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Alabama Pounds Out A 17-3 Victory

Dave Ungerer (Special Teams/ Tight Ends)

These comments came following the Southern Mississippi game as Coach Ungerer answered questions from the press pool ...

Coach Dave Ungerer – talking about the performance of punter Bo Freelend … I don’t know how technical you want me to get with you, but he had a lot of gyrations. In punting, you need to have a consistent mechanical approach to what you do because the ball flight when it hits the foot has to be the same all the time. I’m trying not to get too technical, but basically what he was doing was giving himself more opportunity for error. So that’s where the inconsistency came. We got some good tape of him last week and were able to show him “Hey, you need to eliminate this, this and this.” He did and that allowed him to be more successful.

Did you have the feeling that this was going to be a field position game because of all the injuries?

That’s the way we talked. We knew it was going to be a low scoring game. We knew we were limited offensively because of our quarterback scenario. We were trying for shutout on defense and to play well in the kicking game. The thing with Bo (Freelend), I think I told you a week or so ago, he’s a new player and this is his first game experience. We’re now able to take things he was doing in the game and refine it this past week and get it smoothed out and allow him to be better. Hopefully, we do that at every position, but sometimes it takes a little longer for some guys to click in.

How did that punt block come about?

That was a great communication by our players. A lot of times what happens in the kicking game is you counter a counter. Last week against Georgia we had a block and then when the guy fumbled we had someone in there clean and would have blocked that one anyway. (This week) they were countering that look. So the players communicated to me, “Hey coach, they’re blocking me this way.” Then I countered with another block and that allowed us to get Chris (James) free. So a lot of that goes to the kids understanding what we’re trying to get done and communicating properly so we can make a counter call to what they’re doing to us.

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Click on the name for parts of their post-game interviews ...
Coach Mike Shula (Head Coach)

Coach Joe Kines (Defensive Coordinator)

Coach Dave Ungerer (Special Teams/ Tight Ends)

Shaud Williams (#21 Sr. TB, 5-8 191 lbs. Andrews, TX - Texas Tech transfer)

Justin Smiley (#78 Jr. LG, 6-4 293 lbs. Ellabell, GA - Southeast Bulloch)

DeMeco Ryans (#35 So. SLB, 6-2 225 lbs. Bessemer - Jess Lanier)

Freddie Roach (#8 So. MLB, 6-2 245 lbs. Killen, AL - Brooks High)

Brandon Avalos (#7 Fr. QB, 6-0 188 lbs. Tuscaloosa, AL - Hillcrest High)

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