Kentucky football: Five things to know about the Alabama Crimson Tide
Five things about Kentucky football’s next opponent, the No. 1-ranked Alabama Crimson Tide for a 4 p.m. EST game Saturday (SEC Network) in Tuscaloosa:
1. Nick Saban is a machine
That’s what Kentucky Coach Mark Stoops called the now-legendary Alabama coach. The two know each other well. As an assistant at Michigan State, Saban recruited Stoops out of Youngstown, Ohio. Mark ended up following his brothers Bob and Mike to Iowa. Saban, well, he’s now won six national championships — LSU in 2003; Alabama in 2009, 2011, 2012, 2015 and 2017.
“Well, you have to admire his work ethic and consistency that he has had,” Stoops said Monday of Saban. “He has been around a long time and he does a remarkable job. The man is really like a machine, he goes at it each and every day. He is very consistent in his work and that is evident with the way they recruit and the way they play each and every year. I have known him for a long time. He actually recruited me out of high school. He has done a remarkable job and I have great admiration for what he does.
“You would be silly as a football coach not to look at some of the things he does and listen to him and see his approach and not try to grab a few things. You have to be yourself, you have to be authentic, but you are also stupid if you don’t look at some things. People like him and the success he has, if you don’t try to grab and learn from people like that, you are not very bright. We are all going to do things our own way and you have to be yourself and be authentic but again, you would be pretty stupid not to look at some of the things he does and try to pick up a few things here and there.”
The 69-year-old Saban’s record at Alabama: 158-23 overall, 92-15 in the SEC over 14 seasons.
2. The Alabama offense is a machine
Saban might have cut his chops as a defensive coach, but it is his offense that is torching teams in 2020. The Crimson Tide ranks third nationally in scoring offense at 47.2 points per game and sixth in total offense at 555.2 yards per game.
Steve Sarkisian pulls the trigger. Saban’s 46-year-old offensive coordinator has had a career full of ups and downs. A quarterback at BYU, Sarkisian was on Pete Carroll’s staff at USC before becoming head coach at Washington in 2009. After going 34-29 there, he was hired to be head coach at USC in 2014.
After going 12-6, Sarkisian was put on leave to deal with personal problems, then later fired by the Trojans. Saban brought him to Alabama as an offensive analyst in 2016. When Lane Kiffin took the FAU job before the 2016 national title game, Saban had Sarkisian call plays in the 35-31 loss to Clemson.
Sarkisian then spent two years as the Atlanta Falcons offensive coordinator, following current San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan. After being let go in 2018, Sarkisian rejoined Saban at Alabama, replacing Brian Daboll, who had left for the NFL’s Buffalo Bills.
Stoops knows Sarkisian from his days in the Pac-12 as Arizona’s defensive coordinator from 2004 through 2009, when Sarkisian was an assistant at USC.
“I think he does a really nice job of just adapting to the personnel that he has,” Stoops said Monday. “He’s always had a physical presence about him. I can go back to the days of competing and playing against them when he was calling plays at USC and I was defensive coordinator at Arizona.
“He’s going to be physical and have play-action in there. He’s going to get the ball down the field, and he has some dynamic playmakers to get the ball down the field. As a defensive coach, any time you play somebody that has that physical presence and can run the ball, and be as physical as they want to be, but also have dynamic playmakers outside, that’s where it puts enormous stress on you.”
3. Alabama quarterback Mac Jones is a machine
The 6-foot-3, 214-pound junior out of Jacksonville is completing a ridiculous 78.5 percent of his passes. That’s the best in the country of any quarterback that has thrown at least 75 passes this season. Overall, Jones is 139-of-177 for 2,196 yards passing with 16 touchdowns and just two interceptions.
As Josh Moore wrote earlier in the week, Jones originally committed to Kentucky before flipping to Alabama. He took over last season when Tua Tagovailoa was injured. And he kept the job this season after Bama brought in five-star quarterback recruit Bryce Young.
I asked UK defensive coordinator Brad White what he sees when he puts on the video of Jones.
“I see a guy who’s playing really confident football right now,” White said. “He understands where to go with the ball. He does a really nice job pre-snap of what front, what coverage you’re in. He can make all the throws. Obviously, he’s got great trust in those wide receivers. I can see why. They don’t drop much. They create separation on vertical routes. On intermediate routes and there’s coverage that’s pretty sticky, they know how to come back for the ball and extend their hands. They’re a quarterback’s best friend.”
Davonta Smith leads the Tide receivers with an average of 126.5 yards per game. Najee Harris leads Alabama rushers at 119.0 yards per game.
4. Alabama recruiting is a machine
Here’s a list of five-star recruits, according to Rivals, Alabama has signed over the past four years:
2020
- Bryce Young, QB
- William Anderson, DE
- Demouy Kennedy, LB
- Chris Braswell, LB
2019
- Trey Sanders, RB
- Evan Neal, OL
- Antonio Alfano, DT
2018
- Jaylen Waddle, WR
- Patrick Surtain, DB
- Eyabi Anoma, DE
2017
- Isaiah Buggs, DE
- Jedrick Wills, OL
- Dylan Moses, LB
- Jerry Jeudy, WR,
- Elliot Baker, OL
- Alex Leatherwood, OL
- Najee Harris, RB
By the way, Alabama is currently leading Rivals team rankings for 2021 recruiting, followed by Ohio State, Oregon, LSU, Georgia, USC , Florida, Michigan, Tennessee and Notre Dame.
5. A Bear Bryant/Paul Hornung story
Paul Hornung died last week at age 84. Before “The Golden Boy” went on to win the Heisman Trophy at Notre Dame and winning world championships with the Green Bay Packers, Hornung was a star player at Flaget High School in Louisville who was recruited heavily by then-Kentucky coach Bear Bryant.
“He would come once a week,” Hornung told Louisville’s WAVE-3 in 2014. “He’d come in a limousine, pull out front, he’d say, ‘Well, I didn’t have any coffee because I wanted to have a cup of your coffee, Mom.’ Called her “Mom.” Charmed the hell out of her.”
By his mother’s wishes, Hornung went on to Notre Dame. But Bryant later indicated his inability to convince the Louisville high school star to come to UK in 1952 was one of the reasons he left Kentucky after the 1953 season for Texas A&M.
You know the rest of the story. After four seasons in College Station, Bryant returned to his alma mater at Alabama. Over 25 years as coach of the Crimson Tide, Bryant won six national championships and 14 SEC titles. He died on January 26, 1983, at the age of 69.
This story was originally published November 20, 2020 at 8:59 AM.
