Is their offense impressive? Yes. But how impressive? The best D they have played is Missouri, who has an average D (Tamu is 93rd in the country in scoring D) . Louisville is a shell of itself (not that it has a huge tradition anyway), and aside from Tamu, they have played the two worst (by a very large margin!) West teams in Ole Miss and Arkansas. Heck, they may be the two worst in the SEC as a whole. I think we could beat either of them and even Vandy might. The NCAA rates bammer's schedule at 57, but it's simply a compilation of records and doesn't take quality of opponent into account. And BTW, Vols have the 11th toughest schedule (what else is new?). Bottom line...who have they played? Almost no one.
Bammer just hung 39 on Mizzou. But Purdue and South Carolina scored 37 each. I know Tua went out of the game, but the bammer offense struggled in the red zone even before he did, and Tua missed a bunch of passes. I wonder if now that DCs are getting some film on him, he's less effective?
And last but not least...as saban has stated publicly more than once, the newfound emphasis on quick hit passing offense has left the bammer defense less time to rest. Couple that with an unusually high turnover in players and especially coaches (not least including our HC
), and you have a bammer d currently only 7th in scoring defense. That's still good, but under saban they are usually 1 or 2 at this point in the season or even for the whole season. It means their D is a bit softer than usual.
I certainly won't predict a win, but I think we can put up a really good showing and if the ball bounces our way a few times (as it did against Auburn) then we might even have a chance going into the 4th quarter.
