Alabama shuts down Ole Miss
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- Hugh Freeze stood at the podium after Saturday night's game at Bryant-Denny Stadium trying to remember the last time one of his offenses failed to score a point.
The Mississippi head coach couldn't remember one, not even when he was a high school coach in Memphis, Tenn.
Unfortunately for Freeze and the No. 21 Rebels, Saturday night's 25-0 loss to No. 1-ranked Alabama will be etched in their minds for a while.
Two weeks after allowing a school record 628 yards to No. 10 Texas A&M, Alabama's defense responded in a much more impressive fashion in front of a crowd of 101,821 at Bryant-Denny Stadium.
The Crimson Tide held the normally potent Rebels in check in their home Southeastern Conference opener.
Ole Miss (3-1 overall, 1-1 in the SEC) came in averaging 490 yards on offense, but the Crimson Tide (4-0, 2-0) held the Rebels to 205 yards. It was the first shutout since a 34-0 loss to Arkansas in 1998. Oh, it was also the first time that Freeze was shut out as a college coach.
Shutouts are much more common for Alabama, which blanked Auburn to end the regular season in 2012.
"Hats off to coach (Nick) Saban and Alabama. They took it to us," Freeze said. "We did not have answers for the stuff they were doing defensively and that's obviously very frustrating. I take that very personally.
"I'm proud of my kids' effort, I thought they fought defensively. They were just on the field way too much. They had some explosive plays, but that's a very good football team that a very good job twisting things up on us. They seemed to have the right call on every play we needed."
Saban called the win "big" and credited his players for competing and being tough-minded.
"Ole Miss has a really good team and a really good offensive team, so for us to shut them out was a great job by the defense," Saban said. "We knew this was going to be a dogfight, and we knew it was going to be a tough game. Our players did a really, really good job of being relentless out there with their effort, their toughness."
Alabama produced several big plays on defense at critical times, holding the Rebels without points inside its own 20-yard line three separate times.
The last came early in the fourth quarter, moments after Alabama quarterback A.J. McCarron threw his lone interception of the game. Instead of kicking a field goal, Freeze called for quarterback Bo Wallace to throw the ball on a fourth-and-10 situation at the Alabama 18. The pass went incomplete and Alabama was able to thwart the last real threat for the Rebels, who scored 44 points against Texas two weeks ago.
Alabama's first two touchdowns came on the ground. T.J. Yeldon scored on a nifty 68-yard run on the second play of the third quarter and Kenyan Drake scored on a 50-yard run late in the fourth quarter.
After a slow start, Yeldon finished with 121 yards on 17 carries, a 7.1 yards-per-carry average. Drake turned in 99 yards on 12 rushes. Alabama had 254 yards on the ground and 434 total.
On a day where No. 6 LSU and No. 9 Georgia combined to score 88 points, things were much slower for the Rebels and Crimson Tide. In a game that reminded many of SEC games played in the 1980s, the Crimson Tide was able to garner a 9-0 lead in the first 30 minutes of play. Cade Foster kicked field goals of 28, 53 and 42 yards for Crimson Tide. Foster's 53-yarder was a career high.
NOTES: The Crimson Tide held Ole Miss' rushing attack, which entered averaging 250 yards per game coming in, to 7 yards on 11 carries in the first half. Conversely, the Rebels held Yeldon and Alabama's rushing attack to just 36 carries on 15 yards. The difference in the first half was the play of the quarterbacks. Wallace was 10 of 14 for 111 yards, but McCarron was just a little better, completing 20 of 23 for 135 yards. He made two key completions on the final scoring drive of the first half, which enabled Foster to get into position to kick his 42-yarder. On the Tide's first scoring drive in the first quarter, McCarron completed all five of his attempts for 35 yards. McCarron finished the game 25 of 32 for 180 yards. ... Since 2009, Alabama has had 17 games against undefeated AP ranked teams and handed that opponent a loss in 15 of those.
