretch coming up and I don't have any information to suggest that will be the case uh I just know that I don't like seeing my starting left tackle on the sideline in a sling uh with his left arm in a sling you know you gotta now if it is pritet and Formby and we had talked about this on the channel in the last few weeks about the importance of that third guy and why regardless of how it played out with formb and pritchet you still needed one of those guys to be a legit third option well depending on what the situation is with Kaden you may be really digging uh for a third guy here uh in the in the coming days this week so uh a lot of good stuff the the kicking game about what you wanted it to be uh it was interesting to see Cole Adams back there deep on punts um you know obviously the kickoff return game that wasn't much of an issue because you pitched a shut out in the game um but you know pretty much what you would expect I know Alabama was a 31 and a half Point favorite I think it comes as a surprise to some folks that maybe there was this sort of margin but look this is going to perhaps be an opportunistic defense and if they can get extra possessions especially with field position for what this offense has the potential to be these type of outputs against teams that aren't quite up to the standard of Alabama shouldn't be all that surprising really when you looked around the SEC today you know the better teams in the league against inferior opponents just shellacked those teams and whether you're talking about Tennessee whether you're talking about Auburn whether you're talking about Old Miss Alabama uh you know 40 Point first halfes were the minimum it seemed like around the league so more and more that seems to be the case in college football these days defensively uh again kind of a a three-man front you know Western Kentucky was going to spread you out we saw that from Tyson helton's offense with TJ Finley at the quarterback position so so you had this sort of 335 working where you had your three down linemen uh you had your two inside linebackers whether you're talking about uh Jihad Campbell Deontay Lawson uh also we saw a lot of Justin Jefferson in the game but then when it got to obvious passing situations we saw some creativity with the Personnel really didn't see a dime package from Alabama but what we did see was a shift to you know moving Jihad Campbell up to an edge to go along with say a q Robinson Q had the only sack for Alabama in the game Alabama did have seven or eight tackles for loss um and then you know play with kind of a four four linebacker look uh and then nickel behind it and then bring in a Jian leam or leave in a Jian leam maybe an LT Overton in that pass rush look as well so we got a glimpse at some situational things from Alabama that we weren't entirely sure about on the defensive side of the ball but we did think that depth especially up front would be something we would see a good bit of from the outset and that was definitely the case and you knew Tim Keenan was GNA play a lot you knew Tim Smith was gonna play a lot uh you figured Jem Otis would be a factor you figured leam Overton those guys at that Bandit position it all sort of played out that way uh but we did see a lot of Damon paint uh as a rotational guy we did see James Smith talked about that pass rush package that we saw from Alabama James Smith was a part of that too early early in the football game so we did get some partial answers at least to some of the questions we had maybe more so in terms of you know how is this team unitwise going to go about things when you get into situations like third and long or goal line short yardage um and then you know depth that the wolf position a lot of quay rousa some Q Robinson uh we saw Keanu cot a little bit later uh you know the depth at linebacker uh with some of those young linebackers okaron quo we saw out there on special teams and also at uh at inside linebacker we also saw another true freshman I thought at linebacker uh in Kayon Jones The Freshman from Asheville North Carolina he's a goodlook young player 6'4 about 230 pounds I mean you know some of these freshmen that Alabama has brought in um they they don't look like your typical freshman that's for sure Tex tier checking in here he says he thought it was good to see some fire from kayin debor I I tell you TCH I thought it was interesting I I I it's not to say that I didn't think kayin dbor had that in him but to see him getting after the officials like he was with uh headset gate going on before we even had a snap yeah I thought that was pretty interesting if you were wondering if he was just kind of this a Shucks you know meager sort of um softspoken guy kind of like everybody's favorite uncle or something uh he did show you some fire and he did show it I thought in terms of dissatisfaction you could tell there were times he was not pleased with the level of play so you know I think that's not necessarily a bad thing either so what we'll do is we'll pull up to we've got the uh stat broadcast box that we're going to share here on the screen just kind of go through it with some numbers again Alabama threw for 266 yards on just 18 pass attempts a piece for Jaylen and Ty thought Ty came in very early especially very crisp very self assured very confident um that was impressive to see and we talked about you know Jaylen in the Red Zone but it was also Tai Tai had the rushing touchdown in the game as well so three rushing touchdowns uh from your top two quarterbacks elsewhere at the quarterback position it was Dylan Lan number three played all those running backs just Justice Haynes four carries 102 yards had the long touchdown of 85 that was a beauty wasn't it that was a I think that was a guard tackle counter he brought around um brought around Jaden and wilin right wrapped him around got that pretty much cleared out I was interested to see on that run if Justice could finish it in the end zone because he kind of reminds me a little bit of d Harris and so as you might recall Damian used to catch some grief early on in his career especially it seemed like he would bust Those runs and then can get caught inside the 10 or not be able to finish in the end zone but Justice Haynes finished that run in the endzone we saw Jam Miller five times for 54 yards in a touchdown you had you had five different players with rushing touchdowns Daniel Hill the true freshman with his first rushing score I thought Kevin Riley uh did some good things in the game when we got to see him Richard young as the third back I wasn't surprised to see Kendrick law get a touch or a carry um in the way that he did early in the game uh so rushing wise you know you run for 334 on 47 carries that's a 7.1 yard per carry you'll take that and again you know I mean first half Jaylen averaged 28 yards per pass attempt that's gonna it's going to skew the numbers a little bit the explosiveness though very much on display and then a lot of receivers that you got help from you know as the game moved on saw more from Caleb Odum there in the second half The Talented true freshman but primarily your top three four five guys were Kendrick Jeremy Ryan Kobe penis um and then we got into some Emanuel Henderson and and Cole uh as well Cole Adams and then you got down the road a little bit more and you saw some Caleb odm two catches 23 yards we saw jiren Hamilton there in the second half tight ends pretty much the three or four we were expecting to see CJ dpri Robbie OTS Josh quavis Danny Lewis those were the the first three or four guys on the field Saturday night but boy just a ton of players on both sides of the football and again defensively you had eight tackles for loss for Alabama in the game excuse me seven tackles for loss those came from six different players eight pass breakups played just a ton of DBS I thought that was really valuable to be able to get guys like imbak and meny uh and desan Jones had a very nice pass break up there in the second half you know those corners and those husky candidates red Morgan to go along with Devonte Smith and you know all those guys that are in that mix uh Bray Hubbert had six tackles in the game five five solos uh one of them was a tfl uh so a lot of good stuff uh again some things that are going to have to be addressed and you know that's going to happen in an opener and not just an opener but again a firsttime pass through for a new staff and so uh Alabama gets the job done in very impressive fashion I talked about the defensive line depth but you know we saw Jordan Renard uh in there as well we saw edric Hill in there as well um eight pass breakups seven different guys contributing that total we talked about that earlier that's that's good news that's good stuff um Matt checking in once again we haven't seen that aggressiveness to attack the screen plays lately and the pursuit speed was excellent and I talked about this throughout the week too Matt and I still think this is going to be the case I don't I don't think because Alabama uh did some good things against the perimeter game it'll signal the last that they see of it especially if you watch Georgia against Clemson earlier today they went after Clemson Georgia did on the perimeter and that was without Trevor etn um so that may have had something to do with the play but teams are going to continue to look to go out there I think more so than between the numbers know Keon Sab jumping a couple of balls tonight you know what Malachi Moore brings to the middle of that defense we knew the up the middle of this defense would be fine uh and I do think the perimeter answered the Bell uh especially as the game wor on but that's still going to be I think where South Florida this week maybe Wisconsin who knows with Wisconsin offensively but Georgia down the road wi uh Missouri down the road those are teams that are still going to look to get after you on the perimeter I think pretty good Donald checking in here thought this went about as good as it could have great win but things to work on absolutely Donald uh that's an opener for you uh I think that you know there is some there's some security to take though uh because of the leadership of this team which sounds kind of unusual but I think you've got the right people in place too at critical positions that you can that you can have self- policing not just coming from your coaching staff because you know that's kind of like when you have kids like I do I I can I can say what my kids need to hear but that doesn't mean they either hear it or want to hear it but when it comes from a peer that seems to impact them tenfold more sometimes than it does when I deliver it or my wife delivers it so you know I think that this team has the intangibles the infrastructure uh that they can they can be honest I think with each other and with themselves in terms of where Improvement needs to happen you know kayin was asked in the postgame tonight about is there such a thing as being almost too explosive like you're not sustaining drives maybe as much as you would like because you're hitting for so many of these explosive plays with Justice Haynes and Ryan Williams and you know your quarterbacks able to do it with his legs too and I liked it because kayin did not apologize for explosiveness um he said he's not going to turn down explosives for the sake of uh sustaining drives you I don't know many coaches that will coaches love explosive plays uh I think this team though in terms of situational offense like I said earlier I was encouraged by it because when they had some Red Zone opportunities because of jayen and what he can do with his legs and Tai did it as well um it very much looks like the quarterback is going to be a central figure with the Run game especially in the Red Zone I like that I like that with the guys Alabama has you saw Dylan lonan when he got in there had a nice scramble what 16 yards and Dylan can run too so it's not just something that's limited uh to one guy in that quarterback room it it can be a part of who they are because really one through three right now at the quarterback position they're able to uh they're able to do that Chad Shoemake here in the chat in the show comment says I heard coaches comment on Proctor but what is your opinion of what the injury could be I you know Chad I don't really know it just sounds like it was a fluky situation um you know pregame warm-ups they do go some 11 on 11 but it's it's nothing like full speed full contact uh but sometimes those those type of things happen and um it's very very rare and very seldom that it does but uh you kind of hate it for Kaden because it's been just a weird wild sort of offseason he kind of brought it on himself I understand that but you know this guy was eager to jump back in there that sense of normaly of being with his team uh and that's before you talk about the potential that he has and to see that happen first and foremost you don't like it for him but I don't really know enough to speculate uh I I I I said it earlier You' never like to see your starting left tackle in a sling um but again perhaps for precautionary issues we don't know I do I do know this Jeff Allen and his staff are Beyond exceptional uh I know Alabama has you know a sports science center now that is the equivalent of um The Andrews clinic North nor or I don't know maybe it's not North because birmingham's North but you know what I'm saying uh so the resources are in play if there's any way to get Kaden brat back quickly I would expect that to be the case but what we do know a lot of guys played a lot of yards piled up a lot of points and you know defensively again if I told you going into this game I think the bigger surprise for Alabama fans would have maybe been Western Kentucky not scoring Alabama getting a shut out in this game then may be Alabama scoring 63 points because when you think about this offense you return your quarterback you return some key pieces on that offensive line and at the skill positions uh you're bringing in a guy like kayin dor with an offensive pedigree that's really Second To None to go along with Nick Sheridan so you're kind of thinking you know this is a team that that's going to score mid 40s in this game at least maybe into the 50s but I know I know some folks that I interacted with throughout the week here on the channel just thought that 14 the thought of 14 points I think the Imp implied total uh analytically that was run chase goodread at tus glusa news on talking tide we talked about this the other night here on the channel was That Western would score 14 points and I know some people are like h that's not happening Western's going to score in the 20s well they didn't really they didn't really sniff the 20s I mean they did have the field goal attempt um you know that was was no good um but look Alabama was empty in the bench too in the fourth quarter I think 70 was easy if that's what Alabama wanted to do uh you had the the personal foul on Tai that eliminated the interception there in the second half but penalties again too many that's going to be a talking point I have no doubt about that uh coming up here very very soon uh and it's also interesting to note too you know Alabama's going to practice on Sundays under dor and so Monday will be the off day so that it's going to be a quick turnaround now I would think Sunday is going to entail more of the pre previous game cleanup and while it's fresh addressing some of the things maybe that you didn't like uh from that Saturday game but it's it's going to be a quicker turnaround uh under kayin dor and while it's still fresh the ability to make those needed Corrections and adjustments what do you think of special teams I mean again there just wasn't a whole lot to to take away from it um you know Graham Nicholson made his Pats I think special teams was about the way you wanted it just pretty much extra points right extra points not very much in the way of punting how many times did James burn at punt I I'm I remember the one punt uh I guess in the second half punted three times for a 50.7 yard average had a long of 54 I think it was the 54 it was really nice there hung it up um and so you know just not really any opportunities on kickoff return um Cole Adams did have five punt returns for 42 yards with a long of 12 I probably the best thing I liked about Cole back there was that he took care of the football you know a lot of confidence in a young guy to put him back there I mean I know it's something that he's done in the past but uh that was good to see uh and so really from a turnover perspective a pretty clean game for Alabama and again when you take it away twice like Keon Sab did and you turn it into 14 points you're typically going to be in a pretty good pretty good situation all right anything else before we get out of here here you go Chad thank you my friend Donald says this team seems hungry they were excited they played with a lot of energy made some mistakes no doubt about it but I didn't get the sense that it was a team that looked like it had been through an exceptionally grueling preseason seemed to have plenty of energy and it doesn't hurt when you play pretty much everybody on the damn sideline which hey again that's I think that's a great thing I'm I'm happy for a lot of those guys I mean uh to be able to get in there and and see action in a season opener uh that was that was good to see again we appreciate you tuning in here on ryer on YouTube if you haven't subscrib to the channel as of yet hit that subscribe button right now there's a notification Bell there too hit that Bell that way you're alerted to all of our content as it drops here on ryer on YouTube give us a thumbs up if you don't mind that would help us out tremendously as well want to remind you chase goodbrad uh gonna be coming up with me very soon in the next day or so with another edition of talking tide as we wrap Western Kentucky and a look ahead to South Florida next Saturday at Bryant Den stadium also planning to do some some video review of some kind here on the channel so be on the lookout for that as well until then Travis ryer thanking you once again for joining us have a great rest of your Saturday evening be safe and until next time so long everybody