tags:college football scores ,alabama football ,college football ,ncaa football scores ,espn college football,alabama football schedule 2017 ,college football schedule ,alabama vs florida state ,ncaa football ,usc football,nebraska football ,auburn football ,auburn football schedule 2017 ,florida gators football ,lsu football,clemson football ,mercedes benz stadium ,clemson football schedule ,lsu football schedule ,fsu football,florida gators ,watch espn ,fsu alabama ,ncaa football schedule ,florida state vs alabama,watchespn ,fsu vs alabama 2017 ,alabama ,college football rankings 2017 ,florida state football,michigan vs florida ,georgia football schedule,usc ,south carolina football ,uga football,aylor football ,purdue football ,western michigan football ,louisville football ,georgia bulldogs,
ATLANTA — My, the things 76,330 of us learned Saturday night at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
We learned Alabama is very good. We learned Alabama has a defense that can make you think you feel pangs of pain even if you don’t happen to be the one playing Alabama at the time. Alabama can pry turnovers better than most and do more things than most with those turnovers. Alabama prepares comprehensively. Alabama has enough prized running backs that it can send one of them at your punter and, in some part-time special-teams work to go with his 73 rushing yards and a touchdown, he can get so close to your punter, and block the punt so emphatically , that it might look like he could have taken the ball as a souvenir.
No, wait, actually, we didn’t learn much of anything in No. 1 Alabama’s 24-7 win over No. 3 Florida State. “It’s all the same,” said Damien Harris, who blocked the punt and ran for the aforementioned 73 yards. “Any kind of positive play you can have to help the team win, that’s what we’re looking for. That’s how I look at it.”
[In clash of titans, No. 1 Alabama’s defense is too much for No. 3 Florida State]
We learned Alabama player quotations tilt toward the bland.
Wait, we knew that, too.
“They’ll have a great year,” Florida State Coach Jimbo Fisher said.
At 101-11 since 2009, it would be startling if they didn’t.
No. 1 Alabama and No. 3 Florida State deserve some hosannas for scheduling this doozy of a game, the first opener in American history which featured two top-three teams from that other wrinkle of American history, the preseason poll. They produced a taut, gooey, murky game, hard to play and hard to decipher easily. The defenses were so prepared and so fast that Alabama got 4.48 yards per play, which would have ranked 125th among 128 top-tier college teams last season, while Florida State got 4.16, which would have edged out Rutgers for 127th. Asked about Alabama’s defense, linebacker Shaun Dion Hamilton said, of course, “We did okay.”
[Howard and Caylin Newton stun UNLV in one of the biggest upsets in college football history]
Here comes another season that figures to be viewed largely through the lens of Alabama. College football has had three playoffs, and all three have had Alabama, and with a Southeastern Conference shorn of some of its traditional stoutness in this particular era, it will be odds-on, or odds-above-on, to go a stunning 4-for-4. Florida State did stay right with the Crimson Tide through two-and-two-thirds quarters, but left with the greater clouds. It has a sophomore quarterback, Deondre Francois, who everyone wanted two years ago, and who spent his freshman year impressing people by getting up manfully after going down frequently. With 5:44 left and the outcome sealed Saturday night, Francois went down again, tripped up from behind by one of Alabama’s chasing horrors (free safety Ronnie Harrison), and did not get up without assistance.
It was somber, as are many occasions for opponents of Alabama defenses. It’s also still plausible, of course, that Florida State still could make the playoff itself.
There’s one other thing we did not learn Saturday night: Alabama’s offense has sustained the unclear nature it carried through the latter games of last season. It faces a fresh week of scrutiny about what might be wrong with it, and luckily, for this task, it has a fan base loaded with seasoned football analysts willing to share that analysis with others. Coach Nick Saban’s assessments included, “Obviously some areas, we probably weren’t as happy, which was consistency on offense,” and, “The first game of the season, you can always pick out a few things that were a little ugly.”
Many people will accept that invitation to pick out such things. As Alabama finishes out this month with Fresno State, Colorado State, Vanderbilt and a downcast Ole Miss, some might even evaluate the work of the new offensive coordinator, Brian Daboll, plucked from the New England Patriots to become Alabama’s third offensive coordinator in its last three games (with an offseason tucked amid). Some of those people might even note that quarterback Jalen Hurts, while thriving for so long as a freshman last season, closed out with a three-game sigh of 31-for-65 passing, for 326 yards, and two touchdowns.
Of course, the team still came one second from a national title even with that so-called sag.
Most of all, Alabama remains the team that can do the things that win. With the score still 10-7 in a thick tussle with Florida State, it can send a running back into nothing but air toward your punter, off what Saban called “a good scheme based on their protection and how they protect.”
If, after that, you’re about to spend a five-play sequence — two special teams plays, three offensive plays — producing one blocked punt, one fumbled kickoff and two interceptions, Alabama is happy to help you with that. After all, it has running backs galore, such that Harris said, “When you have a few guys in the backfield
tags:college football scores ,alabama football ,college football ,ncaa football scores ,espn college football,alabama football schedule 2017 ,college football schedule ,alabama vs florida state ,ncaa football ,usc football,nebraska football ,auburn football ,auburn football schedule 2017 ,florida gators football ,lsu football,clemson football ,mercedes benz stadium ,clemson football schedule ,lsu football schedule ,fsu football,florida gators ,watch espn ,fsu alabama ,ncaa football schedule ,florida state vs alabama,watchespn ,fsu vs alabama 2017 ,alabama ,college football rankings 2017 ,florida state football,michigan vs florida ,georgia football schedule,usc ,south carolina football ,uga football,aylor football ,purdue football ,western michigan football ,louisville football ,georgia bulldogs,