Alabama Defense Rises To Crush Florida

After weeks of failing to meet expectations the young defense rose up and smacked the Florida Gators all night long in front of a delighted and frenzied home crowd for a 31-6 victory.

If you look at the stats this game should have been neck and neck, if the Gator fans were told before the game they would hold Mark Ingram to 47 yards they would have assumed a big victory for the blue and orange.

So what happened? How did Alabama demolish the Gators? The difference is they played fast, they played smart, they played physical, and they forced turnovers while the offense gave none. All of which whipped the 100,000-plus Bama fans into a gator feeding frenzy.

It didn't hurt that after weeks of spot duty jack linebacker Courtney Upshaw is back.  Not the invisible version that we've seen for several weeks,  but the one that ran down quarterback John Brantley from behind and batted down several passes, and spend most of the night in Florida's backfield.

Marcel Dareus also stepped up playing as if he took personally the numerous press reports questioning his play this year. He showed little effect from the ankle injury last week.

The physical play wasn't limited to the defense. Trent Richardson, Mark Ingram, and Julio Jones were delivering punishing blows to the Florida defenders and tight end Michael Williams absolutely de-cleated a Florida defender on a quarterback scramble by McElroy.

While this version of the Alabama defense continues to surrender yards in chunks they are developing a personality for tough red-zone play, and interceptions. Alabama got a trio of interceptions tonight, one of which was returned for a touchdown by true freshman CJ Mosley. Mosley on the play started deep in the secondary with the ball and accelerated straight up field past everyone for the pick six.

Though Ingram's numbers were slight, his red-zone play remained dominant, scoring two touchdowns. Richardson as if on cue playing his old buddies from Florida got 68 yards on only 10 carries.

To top it all off, as I write this Nick Saban is down in the recruiting room to greet the many top recruits the staff invited to see the game.  It's hard to understate the atmosphere they just witnessed.

Offensively it seemed in the second half they were satisfied to sit back and watch the defense work.  It would have been nice to see them lay down some smack in the second half but they did take care of the ball more or less eliminating any chance of a Gator comeback.

Alabama took a ton of emotion into this game and hit Florida so fast and so hard that they never recovered. Florida is a better team than they showed tonight, but you don't lose that many players to the NFL and it not have an effect. 

And let's not forget that guy named Tebow. He's in Denver now, and Brantley, though talented, was not able to will is team back into the game.  Perhaps it's time to stop crowning every Florida quarterback All-SEC before he starts a game.