Can Alabama Stop Arkansas Quarterback Ryan Mallett?

If anyone was listening to Nick Saban before the season (and from what I can tell, no one ever does), the current lack of awesomeness on defense is far from a surprise.

While the defense is a star-studded team when you look at high-school success, most of the players proved little to nothing on the Division I level.

So far, Alabama has rotated an enormous number of players to try and find out who can do what and who is going to produce on the field. So far, the answers have eluded the staff, and the stats look a little odd with some backups leading starters. 

Looking at the veterans on defense:

Safety Mark Barron: He’s pretty much alone in the secondary, with a bunch of guys trying to figure out what’s going on. He’s played solid, but quarterbacks avoid him like the plague.

Defensive End Marcel Dareus: Rusty is the word. Hopefully he will shake that off sooner rather than later.

Nose Josh Chapman: Though he’s a solid player, he is no Mount Cody. Alabama has failed miserably to make stops in short yardage.

Linebacker Courtney Upshaw: He has been hurt thus far.

Linebacker Dont'a Hightower: He may still be recovering from the knee injury. Nobody wants to talk about this, but it seems Hightower isn’t as mobile as he was before the injury.

Keep in mind he was a freak of nature before that unfortunate blow to the knee, and he may be closer to human now. His added weight might be holding him back as well.

Hightower is still a formidable foe who will lay the wood any chance he gets, and leads the team in tackles.

There have been some surprises on defense as well.

Robert Lester is a bit of a ballhawk.

Will Lowery can be quite annoying to the other team. It seems like he should be road pizza, but he is like one of those irritable little lap dogs that bite the crap out of your leg when you visit someone’s home.

The Boundary corner is very unsettled. So far, DeMarcus Milliner, seems to be the best option when healthy, but he’s not.

Dequan Menzie would probably be solid here if his leg was completely healed from the Achilles injury.

Darrington Sentimore, though listed at third-string, seems to be the only lineman aside from Dareus who has the ability to penetrate.

True Freshman linebacker C.J. Mosley is a player. He is not a starter, but his 13 tackles is near the top of Alabama’s statistical chart.

It seems inevitable that he will be starting soon. It wouldn’t surprise me to see the staff experiment with Hightower at Jack and Upshaw at Sam, with Mosley in one of the middle spots.    

At Arkansas, Alabama once again faces Ryan Mallett.

The only significant opponent Arkansas has faced thus far is Georgia. Mallett completed 21 of 33 attempts for 380 yards and three touchdowns. Prior to that, the last big SEC game was LSU, where he went 17 for 39 and 227 yards with a single TD.

With Mallett returns a bunch of experienced wide receivers to throw to. Most damning is Joe Adams, who averages over 20 yards a catch and has 15 of them so far.

Greg Childs has 19 catches. He is a big, tall player, similar to the Penn State receivers Alabama faced two weeks ago.

The numbers dwarf Alabama’s passing attack thus far, but Arkansas has no comparative running game. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Alabama does NOT want to get into a track meet with Arkansas, and will attempt to use a physical running game to limit passing opportunities.

Arkansas returns a veteran offensive line. Alabama is unlikely to get much of a rush with the three down linemen.

To date, Alabama has only toyed with the blitz. There have been a few here and there, but no concerted effort to flatten the quarterback.     

That will all change this week. Alabama will unleash whatever it has at Mallett, but keep in mind that Nick Saban HATES allowing the big play.

If he does not think his backfield can cover, he won’t send much more than a single blitzer on any given play.

So what to expect?

If Mallett is standing at the end of the game, he will get his yards and likely will score some points.

The question lies in balance. If Arkansas can discover some semblance of a running game, Alabama could be in real trouble defensively, and Arkansas will have the track meet they so much desire.

It’s not that Arkansas disrespects Greg McElroy. He dusted their secondary for 291 yards last year, a career high to this day.

But the combination of Mark Ingram and Trent Richardson is death to any team. The only way to stop them is to get them out of the backfield.

The key for Alabama may lie elsewhere.

Alabama returned three starting offensive lineman from their National Championship season. This was a line that physically dominated everyone down the stretch. 

Since that time, they have replaced the two departed players with some that may physically outmatch the ones that left, if not in experience or skill just yet. Right tackle D.J. Fluker, in particular, seems to be improving with every snap.

If Alabama’s offensive line can dominate the game physically, Mallett may watch much of the game helplessly on the sideline. Alabama probably won’t stop him, but they can neutralize him, and that will definitely be the plan.