Crimson Tide Moves Inside for Thursday Practice
9/11/2014 12:00:00 AM | Football
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - The football team practiced for a little less than two hours in shells on Thursday inside the Hank Crisp Indoor Practice Facility.
The Crimson Tide and Golden Eagles are playing for the 43rd time with Alabama holding a 33-6-2 lead in the series with one vacated win (2005). It is USM's 22nd trip to Tuscaloosa and their first since 2005 with UA holding an 18-2-1 edge at home. Southern Miss has a 1-1 record in 2014 after a 26-20 win over Alcorn State last Saturday. Southern Miss is led by second-year coach Todd Monken.
Alabama off to a record-setting pace on the offensive side of the football, averaging 579 yards of total offense per game, including 340.0 yards per game through the air. The Tide is also running a significantly higher number of plays with 152 snaps in the first two games of the season.
Alabama ran 82 plays in the season opener against West Virginia, which is the second most a UA team has run in the Nick Saban era (84 vs. Tennessee, 2007) and then snapped the ball 71 times in a weather-shortened game against FAU. The 152 plays in two games is the most since running 157 plays in 2007 against Tennessee (84) and LSU (73 in overtime). The high during the Saban era is 164 plays against Ole Miss (80) and Tennessee (84) in 2007.
Saturday's kickoff against Southern Miss is set for 5 p.m. on ESPN 2. Joe Tessitore will handle the play-by-play duties with Brock Huard as the analyst and Shannon Spake on the sidelines. The game can also be heard on the Crimson Tide Sports Network with the national broadcast on Touchdown Radio. Alabama will hold a walk-through on Friday before departing for the team hotel.
Get all the latest information on the team by following @AlabamaFTBL on Twitter and Facebook and AlabamaFBL on Instagram. General athletic news can also be found at UA_Athletics on Twitter and Instagram and AlabamaAthletics on Facebook.
