Denard v. 2011 SEC Starting QBs
After watching the game live in Dallas I thought Denard actually played pretty good and looked good throwing the ball. After re-watching the game on TV upon my return my impression was that he played even better than I originally thought. Many people of the internets disagree with this statement, so I went back and looked at the starting QB stats for every game Alabama played last year against an SEC opponent plus Penn State. Below are those numbers.
| Completions | Attempts | % | Yards | TD | INT | |
| SEC + Penn State | 11 | 21 | 56 | 109 | 0.4 | 0.9 |
| Denard | 11 | 26 | 42 | 200 | 1 | 2 |
If you take into account that Denard didn't get much help from his receivers (a couple drops, Gardner rounding off some routes) and remove the 1 INT that was blatant pass interference, Denards numbers are on par, or significantly better in every category save %. The pass to Gallon was picture perfect, along with many other throws that were dead on. I believe Brain's UFR will prove this out. Sure he had a couple bad throws and reads, but every quarterback does, especially when playing a defense the caliber of Alabama. No QB threw for more yards against Alabama last year than Denard did on Saturday.
I also have the team rushing numbers from last year which are interesting.
| Rushes | Yards | TD | |
| SEC + Penn State | 29 | 58 | 0.2 |
| Michigan | 29 | 69 | 1 |
Overall I think Michigan did just about as good as could have been expected, and on par or better than the vaunted SEC did against Alabama last year. Granted this year's defense is not last years, but from watching Alabama very closely the past 3 years, I'd bet this defense ends up being better than last years. The cliche "they don't rebuild, they reload" couldn't be more fitting.
September 5th, 2012 at 4:20 PM ^
rebuilding year for the Bama defesnse. What I'm getting at is more teams will put up better passing numbers against Bama's defense this year than last. We'll come back to this post after the Rkansas game.
September 5th, 2012 at 5:06 PM ^
I have a feeling that as long as Nick Saban and Kirby Smart are at Alabama, and they don't endure some kind of heavy sanctions that would cause massive attrition, there is no such thing as a "rebuilding" year for that defense. I hate to be so cliche, but they really do just reload there now.
Will their defense be as historically good as it was last year? I'd say no. But I think it easily could be. Saban's got his depth to a point where when one stud leaves for the NFL, he just plugs in another five star in his place that's been waiting in the wings for a year or two, knows the system, and has been learning from one of the best position players in college football. The guys behind Barron, Kirkpatrick, Hightower and Upshaw will undoubtedly be just as good as they were, or if not, pretty darn close.
When/if Smart leaves, I think the Tide defense will experience a minor dropoff, but not much.
September 5th, 2012 at 5:10 PM ^
Add in the fact that Alabama admits juco players, which allows them to cover defensive deficiencies (in this case, a second corner) not with an 18 year old, but a 20 year old with substantially more experience.
Arkansas (and perhaps Tennessee) will be Bama's secondary's major tests. But by then, we'll also know a lot more about our offense after facing ND.
September 5th, 2012 at 8:46 PM ^
September 5th, 2012 at 7:04 PM ^
Passing lines of every AQ-conference quarterback to attempt a pass against Alabama since the start of the 2011 season. I don't know what it means, other than Alabama has an awesome defense.
|
QB/Team |
Comp |
Att |
Pct |
Yds |
TD |
INT |
|
Bolden - Penn State |
11 |
29 |
37.9 |
144 |
0 |
1 |
|
McGloin – Penn State |
1 |
10 |
10 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
Wilson - Arkansas |
22 |
35 |
62.9 |
185 |
2 |
1 |
|
Mitchell - Arkansas |
2 |
5 |
40 |
24 |
0 |
1 |
|
Brantley - Florida |
11 |
16 |
68.8 |
190 |
1 |
0 |
|
Driskel – Florida |
2 |
6 |
33.3 |
14 |
0 |
0 |
|
Rogers - Vanderbilt |
11 |
18 |
61.1 |
104 |
0 |
2 |
|
Smith - Vanderbilt |
4 |
6 |
66.7 |
45 |
0 |
0 |
|
Mackey - Ole Miss |
10 |
21 |
47.6 |
113 |
0 |
1 |
|
Simms - Tennessee |
8 |
17 |
47.1 |
58 |
0 |
1 |
|
Jefferson - LSU |
6 |
10 |
60 |
67 |
0 |
0 |
|
Lee – LSU |
3 |
7 |
42.9 |
24 |
0 |
2 |
|
Russell - Mississippi State |
13 |
25 |
52 |
110 |
1 |
0 |
|
Favre – Mississippi State |
2 |
3 |
66.7 |
9 |
0 |
0 |
|
Relf – Mississippi State |
0 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
Moseley -- Auburn |
11 |
18 |
61.1 |
62 |
0 |
1 |
|
Frazier – Auburn |
0 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
Jefferson -- LSU |
11 |
17 |
64.7 |
53 |
0 |
1 |
|
Robinson – Mich |
11 |
26 |
42.3 |
200 |
1 |
2 |
|
Bellomy -- Mich |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
September 5th, 2012 at 7:46 PM ^
Taking this chart, then just taking regular season stats, ten teams managed to go a cumulative 128 for 257, good for a 49.8% completion percentage, accumulating 1,349 passing yards, 5 TDs and 13 INTs along the way. Excluding Michigan, the individual teams here averaged 13 of 26 for 128 passing yards, 0.4 TDs and 1 INT.
September 5th, 2012 at 8:58 PM ^
September 5th, 2012 at 9:34 PM ^
September 6th, 2012 at 2:17 AM ^
When the score became 31-0 and virtually over, Robinson was 4-15 for 28 yards and 2 INTs. You can sugarcoat that all you like with meaningless yards in garbage time, but it's still a shit sandwich when the game still mattered.
September 6th, 2012 at 11:11 AM ^
I am glad you posted this. It may not make others feel better, but it does me. It felt terrible being at the game, but even at halftime while deciding to stay or not, I was consoling myself and my friend saying that without the 2 turnovers that gave them 14 points, field position, long punt returns and penalties, this game would be sort of respectable, though maybe not necessarily competitive. Many of Denard's throws receivers got two hands on the ball. The problem was that Alabama defenders had a hand in between. Roundtree ran a great route on a slant but the Alabama corner turned around and recovered like an NFL corner closes on a slant. You just don't see that unless, sadly, you live in SEC country and your backups are NFL talent and thus practice is played at NFL tempo. Same thing with the jumpball to Gardner down the sideline. This is not to say that Denard does not try and force the ball into ridiculous windows that only he sees, but there were so many plays to be made that if you are playing anyone other than Alabama are completions.
I also contend that Borges called a great game. Denard just missed Devin on a long pass down the left side that would have made it first and 10 in field goal range...over threw Gallon on a flare to the flat where he would have likely picked up a first down. If a handful of these plays are made and Michigan doesn't have sooo many penalties, Denard's numbers would have been better far and away better than anyone on this list, particularly because the offense would have been on the field longer. This would not have changed the outcome of the game because of how big Alabama's O-Line was as well as all of their running backs that just keep coming at you. But I don't think Michigan is as far away from being elite again as this game would seem to indicate. 15 freshman played that will be sophomores by the time we play Ohio. In 2 years, I believe Michigan will have a dozen or so NFL ready players in their 2-deep and when they play in a matchup like this again we wont have to hope for a miracle to stay on the field with these guys.