11-1 and we need a new QB and OC
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I'd say there were signs of "problems" in the LSU and Miss St games as well. I'll go all the way back to our very first game against Fla St. I know it's been 11 games and several months since we played that game and time may have blurred our memory a bit. But I recall seeing some of the same offensive line issues and playcalling head scratchers as well. However, any time these concerns were pointed out after wins the very common response to those who pointed it out was the following or a combination of the following:
"We won the game and we still have people complaining!"
"Eeyores!!!"
"This will be the best defense/team we play all year! Get a grip!"
There are more but you get the jist. It wasn't that people were being eeyores, but they were pointing out potential problems. That even though we may have won that particular game, if not fixed or addressed could cause us problems and even possibly the game when we get into the meat of our schedule.
Well, I guess in some ways the roosters came home to roost on some of those concerns in the Iron Bowl.
Yep. I recall it was not good against Florida State either.
True, against Auburn we had a lot of very uncharacteristic mistakes. Maybe if we eliminate them, we still win. But the issues would still have been there lurking.
So basically 1 out of 3 33% ain't going to cut it. As always better teams make teams struggle more. Easy teams make you look like gang busters. I still feel FSU at the time was a very good team. Losing the QB killed them in later games. But that win looks weak as FSU folded after that. I just wonder how good FSU would have done had they not lost QB in our game. I imagine that win would still be considered a good win. BUT they did not do well later so it hurt our season as far as eye test. I am still shocked how we just looked lost at times in IB. We had injuries but so many bone head mistakes had nothing to do with injuries. The more I look at IB the more confused I get. Seems like a perfect storm hit us all in one game. These things happen but not usually to a Saban team. To be honest I am not savvy enough to break down film and see all the little things that went wrong that made this game so bad. In my heart I think we just failed at some basic things that snow balled and made us look very very bad as a team. I do not think we need a rebuild or big change in game plan. I feel we just missed on some real basic things that just came together at the wrong time against a really good team that did all the little things right. As has been said a million times the devil is in the details, we blew the details. I think we are still a solid team that just did not do the little things that have to be done to beat another good team.
I said so then and no one agreed - beating MSU after playing so poorly hurt Alabama.
I believe that a loss to MSU would have resulted in a focused Alabama, and a win over Auburn - then off to the SECCG and CFP. But the win kept your players arrogant - maybe increased their arrogance. This while a 2 loss Auburn team was working their tails off and willing to risk anything to pull off the win.
I do believe that this loss got their attention, but I am still not sure after their post-game comments. I just hope that you make it to the playoffs so we can find out with certainty what this Alabama team is all about.
I believe that a loss to MSU would have resulted in a focused Alabama, and a win over Auburn - then off to the SECCG and CFP. But the win kept your players arrogant - maybe increased their arrogance. This while a 2 loss Auburn team was working their tails off and willing to risk anything to pull off the win.
I do believe that this loss got their attention, but I am still not sure after their post-game comments. I just hope that you make it to the playoffs so we can find out with certainty what this Alabama team is all about.
This is just an observation from an uninformed fan, but here are my two cents to what I see is an over-arching theme:
Coach Saban preaches a low to no emotional approach to all games. Players should concentrate and focus on their particular jobs each play, not rely on emotional highs and emotional intensity to play well. It's a very Zen type approach that avoids the emotional highs, but also avoids the emotional busts that can accompany the highs when things don't go well. Quite opposite of someone like Hugh Freeze or Houston Nutt. As such, the Bama players usually weather emotional storms when facing almost all their opponents. Every opponent gets up for Bama. There's no way the Bama players can match this intensity week in and week out. So normally, this is a good approach. However, it is not without fault. Week in and week out, Bama is normally the more talented team with the more talented starting 22. I'd say only two programs in the country can match Bama's roster top to bottom, Clemson and Ohio St. So normally, Bama has the better roster. But maybe not the better 22 starters. Such was the case yesterday with the Auburn. As such, Bama's Zen approach backfired yesterday. Auburn could match Bama's starting 22 in talent, ability, and experience. But Auburn also could turn to an emotional intensity that the Bama players aren't trained to match. Hence the result. When Bama can't rely on a talent advantage to impose it's will or intimidate the opponent, the team struggles. This doesn't mean that Bama loses all of these games, but this is the case every time a Saban coached Bama team loses a game. Rarely does this situation occur, especially to the level that you see a starting 22, coaching game plan, and atmosphere rise to the level we saw on Saturday, but it has occurred a handful of times throughout Saban's tenure. Florida 2008 SECCG, S. Carolina 2010, LSU 2010 and 2011, Auburn 2010, 2013, 2017, Ole Miss 2014 and 2015. Saban's approach works 90% of the time. But that approach is ill prepared to match the intensity of an equal opponent. And Jalen Hurts, while a fantastic player, adds fuel to the Zen fire. I agree with what Ryen Russillo tweeted during the game, Hurts usual calm seemed almost casual. The offense follows its leader. Yes, one of Hurt's greatest attributes is his calm demeanor in the face of adversity, but it borders on too casual imo. How do you match your opponents intensity, especially an equal opponent, when your leader is too casual? Watching other teams over the season, I see these other offenses and they play with an intensity and fire that I haven't seen Bama play with much, if at all, this year. So, what does Saban do to counter this flaw in his approach? It wins 90% of the time, and has resulted in 4 Nat'l Championships and 5 SEC titles. Does he need to change at all? Let me add this, I think their has been one game every season that Saban tries to tap into that emotional well, and that is the LSU game. Saban recognized years ago that LSU could year in and year out match Bama in talent. So he decided to match the LSU intensity, and I say this after watching him jump into AJ McCaron's arms after the 2013 game.
Coach Saban preaches a low to no emotional approach to all games. Players should concentrate and focus on their particular jobs each play, not rely on emotional highs and emotional intensity to play well. It's a very Zen type approach that avoids the emotional highs, but also avoids the emotional busts that can accompany the highs when things don't go well. Quite opposite of someone like Hugh Freeze or Houston Nutt. As such, the Bama players usually weather emotional storms when facing almost all their opponents. Every opponent gets up for Bama. There's no way the Bama players can match this intensity week in and week out. So normally, this is a good approach. However, it is not without fault. Week in and week out, Bama is normally the more talented team with the more talented starting 22. I'd say only two programs in the country can match Bama's roster top to bottom, Clemson and Ohio St. So normally, Bama has the better roster. But maybe not the better 22 starters. Such was the case yesterday with the Auburn. As such, Bama's Zen approach backfired yesterday. Auburn could match Bama's starting 22 in talent, ability, and experience. But Auburn also could turn to an emotional intensity that the Bama players aren't trained to match. Hence the result. When Bama can't rely on a talent advantage to impose it's will or intimidate the opponent, the team struggles. This doesn't mean that Bama loses all of these games, but this is the case every time a Saban coached Bama team loses a game. Rarely does this situation occur, especially to the level that you see a starting 22, coaching game plan, and atmosphere rise to the level we saw on Saturday, but it has occurred a handful of times throughout Saban's tenure. Florida 2008 SECCG, S. Carolina 2010, LSU 2010 and 2011, Auburn 2010, 2013, 2017, Ole Miss 2014 and 2015. Saban's approach works 90% of the time. But that approach is ill prepared to match the intensity of an equal opponent. And Jalen Hurts, while a fantastic player, adds fuel to the Zen fire. I agree with what Ryen Russillo tweeted during the game, Hurts usual calm seemed almost casual. The offense follows its leader. Yes, one of Hurt's greatest attributes is his calm demeanor in the face of adversity, but it borders on too casual imo. How do you match your opponents intensity, especially an equal opponent, when your leader is too casual? Watching other teams over the season, I see these other offenses and they play with an intensity and fire that I haven't seen Bama play with much, if at all, this year. So, what does Saban do to counter this flaw in his approach? It wins 90% of the time, and has resulted in 4 Nat'l Championships and 5 SEC titles. Does he need to change at all? Let me add this, I think their has been one game every season that Saban tries to tap into that emotional well, and that is the LSU game. Saban recognized years ago that LSU could year in and year out match Bama in talent. So he decided to match the LSU intensity, and I say this after watching him jump into AJ McCaron's arms after the 2013 game.
I'm afraid you are correct. Losing that game would have done nothing to our chances to win the SEC and NC and it would have lit a fire under us and refocused us.
I wouldn't take player comments following the game without a large grain of salt. The wound was still very fresh. They will figure it out in the coming month, although, if we miss the playoffs, it might take another Utah like bowl game to drive the point home. Which will suck.
I agree 90%, one bad thing about playing with emotion a lot, is it can lead to mistakes. It also means you go up and down. For all that emotion aubs showed, they still lost 2 games this year. Yes sometimes they look so calm as if they do not care. BUT to much emotion can lead to erratic play and over pursuit and such things. I think our guys show emotions just fine. They get excited when making plays. BUT you must temper it, it is a double edge sword. We just made to many mistakes and auburn played a great game. WHY when we lose must it always be we need changes, maybe they are just a better team right now. You know no matter what you do or what plays you call, even the best lose a game now and then. This was a good aub team at home , not like they blew us out like UGA. We shot ourselves in the foot and gave them a lot of opportunities, and they took them. I think to many cannot see the forest for the trees. It is natural to dissect the game and try to spot what went wrong. BUT with our record the last 10 years I think we have a solid plan , solid players and staff. WE just got beat is all, it happens even to the best teams. The fact that when we lose it is to a great team and never blown out tells me one thing. We are a solid team and just was not our day. I think with all our wins to many think we are unbeatable and when we lose we must have screwed the pooch. Give the opponents credit, they hit us in our weak spots and they plain beat us.
i think you are overstating the arrogance part a bit. more than anything, i believe our attrition caught up to us. we were able to weather it through lsu and miss state but it was too much to deal with by the iron bowl.
I see it as a combination of the killer Nick calls complacency, add in attrition, bama mistakes, add in a fired up good aub team at home and BOOM. It happens to every team sooner or later. 2 evenly matched teams or close to even, toss in some variables, and no one can predict the out come. I am not panicking, we will be fine. We need some team adjustments and some attitude adjustments and we will be fine.
And nobody outside of Hurts rushed over 7 times in that game, but there 8 explosive plays in that game. We maybe had 3-4 explosive plays Saturday, which is a huge difference given it was Ole Miss
in addition to the sheer loss of talent (which bordered on the absurd this season), i am thinking of the week to week mental toll of continually losing starters and having to shift around responsibilities and strategies, especially when that loss is on the side of the field that is usually the strength of our team. not to mention, i have to imagine there was some sense of "relief" when we realized we were getting mack, lewis and miller back for the game that may have led to some over confidence or complacency.
also, i think losing ross p. in the first quarter was a dagger
Has anyone explained why we were able to run down their throat in the third quarter on those outside runs and then nothing? I don't get it.
I don't think its explainable. We've fallen in love with the pass first mentality.
Attrition on the defensive front doesn't explain the issues we have on the offensive side of the ball.
everyone seems to be laying this loss entirely at the feet of the offense. there are a couple of articles in kyallie's news thread about gus game planning to take advantage of pruitt's aggressiveness on blitzing, i'd say that worked pretty well.
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