UAB 41, Alcorn State 3: A Recap
Sloppy offense, dominant defense, and outstanding special teams powered UAB to a season-opening win over Alcorn State on Thursday night.
Stats courtesy of collegefootballdata.com.
How did UAB perform in the five factors?
The “five factors” are the five statistics with the highest correlation to winning football games as identified by Bill Connelly, currently of ESPN. Paraphrased from his 2014 explainer:
If you win the efficiency battle, you win the game 83 percent of the time.
If you win the explosiveness battle, you win the game 86 percent of the time.
If you win the drive-finishing battle, you win the game 75 percent of the time.
If you win the field position battle, you win the game 72 percent of the time.
If you win the turnover battle, you win the game 73 percent of the time.
Efficiency is measured by the percentage of offensive plays deemed “successful”. A first down play is considered successful if it gains at least 50 percent of necessary yardage, a second down play is considered successful if it gains at least 70 percent of necessary yardage, and third and fourth down plays are considered successful if they gain at least 100 percent of necessary yardage.
Explosiveness is measured by the average EPA (Estimated Points Added) of a team’s successful plays. An explainer of EPA itself can be found here.
Drive-finishing is measured by the average number of points a team scores on trips inside its opponent’s 40-yard line.
Field position is measured by the average number of yards a team must travel at the beginning of an offensive drive.
The turnover battle is measured by simple turnover margin.
As expected, the Blazers outperformed Alcorn State in four of the five factors, losing only the turnover battle. We now know the underlying reasons UAB won the game, but what conclusions can we draw from that information?
The UAB offense was extremely sloppy.
Jacob Zeno and company opened the game with a bang, engineering a 70-yard march to the end zone on the season’s first possession. Although Alcorn State bottled up early rush attempts from Isaiah Jacobs and Brandon Buckhaulter, freshman receiver Kam Shanks made three catches on the drive, allowing Lee Beebe to power in the ball from the Braves’ 2-yard line. A subsequent blocked punt gifted UAB a short field, and the Blazers jumped out to a 14-0 lead courtesy of Brandon Hawkins’ first career touchdown reception.
That efficiency would be short-lived: Beebe fumbled on each of UAB’s next two drives before a pressured Zeno threw an ugly red-zone interception with 10:10 left in the second quarter. On the following possession, the Blazers accumulated 30 penalty yards in 6 plays, only scoring because of pristine field position provided by the defense. Of UAB’s first 18 plays of the second quarter, just five were successful.
The Blazers finally broke through at the end of the period, wrapping up the half with a rare healthy drive. UAB moved the ball 75 yards in 7 plays, although a collapsing pocket nearly caused Zeno to throw another pick:
Nevertheless, Beebe hammered home another rushing TD on the following snap.
The Blazers entered halftime with a 28-3 advantage, but failed to score another offensive touchdown after the break. Of UAB’s four second-half possessions, three stalled inside the Alcorn 25, while the other ended in a three-and-out.
All in all, the Green and Gold lost the turnover battle and left dozens of points on the table: UAB advanced the ball past the opposing 40 on 9 different drives but scored an average of just 3.78 points on those opportunities. Trent Dilfer was deeply unsatisfied with his team’s lack of attention to detail.
“Disappointed, overall, in the consistency on offense. We have a very high standard. We have an incredibly high standard offensively,” he said after the game, his frustration further evidenced by his decision to leave Zeno in until the final series.
“[No] sense of urgency, we [couldn’t] take care of the football, [our] substitution patterns were terrible... Just nothing to the standard that I expect from our offense.”
The Blazers’ problems weren’t limited to drive-finishing failures and turnovers. The Green and Gold turned in an offensive performance that didn’t meet their standards in efficiency or explosiveness: the Blazers’ success rate was 36%, 12 percentage points lower than their 2023 average, while their explosiveness rate was 1.01, .27 points lower than their 2023 average. For comparison, UAB posted a success rate of over 70% in last season’s opener against NC A&T.
It wasn’t a disastrous outing for the Blazer offense, but it was not an impressive one: the 41-3 final score belies the fact that one of UAB’s touchdowns was scored on special teams and two of their touchdowns were aided by nearly-perfect field position. Despite failing to record any sacks, Alcorn State put pressure on the new-look UAB offensive line several times, forcing Zeno into multiple turnover-worthy throws.
However, there were certainly bright spots:
It’s easy to forget that UAB racked up over 500 total yards, largely due to the efforts of Isaiah Jacobs and Lee Beebe, the latter of whom rushed for 82 yards and 2 touchdowns, fumbles aside.
UAB ran the wishbone!
Kam Shanks was outstanding, hauling in 6 receptions for 73 yards — and that goes without mentioning his punt return, which feeds into our next subject…
The defense and special teams were brilliant.
I’ve nitpicked most aspects of UAB’s performance thus far, but here’s something that was unambiguously excellent: the Blazers’ field position. As discussed earlier, UAB started each drive an average of 10.4 yards closer to the end zone than Alcorn State did.
The Blazers achieved this, in part, through absolute special teams domination: only three of Noah Grant’s kickoffs were returned (several even went through the back of the end zone, if you can believe that), Patrick Foley’s only punt traveled 64 yards, Armoni Goodwin returned two kickoffs an average of 21.5 yards, Sirad Bryant blocked an Alcorn State punt in the first quarter, and Kam Shanks recorded UAB’s first punt return touchdown since the days of JJ Nelson.
If you want a positive takeaway from last night’s game, let it be this: the Blazer special teams unit, which was the nation’s worst in 2023, seems to be not only competent but perhaps downright good.
In other good news, Sione Ta'ufo'ou’s defense absolutely swamped Alcorn State, holding their overmatched foes to 60 total passing yards. Chris Bracy racked up 8 tackles and deflected a pass, LD Cox, Kendall Johnson, and Desmond Little each recorded a sack, Colby Dempsey hauled in an interception, and Demarcus Smith recovered a fumble. UAB held the Braves to a success rate of 27% and a nightmarish explosiveness rate of .73. Alcorn’s only trip inside the Blazer 40 came when they recovered a Beebe fumble.
It’s too early to make any sweeping declarations about the UAB defense, but they were much more effective in this season’s opener than they were in the 2023 NC A&T game.
Note A&T’s significantly high numbers in EPA/rush, 3rd down success rate, and red zone success rate.
What’s next?
A road game against Bryant Vincent’s ULM, a run-first team perfectly positioned to exploit the weaknesses of last season’s porous Blazer defense. Will this be the first road win of the Dilfer era? Will this be the first time UAB starts the season 2-0 since 2019?
Buckle up!