UPDATED GAME STORY NOW WITH MORE INFO:

And this from UA:
No. 5 Alabama Beats No. 7 Virginia Tech 34-24 in the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game
ATLANTA – What started as a defensive struggle opened up late in the game with No. 5 Alabama beating No. 7 Virginia Tech 34-24 in the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game held in the Georgia Dome Saturday night.

Crimson Tide sophomore running back Mark Ingram ran for a career-best 150 yards, including a six-yard touchdown on the ground. The Flint, Mich. native also scored on an 18-yard pass from junior quarterback Greg McElroy, who made his first career start tonight. McElroy completed 15 passes, including a long of 48, on 30 attempts for 230 total yards, a touchdown and an interception. After starting off the game with just two completions on 12 attempts, McElroy went 13-of-18 the rest of the way.

Alabama dominated the stats sheet, rolling up 498-net yards to Virginia Tech’s 155 as well as a 14-minute advantage in time of possession and 22 first downs to the Hokies’ 11. The Tide opens it home slate Saturday against Florida International in Bryant-Denny Stadium. The game is set to kickoff at 6 p.m. and will be shown on pay per view basis.

10 thoughts on “Alabama defeats Virginia Tech”

  1. ROLL TIDE! Hard to not be pumped about downing a top 10 opponent. We have room for growth offensively but overall I was pleased

  2. As a Bama fan I’m breathing a big sigh of relief. We didn’t play Bama football in the first half. Unsportsmanlike penalties and giving up the kickoff return were uncharacteristic of a Saban coached team. We were fortunate to survive those errors and come out on top. Another thing I didn’t care for was ovderdoing the “wildcat” formation. Two or three times a game is OK, but more than that only creates possibilities for mistakes. Also, as much as I love Julio Jones, I have to call him out a little bit. He drops some easy passes and gives up on balls that are just out of reach. Come on Julio! Fight for every ball with 100% effort! You’re too good not to! OK, other than that I was very pleased with McElroy, especially the way he found other receivers besides Julio in the second half. Marquis Maze and Darius Hanks made some beautiful catches in clutch situations. I was worried about our O-line in the first half, but they wore a great Va Tech defense down in the second half so I have to be pleased. Our running backs are studs, and Trent Richardson may prove to be the best of the lot before it’s all said and done. But overall I don’t think we looked like a top 5 team tonight. Tyrod Taylor helped us by not using his greatest assest- his legs. But our defense looked great as expected, and we didn’t even see Ta’na Patrick, Nico Johnson, or Dre Kirkpatrick! I think we’ll go 9 and 3 this season. Hopefully we can make it to Atlanta for the SEC championship. But let’s be real, Florida is on another level right now. ROLL TIDE!!!

  3. Tide man i don,t know what game you watched but this was a top five ball club.Hell man first game of season against a defense like TECH and score 34.Also over coming all the mistakes.Only thing i did not like just like you said was wildcat formation.Throw that shit away coach..RTR RTR

  4. Errr, did I see Rolando McClain actually shove a referee??????????? How in the #@!% did he not get freakin’ ejected for that????? Do you bammers seriously contend that thug should not be suspended for that? I’m sure you’ll all be be satisfied with the manner in which Saban handles it, which is to absolutely nothing about it. After all, he’s a really important player.

  5. Julio — I would seriously consider worrying about your own program rather than wasting your existence here. Mississippi State’s gonna punk that ass — don’t know if you saw the points they put up with Mullen’s offense yesterday but they’re going to hit a little harder than Dooley’s crew.

    I think we will never know what happened between McClain and the referee(s) near the end zone last night. Obviously — if it was something so severe that it rattled BOTH of the refs — they would of thrown him out — but they did NOT — ’nuff said — WTF can you not comprehend on that. Anyways — RTR!!!! I’ll remember that one for a long time. Oklahoma lost — that’s probably a one up for us.

  6. CB81, so you’re saying there is a possibility that McClain was justified in shoving the freakin’ ref???????? I swear some of you bammers would have defended Saban if he kept Jimmy Johns on the team. It’s ok CB81…you can actually call someone at Bama out when they do something blatantly wrong without sacrificing your allegiance to the mullet nation.

  7. Say Julio – where were you when all that chop blocking shit by YOUR TEAM last year ?
    F*cking Pud.

  8. Gee Pluto, kinda hit a nerve didn’t I? For starters, the chop blocking episodes were from 2007 not last year. Secondly, I condemned the blocks as they should have been. However, I still believe that Ziemba was more guilty on the Dorsey block than Ramsey was. The play called for a low block by Ramsey following Ziemba’s initial block, which is perfectly legal. Ziemba did not release from his high block like he was supposed to, and knowing Ziemba that was probably intentional. Unfortunately for Ramsey, he got all the bad press.

    See Pluto, it’s not so hard to call out your own team when it’s warranted. Now what was your opinion on shoving the ref again?????

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