Bama247 Roll Pod Reaction: Breaking down Alabama's 48-10 win over ECU to start the regular season

0:00Alabama kicks off the season with a 48-10 win over ECU. Five Star Keelan Russell shows why he was highly ranked. The Crimson Tide rushed for more than 220 yards to kick off the year-three of the Kailan de Boer Air. Brett Greenberg, Mike Rodak and Alex Garb break that down and much more in the latest episode of Robot. What's up, hello everybody. Welcome to another episode of Robot coming off straight off a Alabama 48-10 win over East Carolina in Bryant, Denny Stadium. Keelan Russell flashed a little bit of white.

1:00He was highly so highly ranked. Defense flew around a little bit aside from one drive, which I'm sure we're going to get into. Alabama with 480 total yards, 227 on the ground. Keelan Russell, like I said, accounted for a little bit of a lot of that. I believe it was 253 passing yards as well. I think Keelan Russell is 249-ish. First we'll start. Is Alex, Mike, or you guys cool down? I don't know how much time you spent on the field. Is it 130 degrees? How was it cold in the press box? Was it weather report? It actually wasn't that like we were only on the field for 10-15 minutes, but even then I think there was enough cloud cover it didn't get as bad as people maybe thought it would be. I don't think it will go down as the hottest Alabama football game in history. Yeah, it didn't feel like that. I mean it was cold in the press box as it always is, but on the field after the game, it was breezy. It was actually quite nice. That's kind of what Keelan said. He's like, the scrimmages that we had in the stadium under the sun were probably worse than what this game was.

2:01It helped that there was a couple storms passing by. I don't know if it will go down, maybe in the record book is terms of the temperature, but I don't think I'll remember it as the hottest game that's been played here. Right. These rapid reaction shows are going to kind of jump all over the place. We'll go wherever Alex Mike wanted to go, but we'll start there. Alex, just, I guess it's been 30 minutes, a little over 30 minutes, 45 minutes, since the final play of the game again, out of M48 to 10. Biggest reaction, biggest takeaway go. It was good, but could have been better. There were some good moments, some good things you could take away, but also some moments where you kind of were left wanting more. I think about two penalties that really negated, what could have been really horrible plays, you think about the flag that was thrown that negated the Ryan Williams drop, would have been a second drop that resulted in an interception that gets wiped out, and then another defensive penalty on the Carolina that wiped out a fumble. But there were still plays made.

3:03You still saw flashes of what Keelin can be, the quick decision making, the legs. All those things, I thought the offensive line settled in as the game went along. I think we're grading against a curve with that unit. If we're being honest, giving all the turnover, and what the unknown is there, I thought they kind of did what you wanted to see them do. The defense, it's held at home. One bust play, it'll be interesting to go in and look back and see, was that Bray who was out of position or was that a different situation? But again, I guess solid sort of BB plus kind of game, not blown away, but a good first step. What was a good opponent? Yeah, before Mike goes, I just want to point this out. You've got to be an objective bystander in the press box. Did you guys at any point find yourself like Keelin, go down her, go out of bounds or anything like that? I don't know. That was a big takeaway. They were remote. Yeah, go out, go out. Just to say, reminded me of watching Jaden Daniels, because I did a lot of that in that year. And I was just like, don't let yourself become a rag doll.

4:06And he did say that after, we just talked to him a few minutes ago. And he's like, I expect we're going to be doing a lot of slide drills in individual work this week. And that's something I need to do a little bit better job of. Yeah. I think it was definitely a talking point in the press box. And I think it's going to be a pretty big talking point, not just the sliding and protecting your body part, because he probably took more hits than any Alabama player did in this game. But it's just the fact that he's running as much as he is. And there's a couple of design runs. There's one in the red zone. But overall, it was mostly scrambles. And he finished with 13 carries, which was four more than any other player in the team and 86 rushing yards, which is pretty easily the most in the team as well. So I don't know if that's what we expected for all the talk going into this game about Kiel and Russell, pass her first, don't insult him by calling him running quarterback, et cetera, et cetera. You ran quite a bit. You ran more than I would have thought. And is that a good thing? I think he certainly showed the capability of escaping some sacks and making some plays

5:08for first downs that I don't think Austin Mac would have made. But it goes back to the discussion that we had a couple of years ago with Jaylen Miller Oates. How much is too much for the offense? And the James Harden offense, I think, is what we call the Miller Oates. And to have most of your rushing yards come from Kiel and Russell and have him obviously taking a leading role in the passing game, it's that too much for a sophomore. And I think we'll maybe start to get an answer to that on the road in the SEC next week. But we saw a lot of the rookie mistakes, if he will. He's not a freshman, he's a sophomore, but you had two delays of game, you had two other timeouts. And in delays of game, you had a legal forward pass penalty, you had a intentional grounding penalty. So there was a lot of little things. And that just from talking to Ryan Williams after the game, they're not particularly thrilled about that. So you saw the potential, not just Kiel and but EJ Crow and Trace Schum around other players in the game, but really balanced with like a lot of expected mistakes for younger players.

6:11And that's the identity of this team, especially in offense, very high ceiling, but an experienced team that could really trip on itself at certain points. I think we saw that as well. The only pushback I'd give on the Kiel and running the football point of view. And it's legitimate, like we've talked about, Brett and I have said it is not a running quarterback, he's a quarterback who can run. I think we do need to go back to how we talked about the quarterback competition three, four months ago, which was a big piece of Kiel and winning the job was going to be because of those things to make up for the deficiencies they had anywhere else. Like we were talking what's a good number for rushing. Well, they got over two under rush and a lot of that had to do with Kiel and needing to escape when the offensive line did break down and there were those design runs in there. So there's a question of what's an ideal number. But there's also part of it that's like this might be what there might be their best route to success as long as he's being efficient and creating plays throwing the football,

7:14which he did do today as well. Right. So outside of Kiel and they were at 36 carries, 441 yards. That's about 3.9 yards of carry, which I think is less than what you would have liked. It's balanced with you had a lot of goal line runs. So a two yard run at the goal line is a successful play, but it's going to drag down your average. I feel those. But it just felt a little bit inconsistent still with the running back traditional running game. I think you saw the flashes who Daniel Hill, I thought was better and we'll get to that in our game balls as a preview. But I think you saw some better things at a hand. You saw the flashes, but overall not super consistent with the traditional running game. And that's what you'd want to see against an East Carolina. You can have this kind of game in your bag. You just don't want to have to go to it every single time. Right. Yeah. Were you guys a little surprised Kiel and played as much as he did? And I just asked that because of why do we talk about it?

8:17How much when does Matt get in? We talked about the preview of the game and the week leading up to it. It felt like at least to me it was made. And everything's good. But maybe one or two drives I felt like maybe earlier he would have been taken out, but I don't know if you guys had any thoughts about that one. I think he played better in the third quarter. He would have been out of the game sooner. And that was, it was a bad third quarter for the offense. I mean, they got up scored in the third quarter. I guess three nothing. And that was one of the things that Ryan Williams, Coleman Williams was a seven of those third quarter. So if they had played better and they really pulled away then, then I think we would have seen less Kielin in a second half and more Mac. But they did it. And look, I think every rep is important. Like, Kielin doesn't have many under his belt. This is only the third game that he's actually played in. And when you're going on to road in the SEC next week, I think it is helpful to have those reps, especially when both mistakes were being made. So, yeah, it's all a balance. I think yeah, if you pull them out earlier, you protect them, but I think it was fine

9:19to keep them as long as it had. Yeah, I agree. I think you bank those reps and you get them that experience good, bad or ugly. And it's something you can learn from. And would you ideally have liked to get off seven of a bunch of reps in case you need to use them, sure? But I think there's an upside to play in Kielin as much as you did as well, especially when he walked away without an injury. If that happens and a whole conversation is different, but yeah, for a young guy, it's not the worst thing in the world. Yeah, just sticking on the offense, then we'll get over to defense offensive line. I think that's all relative. You know, you're playing. I know we talked about the ECU defense line being some some bitches. I think there's how we refer to it, but I feel like they showed big old. We're trying to we were trying to get to the point that they were old and big and right, then, you know, Indiana. I'm right. I think the fun will tack on. I think though, Gotti, I guess other than the hold, which they even the analysis were

10:19talking about it, they weren't sure if that was an exact hold on that trace on Brown run. He looked pretty good. I think Carol looked pretty good. Javan James, I think, we'll probably keep bringing this up like the way Kielin Bore even talked about it, just like, serviceable right now. Lloyd looked like the guy with an experience at some points, but overall, I think he played pretty well. I guess the one thing that we go back to is the one position that we feel like there would be some potential rotation. There was that left guard William Sanders comes in. He starts. There's a couple plays where I feel like he got kind of beat pretty easily that Malwaltrad comes in. Do you think that's kind of should be kind of a rotating door or do you think one is already is Walter completely taken that over? Or is it kind of going to be practice the practice week to week Mike? Mike senses that that was planned in terms of getting Walter been there. I can't speak to how each guy did necessarily in the game with the line, but it was fine for the game. Again, the holding penalty was the killer. You obviously had a couple plays where there was penetration.

11:20You had a couple runs that were longer as well. It was fine. I don't know if anything stands out. The offensive line, one way or the other. I don't know. Maybe I was reading a little bit into it too much, but I thought Kielin was asked about it, about why Malwalt sort of came in the game. He underlined it was not a health issue, which you can take to read. It was the plan always to play in that long, or you can take to say William wasn't performing enough there before we went to Malw, Malw performed well enough to keep going. I think it's something that's worth watching at the very least. Wouldn't surprise me if there's a little bit of a tradeoff in terms of who's starting from week to week. You just want to get that nailed down by the time you get. Kentucky could be a game. Don't get me wrong, but you want it nailed down after the first month. I think ideally. Yeah. Moving to the past, Patrick Ving, obviously, the Ryan Koma Williams has a couple big drops, but then he kind of responds. It felt like they were kind of making a point to give him the ball. A lot more. I don't know if that was because of the drops, but he ends up with five receptions for

12:22130 yards. Could have realistically probably had 30 more yards in a touchdown to that. He ends up kind of playing a pretty good game, relatively speaking. I think Derek Meadows kind of showcased his long length. And as his athleticism, three catches, 44 yards and two of him, he had to completely kind of dive out for and catch on his fingertips. Lots of your Brooks wasn't too heavily involved. I don't think Rico Scott was too heavily involved as far as, you know, targets. I guess Rico Scott for targets. Koma Edwards probably could have had a touchdown as well, but they're making a point to get him. I think I guess maybe, and you guys take it out where you want. Even one of my biggest takeaways on the pass catching is that it doesn't seem like Josh Ford is going to be a big target, which is not not a surprise. He was, you know, a very good blocker. There's multiple times he was taking his defender, 10 plus yards down the field and running him in the end zone, wherever it may be, but it was Marshall Pritchett and Kale Edwards there. And there are a lot of Pritchett, I think, was targeted. Maybe once or twice didn't end up with a catch, but that was kind of my bigger takeaway

13:24from the from the pass catchers. Yeah, I was surprised that there wasn't a little bit more involvement from the tight ends in the passing game. I know Edwards had that one. I know Pritchett was targeted, laid out, couldn't get it. Yeah, I'm curious to see how that develops. I never really expected too much from Ford in the passing game, but you need to be a little bit serviceable if the only thing you're going to do from that position. You don't want to, you don't want to be the guy who only does one thing from a tight end position. So you need to give a little bit on the pass catching side. I would have liked to see a little bit more lots of your Brooks, you know, late in the game. I said, you know, I haven't heard his name once. And then there was that little pass where he goes down the sideline and he almost breaks free for a touchdown. You want to see a little bit more targets spread out. See more guys, but we've talked about it before. It's a top heavy team. To me, it's, can you get as much as you need out of those other guys until Noir Ajax is helping? Can he be that expected for you down the road? Yeah, I think the biggest thing for me is probably Siderian Morgan, not playing a huge

14:28role. I think he didn't get into late in the first half and see what the exact snap count is. But, you know, just maybe a spot E-player kind of here and there. You can put him in, especially when Rodgers gets back. He's probably right now your sixth receiver. So I think, again, people at high hopes for him. This is a game where this and Chad Nuger are like, a freshman getting in is kind of an opportunity and wasn't totally on the radar today. So something launched there. Yeah, you mentioned Justin Hill. It does, you know, we had joked about it. I think a little bit of oxygen, but does look like he is. He did drop that way. It does look like he has a little bit Daniel, not just Daniel. It does look like he's a little bit more shiftier. I think there's multiple plays that I watched. I kind of found myself like, seems like last year's Daniel Hill version, maybe get tackle or behind-line scurridge, but he, you know, broke off some four or five chunk year plays at a nice run into the end zone. And his first rushing touchdown breaking some tackles. I think Xavier Corwell, you know, in his, I think it was seven carries.

15:32So that was kind of the big topping point as well as how many carries he was going to get. Then Trashon Brown showcased his kind of athleticism and shiftingness as well. Again, there wasn't, you know, at the mic, he said it was 36 for one fifth, whatever it may have been. So it's, you know, three points, nothing per carry. But I think there is a lot to like between those three individually, you know, as a group. Yeah. And I think they'll have to pair that down, especially when AK deer gets back. I don't know. It's typically three running packs you're going to play. So deer ads, that's five, you're counting chemoriling who Riley got more carries or sorry, he had one less carry than Trashon Brown, seven versus six. So I think you're going to have to figure out which two or three guys you're really going to run with. And I think right now, to me, it's probably Hill and Corwell based on what we saw today. Could it be Hill and Brown and a little bit of Crowell or something like that? I don't know. We'll find out. I think that's the opposition that they're trying to sort through right now. Yeah. I mean, I, I really like the potential of Corwell and Brown.

16:33I mean, you get that one long run called back on Brown. It's unfortunate, but you like to see the burst there and you see sort of flashes of what Corwell, what made Corwell a five star? There are two things and there's small things that I thought were positive developments. One was the short yardage area. They did a good job in that and they, they limited negative plays. And also they were just running north south a lot more. There were only a few instances where I was like, just get up the field and get positive yardage. And that was definitely an improvement based upon what we saw time and time and time again last year. So still a lot of room to improve. You do wonder what will AKDers roll be when he comes back? He was dressed out in warm-ups, not dressed out once the game began. I'm a total surprise there, but yeah, I think a lot of it hinges on those two freshmen and you saw things you like, but how, how quickly can they develop and become featured parts of this running game as opposed to just adults? Yeah, flipping over to the defense to the quick counts. I might be off by one or two, but how many defensive players do you think saw at least once

17:38now? It's got to be North of 24. Right. Right. 28, 28. I'll say. I don't know how many had snaps, but it felt like everybody got a tackle. Like the tackle sheet was just filled up. Like nobody was like, oh, I got 12, like gobbled it all up. So yeah, a lot of you saw a lot of diving Taylor, a lot of Carmelo and Neil, a lot of those guys second and third Schring that we were wondering what their role is. We'll still wonder what their role is. But yeah, I mean, Kane wants to play guys and you know, experience his finite. This is one of those games where he can kind of build that up to hopefully have it for down the road. Yeah, Mike was spot on 28 defensive players. And then to Alex's point, there was four guys with three tackles, six with two. So that's 10. And then there's 18 with that record at least one tackle. Mike biggest takeaway on the defensive side other than the rotation, which was not really a surprise.

18:39No, that's going to happen, especially in a Kane, Womack defense and the amount of talent that they have and feel good about. We'll start there with you kind of overall defensive. Yeah, I mean, obviously the big play of the breakdown with Bre, other than that, wasn't a ton for me. So there's a couple plays in the passing game that they were able to make. Nothing in a running game other than, I don't know, two yards that they had that they finished with. Now a lot, I will say that big loss that they had on that botch snap really, you know, set them back in the rushing yardage to put them behind the April. But and then the K-Loan was actually a little bit like, I don't even want them to gain three or four yards after the game was his take on the defensive line. So he wasn't fully satisfied what he saw. So it is one of those games. I mean, Mitch Griffiths, the quarterback of ECU actually finished with a higher pass rating than K-Loan Russell for the fans of the pass rating stat. You can dissect that one.

19:39I'll six fans out there that are fans of the pass rating stat. I want to see what their total QBR was. I don't know. I think the defense look fine. I think it's obviously a more veteran group. I think it's a group that you're expecting more out of sooner than the offense because of its experience. And I think you got a vast majority of what you're looking for today. I, yeah, the rotation. I actually, some of those guys got in like in the fourth quarter in the games out of hand. I was actually not. There was less rotation within the competitive part of the game, if you will, than I would have expected. And all of those guys, I mean, obviously the big play was the pick-sex by Yannes Apear and dropping into coverage. Who would have thought that that would work for a pass rusher? People go nuts over that, but it worked. And he didn't see him and Yannes had that pick. And, you know, that was the play of the game for the defense. Yeah, it was hard. It just solid throughout on defense. It's kind of my takeaway.

20:40Did the defensive line just own the line as a scrimmage? I don't know in terms of creating those pressures, but it was good to see like Justin Hill had a one-wild play where he just laid a guy out and Terence Green getting a sack when he's the guy we talked about over and over again entered the program with one career sack. So he's already doubled that up. Like you want to see, we talked about it over and over again. You want to just see disruptive players up the middle of the defense. That's the quickest way to screw up an opposing offense. So you see that out there, a little bit of flashes of it. I think Will Stein and Kentucky are going to be more of a stress test for this album and defense than what East Carolina was, but you still like what you see. I mean, it's not like again, because it was so spread out in terms of the defensive production. It's hard to be like, oh, Luke Metz stood out or oh, this person stood out. And maybe their football hearters who will tell you like, oh, my God, this guy had a great game. It's neither good nor bad. Just production was spread out and it's hard to say, you know, this guy was an all-started

21:42day. It was just good. Zero tackles for Depp and Tompkins was an interesting stat. The tackles are always a weird stat to kind of read too much into, but I actually tell a Henry had a sack late in the game. He did. Mikey brought up there that left rotation in the competitive part of the game and I agree with that. I think just look at the linebackers. Caleb Woodson flashed. I think a little bit just kind of sideline to sideline and it felt like in correct me if I'm wrong that Xavier, I don't know how many snaps he got. Xavier Griffin talking about the freshman. He was kind of involved in that rotation at least in the competitive part. So it was what came while I'm going to talk about that. I'm going to find a role for him. So that was kind of I guess another takeaway had on defensive side of the ball. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I think you're playing three corners or you're playing three safeties. You're playing four inside linebackers. You're playing two Huskies. You're probably playing three outside linebackers. You're probably playing six or seven defensive linemen. I think that's kind of where he was at in this game and you can kind of see where that line of delineation was. And then some other players got in later in the game like Steve Boulombumua and Factor

22:44to Henry and some of the fan favorites were able to get in before everybody left the stadium. Yeah. Moving to special teams. Caritalty goes two for two. Was it? Yeah. He did multiple field goals. He was perfect on. That was my bowl prediction. 41 yard or 21 yard or Alcsasseroff. Punter two points. So not a huge sample size but average 52 yards. A punt. I guess it kind of goes along with kind of stuff can be better. There was some kind of weird things that happened across the game like that. The Rico Scott Deezon Lee I think it was on a part or kick return that rekindled kind of jumped in front. So that's all stuff that can easily get worked out. But Jackson Louis coming on not knowing he was on part of the field. He'll go in an extra point in it. Yeah. Right. That was kind of my special teams minute. I don't know if you guys have anything else to add there. I think I made it. I think I made it. It was enough given this game. Right. Yeah. So we're 20 plus minutes in.

23:45We're going to have these rock pot reactions shows going to give out some game balls. We're on offense. We're on defense. Then we'll get out here and went out to make it more stuff up onto the site and everything that about that game balls. Mike offense and defense. Offence ago with Daniel Hill. I think the one thing that would prevent me from going Ryan Coleman Williams was the drops and that's something that just can't happen for another season. And I think he knows that from talking to him after the game he was not happy, satisfied at all about his game. So I think it's hard to give him that just in one of those he got lucky on it. And offside's defensively. Otherwise it would have been a pick for Keelan. That was should have been touchdown. So I'll go with Hill. And again, I mean, nine carries for 47 yards, but that average gets skewed, but he had two short touchdown runs that he was running for, you know, five yards, five yards, eight yards, ten yards. That's what you want to see out of your lead back. And I think he is his, I think he is the lead back defensively. I don't know.

24:45It's really tough defensively. I think the easy one is Yonzae Pierre. Obviously that was the big play. Yeah, I'll go with Yonzae. I just don't think there's anybody else that just from a game ball standpoint. I give it to Fattuto Henry. Maybe I will. I don't know. I'll give it to Yonzae though. I'll stick with Yonzae. I think you make a play like that. Even if the ball found him, maybe more than he even found the ball. You made the play. And he's been a guy who's consistently shown up in big games. Not that this was the biggest game, but on all of the things I give it to Keelan. First start, managed it well. Some early bumps and things you want to see improve operationally, but like you expect that, right? It's a big environment. You know, there's going to be nerves whether he wants to admit to or not, but he took care of the football first and foremost. He needs to take care of his body, but he took care of the football. He spread the ball around. I don't think even though I'd like him to run less, I don't think he made bad decisions

25:46about win to run either. So I like the way he manages pressure against stepping into the pocket as opposed to always going outside. And then just, you know, the arm talents there, like, I mean, you can throw the football as well as anybody. So a good first step, you know, I don't think it's going to be a game. Anybody remember other than for the fact it was his first game, but I think because of that, he checked those boxes. And I think he's probably right there. Ryan probably would have had it if it wasn't for the J.F.E. Again, you cannot take those things out. But I think you, you tip the cap to Derek Meadows. I think, I do a good day. And I think you tip the cap to two other freshmen and E.J. and Trashon as well for running hard out there. Yeah. I was going to go with Keeling and Yandere. It's kind of easy. And so I had written down Derek Meadows as well, just kind of showcasing his ability. And they obviously definitely trust him a lot more compared to the freshman scenario. Morgan, again, he's a freshman, but we'll be talking about there. One more thing to wrap it up that we always do.

26:49Mike or, yeah, Mike, what is, what is Kale Nabor? It's his head on his pillow tonight after, you know, hang out with the crew. It's a watching film, whatever he's doing, the rest of the day. What's, what's keeping him up? Keeling Russell's not sliding, I think, is has to be it. If you're going to run in offense that is centered around Keeling Russell's legs and his arm, I mean, can't it meet him to stay healthy? I'd say, Nijetso would be an extension of that. I think it's how do you create more playmakers around him? Because you know Keeling can give you that explosive ability and they want to lean on that. But you need the easy wins from other places. You need Ryan to not drop the football. You need lots of Brooks to show up. I mean, he didn't have a bad game. He just wasn't productive. You need no Rodgers to get back and give you something. You need the Trash on Brown run not to come back. Like, you need easy wins and when I say wins, I mean, explosive plays that can just give you a quick drive, quick score. Keeling can give you those, but you need to surround them because it is a long season.

27:52He's a second year quarterback. He's not the biggest dude in the world. You want to create, you make things as easy as possible for him. Yeah, absolutely. Alabama again, coming off at 48 to 10 win to kick off your three of the Calam Borer Christian time meeting ECU. Next up, Atkin Tucky. So immediately going on the road as EC Slate starts. It'll be a big test and this big week of practice coming up. We'll be back on Tuesday as always. Fun podcasts on Apple podcasts, Spotify, YouTube and on Baymond 247. Thank you guys and enjoy the rest of your weekend. Out of the shadows of Paramount Mountain, three heroes level up at Tyrus and Gileus battle against the evil giant Deathhatter to save the kingdom of Euria from so much peril.

28:53These are nice, ordinary towards bad brothers. Sentience killer to swords for being death armor buyer. In this thing, that thing, whatever that is, so much peril and heroes. This is just the beginning of the story of Hampton's Web. Golden that Xue series streaming September 16th on Paramount Plus.