AP Photo by Butch Dill Alabama fullback Tim Castille (19) dives in for a touchdown in the second quarter.

ALABAMA REPORT

Green light for Tide in red zone

TUSCALOOSA — After going 1-for-9 in scoring touchdowns in the red zone in the first two games, Alabama's offense scored four touchdowns in the seven times it got inside the 20-yard line in Saturday night's 41-7 win over Louisiana-Monroe.

Leigh Tiffin kicked field goals the other three times, hitting twice.

"Forty-one points? Anytime you can score that many, it's good for the offense. The offense played great. We had some guys ? DJ Hall played great. Our offensive line blocked their tails off," Alabama head coach Mike Shula said.

Two of those red zone scores came in the fourth quarter when backup quarterback Marc Guillon was leading the Tide's offense and Roy Upchurch, on the same day he got his first collegiate carries, scored on two 1-yard runs.

And the Tide showed it can still stall on some drives against a Sun Belt team, but the Tide's overall offensive performance looked sharper than in the past two weeks.

"There's definitely room for improvement," Shula said. "We are 3-0, that is the most important thing."

Indians' do-everything man

ULM senior Kevin Payne was the Warhawks' punter, punt returner and starting free safety Saturday night, a rare combination of duties.

Payne, a native of El Dorado, Ark., was an all-Sun Belt Conference running back and freshman of the year in 2003, and his 976 yards were the fifth-best of any freshman runner in the nation. He started for much of 2004 before switching to defensive back for the 2005 season.

He excelled there, too, recording a team-high 87 tackles in 11 games. He entered the game among the nation's best punters, with a 43.5-yard average on 10 kicks. His first punt in Saturday night's game with 63 yards, and so was the one he kicked with 37 seconds left in the first half.

Coaches share experiences

What, you thought Mike Shula had it rough, starting his job May 9, 2003, in the wake of the embarrassing Mike Price firing?

Charlie Weatherbie was hired two days before Mike Shula. At Louisiana-Monroe — a school with much fewer resources than Shula's. Bobby Keasler resigned as ULM's coach in the middle of the 2002 season, and the school went through two interim bosses before it hired Weatherbie.

He came to ULM with a coaching pedigree, having led Utah State and Navy to bowls. He was fired by the Naval Academy in the middle of the 2001 season.

After leading ULM to a 1-11 record in his first season, 2003, Weatherbie led the Warhawks to back-to-back 5-6 seasons and entered Saturday's game with a 1-1 mark.

Shula led his first team to a 4-9 record, then improved to 6-6 and 10-2 records.

ULM has come close before

Before Saturday night's game, Louisiana-Monroe was 2-24-1 all-time against nine different Southeastern Conference schools. Its only wins came in 1994 against Kentucky (21-14) and in 1995 against Mississippi State (34-32). ULM and Mississippi State tied 21-21 in 1971.

Alabama was ULM's 10th SEC opponent. ULM has never played South Carolina or Vanderbilt and has faced Arkansas and Auburn six times each.

Louisiana-Monroe is Alabama's 121st different football foe.

ULM-Alabama connections

Running back Irving Spikes of Ocean Springs, Miss., played football at both Alabama and Louisiana-Monroe, which was then called Northeast Louisiana.

Spikes set the ULM single-season record with 1,563 rushing yards and 14 touchdowns in 1993.

He was drafted by the Miami Dolphins and played four seasons (1994-1997). He ran 252 times for 934 yards and eight touchdowns.

ULM's basketball coach, Orlando Early, was an assistant for Mark Gottfried from 2001 through 2005. Early will lead his Warhawks to Tuscaloosa for an early season basketball game on Nov. 28.

Tide, Hawgs to meet on CBS

Alabama will travel to Arkansas on Saturday for a 2:30 p.m. kickoff on CBS, which is carried locally by WHNT-19.

The Sept. 30 game at Florida also likely will be on CBS at 2:30 p.m., since Georgia-Ole Miss and Mississippi State-LSU are the only conference competition.

Plenty of personnel moves

Senior Dominic Lee made his first career start at defensive end. He had the second-most games played on the team without a start. He's played in 29 games in his career.

Junior DeMarcus Waldrop started at outside linebacker in place of Juwan Simpson, and junior Matt Collins started at middle linebacker after a one-week absence.

Kicker Jamie Christensen (groin) returned to Alabama's lineup, but it wasn't at the spot to which he had grown accustomed. He handled the kickoff duties, but field goals and extra points were still handled by true freshman Leigh Tiffin.

Noteworthy

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