APA.J. McCarron threw for a career-high 359 yards to help No. 1 Alabama overcome a sluggish start and beat Kentucky, 48-7, in Lexington on Saturday.
Alabama coach Nick Saban couldn’t have been too happy with the way the Tide played in the first quarter, however. Alabama punted once and fumbled twice on its first three possessions and was scoreless 17 minute into the game against the SEC’s traditional bottom dweller.
The second quarter was a different story, though, as Alabama rolled its way to 267 yards and 24 points behind two touchdown runs from Kenyan Drake. The game was pretty much over at the half, but Alabama’s offense kept on churning, piling up 668 yards, its most since getting 833 against Virginia Tech in 1973. The Tide also notched 35 first downs and got 100-yard rushing games from both Drake (106 yards) and T.J. Yeldon (124 yards).
The only question remaining after halftime was whether Kentucky would put an end to the Alabama defense’s 14-quarter streak of not allowing a touchdown. The Wildcats did just that when Maxwell Smith found Javess Blue on a 30-yard touchdown pass in the third quarter.
One can forgive ‘Bama fans if they are already looking ahead to the big showdown with LSU in three weeks. Games against Arkansas and Tennessee should do little to slow down this Alabama train.
As for Kentucky, well, there’s always basketball season.
AJ is making me have impossible draft fantasies. I’m ready for a new QB in Pittsburgh. Heaven knows we have other problems to solve. But wouldn’t it be nice …
And before people show up to tell me I’m viewing McCarron through Bama blinders … no, I’m viewing Roethlisberger as someone who understand the pro game and the law of diminishing returns. We’ve got to make a change, and I’d like a reliable, emotionally stable, pro-style QB. That eliminates Manziel.
I would prefer Manziel, Bridgewater, Boyd, and Mariota before AJ. Got game manager written all over him.
I think Boyd definitely before Mccarron.
The reason I favor McCarron is that I’m not wild about option QBs. Those guys generate a lot of press, but they don’t capture many rings. You want someone with good mobility, but he needs to know how to read a defense. That’s Roethlisberger’s problem–for all his strengths as a QB, he’s not a student of the game. He can’t read defenses. And as he gets older and less mobile, that’s a problem not shared by pocket passers like Brady. I don’t want someone who makes one read and takes off running.
Don’t know if that applies to Boyd and Bridgewater. But it definitely doesn’t apply to McCarron
wait… Pittsburgh drafted the 6’5″ Landry Jones from Oklahoma in the 4th round last year? he is currently Big Ben’s backup right now.
Pittsburgh has to get younger on defense, and get more speed on offense..
Brandon Weeden has the same problem. Fans turned on him when they saw Hoyer’s quick decision making and good awareness. Hopefully, we’ll end up with one of these talented guys.
@deb – don’t you have some dishes to wash or fries / hamburger orders to take during your shift at McD’s? Pls stay off these boards with your redneck Bama bias….it’s unflattering….and, I need 3 packs of ketchup….
Geaux away….
ROLL TIDE!!….
I see the haters are up and at it bright and early…It must get harder to swallow for some with every week BAMA stacks up a win. Sad that some can’t contain their envy and “bias” and they must make bigoted, sexist and prejudiced comments.
Hope that makes it easier to live with BAMA being #1 for another week…
Alabama beat KENTUCKY…..another prime example of the weak sisters of the SEC taking one for the “team”.
Kentucky sucks, and they suck on a level where every team in the country can and will beat them. There are at least 7-8 SEC just like them.
Don’t pat yourself on the back too much Bama, this was a very hollow win and results in a loss of respect IMO.
Against Kentucky? yeah, good story brah…
I’ve got nothing against McCarron, he looks like a fine quarterback, but beating Kentucky, with that Bama talent, is like a star jock beating on a special needs kid. Kentucky is an amazing basketball school, but football is not in their wheel house.
Let’s not act as if Kentucky is a world beater. Oh and let’s look at who else almighty Bama has “beaten”:
VT – sucks
TAM – sucks
CSU – really sucks
Ole Miss – sucks
Georgia….STATE – oh here is ‘Bama’s signature win here LMFAO
Kentucky – sucks
Let’s look at ‘Bama’s remaining schedule:
Tennessee – 3 wins over Austin Peay, WKU, and South Alabama. 3 lame wins for a terrible SEC team
LSU – at least they’re decent. This is the only legit game on ‘Bama’s schedule
Miss St – worldbeaters clearly, they’ve beat Alcorn St, Troy, and Bowling Green……but but they’re an SEC team blah blah top competition…blah blah really?
Chattanooga – OMFG really Alabama, this is SUCH a staunch opponent. DON’T EVER TALK S**T ABOUT BIG TEN SCHEDULES EVER AGAIN.
Auburn – another sucky SEC team. This isn’t even a “rivalry” anymore. Auburn is no better than Chattanooga. Oh and I graduated from Auburn but they SUCK.
Alabama, IMO< deserves ZERO respect. They (along with the rest of the uber-hyped SEC) have lame schedules but NEVER get called on it.
Dryzzt must be delusional if he thinks Texas A&M and Va Tech suck. He must be trying to make himself feel better about his own overrated team.
The schedules definitely gain or lose strength based on rotating opponents & the performance of their divisional opponents. Bama got a good draw this year. Va Tech was a reputable OoC opponent. Unfortunately, their conference brethren let them down this year as LSU seems to be their only challenge before another BCS NC game. The SEC East only has one team that plays defense, unfortunately the one team that does have a good defense has no offense. This would be a great year for a playoff!
@dryzzt23
Don’t ever talk about Big Ten Schedules ever again?
Ok well I’m going to do just that right now.
Who’s the Big Ten’s best team right now? Ohio State.
What’s their schedule like?
Buffalo
San Diego State
California
Florida A&M
Wisconsin
Northwestern
Iowa
Penn State
Purdue
Illinois
Indiana
Michigan
So if Va Tech and Texas A&M suck, I can’t imagine what you think about every single team on Ohio State’s schedule.
You graduated from Auburn? Makes sense with your “sound” logic and reasoning skills.
And if Alabama and the rest of the SEC is “uber-hyped” why is it that the Pac-12, Big Ten, Big 12, and Notre Dame have had a chance to stop the SEC streak and failed?
Dryzzt must be a fan of some team BAMA has beaten over the past few years. Whether you decide to give them respect or not, they have WON 3 (yes count them if you can) NATIONAL TITLES in the past 4 years (and we won’t get into the many more before that). Guess those successful seasons were due to “a weak schedule”…Lets not forget the fact that BAMA had 9 players last season, you know after they won the NC to go on to the NFL and most went in the first rounds of the draft.
Now what will probably make you lose your lunch is that BAMA has the #1 recruiting class clear through 2014… A few more years of nausea is possible for ya so better buy some pepto!
@dryzzt23:
Dude, you’re pitiful. You really are. If you really graduated from Auburn, I understand why you are so jealous of Bama’s unprecedented success, but seriously, you shoot any shred of credibility all to he11 when you say stupid things like VT sucks, A&M sucks, Auburn sucks, and refer to LSU as “decent”….you realize that those teams that “suck” are a combined 16-3, right? And that nobody other than Bama has beaten VT or A&M, right? If you want to play that game, we could apply that idiot logic to any team in America. How about….Ohio St?
Buffalo – oh here is OSU’s signature win LMFAO
San Diego St – sucks
Cal-sucks
FL A&M – OMG really OSU this is SUCH a staunch opponent DON’T EVER TALK S**T ABOUT SEC SCHEDULES EVER AGAIN
Wisconsin – sucks
N’western – sucks
See what a knuckle-dragging mouthbreather I sound like? And YOU sound like?
I don’t really believe that Wisconsin or Northwestern “suck”, but if VT and TAMU suck, then 2 loss Wisconsin and 2 loss Northwestern must be freakin’ awful….right?
You could apply this same caveman logic to any other team. The fact is, it doesn’t matter what Bama does, because you detest them…that’s fine, but let’s call it what it is….biased, ignorant, illogical filth spewed from the keyboard of an absolute Bama hater.
In the SEC, the top half of the conference handles its business against the bottom half, and people conclude this means it is a weak, top heavy conference.
In other conferences (with the PAC being the most notable in this regard) the top half consistently craps the bed against the bottom half, like we saw with Stanford yesterday and we tended to see with Pete Carroll’s loaded USC teams in the latter years. People conclude this means its a tough from top to bottom, competitive conference.
Think what you will, I suppose.
Do not throw records out there general, the SEC routinely plays cream-puff schedules, that is where most of these “16-3″ W-L records come from.
VT “beat” W.Carolina, E. Carolina, Marshall, GT, UNC, and Pitt (all of whom suck – can you really hang your hat on that?)
TAM “beat” Rice, Sam Houston St (oh THERE is a juggernaut the SEC can gloat about), SMU, Arkansas, and Ole Miss (all these teams suck, thus TAM is a fraud)
LSU “beat” TCU, Kent St, Auburn (sucks), Miss St, and Florida. 3 cream puff SEC schools, and Kent. If Ohio St beat Kent you SEC homers would rip them for it but oh well LSU is a “mighty” SEC school and a win is a win, oh and then you’ll talk about how tough KSent is (but you wouldn’t apply that same mentality if tOSU or Michigan played Kent).
The SEC is a fraud, does not deserve any respect, and needs to be called out of the easiest schedules in the entire country.
I have no dog in the fight, but Ohio state was forced to schedule Florida A&M earlier this year and pay them over $1.2M because an SEC team, Vanderbilt, backed out of the contract… OSU beat the mess out of FAMU 78-0
Im sure Ohio St would not have had any problems with the Harvard of the South if they would have played.
cream puff schedules are going away like 8 tracks and cassette tapes with the new 4 team playoff logic coming in 2014, which will include strength of schedule.
I don’t think schools will be able to schedule multiple cupcakes every year if they want to be in the top four at the end of the season. That’s why we are starting to see these neutral site games popping up everywhere in the future, and, if the SEC joins the Pac 12, Big 10 and Big 12 in playing 9 conference games, then you wont see the Western Carolina/Auburn or Alabama/Georgia St type games.
You play who you schedule.
Roll Tide Roll
I think osu and Florida would be a really good game if that says anything of their caliber.
Classy,
Ohio State wouldn’t schedule Florida.
OSU wins the B1G, goes to the Rose Bowl and gets spanked by Stanford.
Look at the Sagarin Football Rankings for overall SoS (strength of schedule)
Which conference is stronger?
B1G SEC
Michigan (97) Alabama (36)
Ohio State (87) LSU (12)
Michigan St (78) Texas A&M (31)
Nebraska (107) Georgia (1)
Penn St (48) South Carolina (20)
People complain that the SEC is weak and a fraud? Fraud has B1G all over it.
RTR
@v2the4 …
Yes, thank you, I know who’s on Pittsburgh’s roster. And if I were confident that Jones–who is third on our QB roster–could be the next franchise quarterback for the Steelers, I wouldn’t be talking about McCarron. The team has many needs to address, and if we deal Roethlisberger this off season, while he’s got trade value, we’ll have more draft picks to play with. We have speed on offense. What we need to run our current scheme is a running game. That means addressing the line and bringing in a big, bruising back.
As for defense, we foolishly gave up our best pass rusher, have a talented but aging secondary, and Brett Keisel is about ready to retire. So you can take your pick of where to start there.
Apparently one of the the many things dryzzt23 doesn’t know is that Kentucky is an SEC member and all teams play opponents in their own conferences on a rotating basis. Bless his heart.
@irishdodger …
Thanks for being objective. I don’t agree, though, that LSU is Bama’s only tough opponent ahead. Arkansas played A&M pretty tough, so we shouldn’t take them lightly. Tennessee worries me, too. They put up a big fight against Georgia, and they hate us. Never underestimate the adrenaline rush of a big-time rivalry
Deb, we’ve already agreed about playing UT. That game worries me. Arkansas as well.
Dtyyzt, or whatever. You sound foolish. You don’t like the SEC, fine. But you say A&M sucks? VT sucks? At least make a reasonable argument. Maybe give us your to 25.
Irishdodger uses his brain. We don’t always agree, but we don’t have too. Smart people having intelligent debates have brought us from living in caves to landing on the moon. Same for super. They are the type of people I would love to spend an afternoon talking football with.
This is shaping up to be wild finish in college this year. Best luck to all.
@dryzzt23
Don’t throw records out there? Well, here in SEC country, that’s how we judge teams…because, see, that’s kinda why they play the games. They keep score and everything. How would YOU like us to judge the teams? By whose helmet is the most shiny?
Ok, since using logic isn’t working, let’s try this…you give me an example of a team that doesn’t “suck”, in your mind….since you consider VT, A&M, Auburn and Florida to be “cream puffs”, tell me who isn’t a cream puff. In other words, give us your Top 5….
BTW, the AP certainly disagrees with you…an historic 8 teams ranked in the Top 25….the SEC rolls on, while the haters just have to stew in it.
I’m pretty sure the ACC measures success in wins and losses as well. Maybe that’s why the big 10 has been so sorry lately, they haven’t learned about wins and losses yet.