Alabama Crimson Tide star wide receiver Calvin Ridley put his team back on top in the first half with a monster touchdown catch.
Jalen Hurts and the Alabama Crimson Tide offense were a bit lackluster right out of the gate on Saturday night in their massive season-opener against the Florida State Seminoles. Though they weren’t playing poorly necessarily, they only managed three points early on and seemed to be somewhat out of rhythm.
That wouldn’t have been too bad had it not been for Deondre Francois and the Noles finding a rhythm of their own. Florida State responded to the field goal with a nice drive of their own that resulted in a touchdown to take the lead over Bama, 7-3. That’s when Hurts and wide receiver Calvin Ridley decided to turn it up a notch.
After getting the run game going a little bit, the Tide decided to unleash their best wide receiver. He used his supreme route-running and physical gifts to simply outclass the coverage, getting behind them. Hurts then dropped a dime in stride to Ridley for the long, beautiful 53-yard touchdown to retake the lead:
Calvin Ridley is very very fast and FSU should plan for this in the future pic.twitter.com/Rhl7rZxWFP
— Jack McGuire (@JackMacCFB) September 3, 2017
One of the big things that Alabama needed to see coming into this season was improved accuracy and consistency with Hurts’ throwing. This was a good sign that the sophomore has indeed developed in that regard. If that’s the case, this offense could be much better than they were a year ago.
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As for Ridley, he’s clearly one of the best receivers in all of college football. It wouldn’t be a surprise to hear his name called early in the first round of the 2018 NFL Draft. Until that time, though, the Seminoles defense isn’t going to be the only one that he does things like this to.