How Losing Metchie, Williams Impacted Alabama in Rematch Against Georgia
Overcoming injuries was a theme that Alabama football was forced to face all season long. The Crimson Tide suffered a slew of injuries among the running backs, defensive backs and outside linebackers, but perhaps the most detrimental to the overall team success came with the loss of their two best receivers in John Metchie III and Jameson Williams. Both guys were injured against Georgia and never returned to the games, but in the two separate matchups.
In the SEC Championship game in early December, Metchie had six catches for 97 yards and a touchdown all before halftime against Georgia. However, with less than a minute remaining in the first half, he tore his ACL on a non-contact play and was not able to play in the second half of Alabama's 41-24 win.
Early in the second quarter of Monday night's national championship game between the Crimson Tide and Bulldogs, Williams found himself wide open over the middle of the Georgia defense. The pass was behind Williams, and he had to slow up to catch the ball which prevented him from scoring. It was a big 40-yard gain that led to an Alabama field goal, but Williams tore his ACL on the play and could not return to help the Crimson Tide offense in the 33-18 loss to Georgia.
Alabama coach Nick Saban said that Williams wanted to come back and play in the second half, but the medical staff would not allow him to so that he could protect his future career opportunities in the NFL.
"Look, this guy contributed tremendously to our team all year," Saban said in the postgame. "He has great speed. He's a vertical threat. I think our offensive coaches did a great job of utilizing his talent this year. He's been very productive. Anytime you lose players like this it has an impact on your team.
"Yeah, it gives other players opportunities. And I'm not disappointed in how they responded to that, but there's no question that you win with great players. You win with great people. And he's been a great person and a great player on our team all year long. So when you take him out of the lineup, it has to have some impact."
So just how much was Alabama affected in the title game rematch against Georgia by not having Metchie and Williams? To fully grasp what they meant to this offense, look at the breakdown of stats among wide receivers.
In the Dec. 4 win over the Bulldogs, the two combined for 50 percent of the completions, 100 percent of the touchdowns and two thirds of the receiving yards. It was a massive day for Williams with 184 yards and two touchdowns against the best defense in the country.
The two gave the Georgia secondary fits all game, but the Alabama offense was not as explosive in the second half without the threat of Metchie in the passing game.
Obviously Alabama quarterback Bryce Young had a historic season, becoming the first Crimson Tide quarterback to win the Heisman trophy as he threw for 4,872 yards and 47 touchdowns on the season. Alabama's backup quarterbacks combined to throw for 201 yards and one touchdown to bring Alabama's passing totals to 5,073 yards and 48 touchdowns.
Metchie and Williams combined for 46 percent of Alabama's receptions, 53 percent of its receiving yards and 48 percent of the team's receiving touchdowns. Basically, the two players alone were responsible for half of the receiving production.
Williams, a Biletnikoff finalist, led Alabama on the season with 79 catches fo 1,572 yards and 15 touchdowns. Metchie finished the season with 96 catches for 1,142 yards and eight touchdown. No other Alabama wide receiver had more than three touchdowns. (Tight end Cameron Latu also had eight touchdown catches.)
Slade Bolden was Alabama's third-leading receiver with 42 catches for 408 yards and three touchdowns. No other Alabama receiver had more than 21 receptions on the season.
This isn't to say that the young receiver behind Metchie and Williams don't have the talent or ability. That simply isn't true as guys like JoJo Earle, Ja'Corey Brooks, Traeshon Holden and Agiye Hall were all highly-touted recruits with four or five stars attached to their names coming out of high school. Yet they all lacked one of the things that can be the most important on a stage as big as the national championship: experience.
Several times Young put the ball right on the hands of the young receivers or within a catchable distance, and the ball would be dropped. Young often didn't have a lot of time to throw it against the Georgia defense in round two, and when he was missing his two best and most reliable targets, it made the already challenging task even more difficult.
"t's tough for any of our teammates to go out and go down," Bolden said. "Losing J-Mo, he's such a big part of our offense, and he's such a great player and teammate it was hard. But that's what we train for. That's what we do. Practice hard. Everybody's prepared to step up because you never know when you're going to get your next shot. So I feel like everybody did a good enough job. And we just couldn't make the plays and we couldn't finish tonight. And that's the story of it."
Facing a difficult Georgia front seven, Alabama had trouble running the ball in the first half and was forced to throw 57 times. Once Williams was no longer available, Alabama was missing the vertical passing threat and shifted the game plan to shorter passes and screen plays.
The Bulldogs were able to take advantage and only allowed Alabama to reach the end zone a season low of one time. Losing Williams is not the sole thing that lost Alabama the game Monday night, but it certainly did not make things easier.
Even with the injury, Williams is still projected to be first round NFL draft pick but has not announced a decision yet. Metchie is only a junior as well, but could also declare for the NFL Draft. Whether or not we have seen Metchie and Williams take their last snap in a Crimson Tide uniform is still unknown, but the impact they made on the 2021 Alabama season is unquestionable.
