First, sorry for the extra thread, but I know all of us have thoughts and these are mine. I guess this is my "therapy" for letting it out.
So how does Bama go from the top of the mountain in college football, last winning it all in 2020 (his 6th at Bama) to such a tragic, disappointing season we've just watched conclude??? Who would have imagined the 2020 title and dismantling of TOSU in the BSCNCG would be CNS's/Bama's last NC and the beginning of the end?
What happened???
Well, it didn't happen "overnight" is the first thing to realize.
Covid changed our world! It changed our personalities. It made us focus on family and living one day at a time. It made older people think about retirement. And I believe it probably had the same impact on CNS. I think the change in his personality probably grew out of the Covid era.
Separate and apart from Covid, another significant thing happened in the 2019/2020 recruiting cycle. Drake Maye committed to CNS/Bama in 2019. I remember then thinking he'd be our next, great QB. Meanwhile, a guy named Jalen MiIroe committed to Texas. For just a moment, imagine if these "commitments" would have stuck??? But Maye's loyalty to his home state won out and he flipped to NC in the Spring of 2020 and that's when Jalen Milroe flipped to Bama. If we would have only known then what we know now!!!
But Bama was cooking with who we already had in the QB pipeline so "who cares if a NC kid wants to stay in NC." We go on and win it all in 2020 with Mac Jones and the incredible ensemble of talent we had that year! We had climbed the college mountain and we were at the peak and we didn't know it!
The future seemed bright, right? It was bright because we had a Cali kid who seamed liked he might be the next Tua. Bryce Young takes over in 2021/22 and he's amazing, but there's couple of problems. First CNS doesn't seem like CNS as much anymore. He can't hire good coordinators anymore. He hired BOB! We remember how BOB famously told JM, who was then a backup to phenom BY, that "he wasn't a QB." Well, nothing to worry about because we knew we had 5 star Ty Simpson who had committed in 2021 to CNS and never wavered. He was a coach's kid and seemed like the future.
But something started to show early in the 2022 season when JM had to play a game or two when BY got injured. It was our first glimpse into the future and how hard/stressful it was going to be to watch!
There are all kinds of reasons we didn't win it all in 2022. Injuries to key players didn't help, but the program also seemed to be showing some instability. The discipline that had been a CNS team hallmark suddenly was absent! Penalties that stopped drives raised their ugly head. And CNS seemed different on the sidelines; hardly ever having a legendary "come apart" we'd fallen in love with over the years. Whispers about "retirement" started to leak out.
Turns out there were cracks forming in the dynasty.
Back to BOB. A bunch of us scratched our heads over his hiring. Now, looking back, it was symptomatic of a bigger issue. CNS was loosing all of the great coordinators that made the dynasty work. We traded Sark, as he left for Texas, for BOB. That was not a "good trade" as Wind in His Air told Dances with Wolves. Then the cracks started widening! When BOB left we hired Tommy Reese. Who's that?
And then we come to 2023, what would turn out to be the Goat's last ride as HC. To this day we don't know what happened in South Florida or what happened when the team got back to T-town, but when the news broke that JM was crowned the starting QB after a "team meeting" the rest is history, as they say.
Now, one other major player. Rewind to 2021. What seemed to be the harmless NCAA ruling in 2021 that allowed NIL earnings, turned out to be maybe the biggest factor in all of this! I remember hearing about BY making 1 million dollars in 2022. CNS said it himself. BY seemed to handle it like the pro he was about to become!
But what happened next, the details we still don't know, is still a mystery. We will remember it as JM and TA starting "LANK." While we still don't know the whole story it led to the announcement that rocked the college football world. At the end of the 2023 season, hours after losing in the semis to Michigan, CNS met with players and all they cared about was NIL money. A short time later, BOOM!
As we entered the CKD era, the NIL deals became as big as who would follow CNS. We still don't know and may never know how the CKD and JM QB fiasco went down. Was JM guaranteed the starting role before CKD was hired? Did CKD feel it was the only way to hold the team together? Probably the latter, but, I'll end the "tale" by simply saying it is my firm belief that there's much more to the story of why CKD, a reported "QB whisperer," never uttered TS's name when JM failed over and over and over again this season.
By all reports, JM will not be back. I believe the "sources" who have assured me he won't play QB at Bama next year. Seems a transfer is more in order than a draft pick, but a bunch of rich people you'd think are real smart make stupid decisions about such, or so it seems.
So now, just maybe, we can really start the CKD era. It's not apples to apples but it's kinda like CNS's 2007 season. IMO, we can't hold what happened this year against him just like we didn't hold 2007 against CNS. This failed 9-4 season didn't happen in a vacuum. It goes back to 2019. It includes Covid, CNS's personality change/inability to hire better OCs/DCs and the much lamented NIL debacle that has unfolded before our very eyes.
As for me and my house, we are excited about the future with what I believe was the best hire we could have made after CNS's retirement. I believe the future, without the NIL entanglements and drama of 2024 will allow Coach to show his true style and coaching acumen.
So how does Bama go from the top of the mountain in college football, last winning it all in 2020 (his 6th at Bama) to such a tragic, disappointing season we've just watched conclude??? Who would have imagined the 2020 title and dismantling of TOSU in the BSCNCG would be CNS's/Bama's last NC and the beginning of the end?
What happened???
Well, it didn't happen "overnight" is the first thing to realize.
Covid changed our world! It changed our personalities. It made us focus on family and living one day at a time. It made older people think about retirement. And I believe it probably had the same impact on CNS. I think the change in his personality probably grew out of the Covid era.
Separate and apart from Covid, another significant thing happened in the 2019/2020 recruiting cycle. Drake Maye committed to CNS/Bama in 2019. I remember then thinking he'd be our next, great QB. Meanwhile, a guy named Jalen MiIroe committed to Texas. For just a moment, imagine if these "commitments" would have stuck??? But Maye's loyalty to his home state won out and he flipped to NC in the Spring of 2020 and that's when Jalen Milroe flipped to Bama. If we would have only known then what we know now!!!
But Bama was cooking with who we already had in the QB pipeline so "who cares if a NC kid wants to stay in NC." We go on and win it all in 2020 with Mac Jones and the incredible ensemble of talent we had that year! We had climbed the college mountain and we were at the peak and we didn't know it!
The future seemed bright, right? It was bright because we had a Cali kid who seamed liked he might be the next Tua. Bryce Young takes over in 2021/22 and he's amazing, but there's couple of problems. First CNS doesn't seem like CNS as much anymore. He can't hire good coordinators anymore. He hired BOB! We remember how BOB famously told JM, who was then a backup to phenom BY, that "he wasn't a QB." Well, nothing to worry about because we knew we had 5 star Ty Simpson who had committed in 2021 to CNS and never wavered. He was a coach's kid and seemed like the future.
But something started to show early in the 2022 season when JM had to play a game or two when BY got injured. It was our first glimpse into the future and how hard/stressful it was going to be to watch!
There are all kinds of reasons we didn't win it all in 2022. Injuries to key players didn't help, but the program also seemed to be showing some instability. The discipline that had been a CNS team hallmark suddenly was absent! Penalties that stopped drives raised their ugly head. And CNS seemed different on the sidelines; hardly ever having a legendary "come apart" we'd fallen in love with over the years. Whispers about "retirement" started to leak out.
Turns out there were cracks forming in the dynasty.
Back to BOB. A bunch of us scratched our heads over his hiring. Now, looking back, it was symptomatic of a bigger issue. CNS was loosing all of the great coordinators that made the dynasty work. We traded Sark, as he left for Texas, for BOB. That was not a "good trade" as Wind in His Air told Dances with Wolves. Then the cracks started widening! When BOB left we hired Tommy Reese. Who's that?
And then we come to 2023, what would turn out to be the Goat's last ride as HC. To this day we don't know what happened in South Florida or what happened when the team got back to T-town, but when the news broke that JM was crowned the starting QB after a "team meeting" the rest is history, as they say.
Now, one other major player. Rewind to 2021. What seemed to be the harmless NCAA ruling in 2021 that allowed NIL earnings, turned out to be maybe the biggest factor in all of this! I remember hearing about BY making 1 million dollars in 2022. CNS said it himself. BY seemed to handle it like the pro he was about to become!
But what happened next, the details we still don't know, is still a mystery. We will remember it as JM and TA starting "LANK." While we still don't know the whole story it led to the announcement that rocked the college football world. At the end of the 2023 season, hours after losing in the semis to Michigan, CNS met with players and all they cared about was NIL money. A short time later, BOOM!
As we entered the CKD era, the NIL deals became as big as who would follow CNS. We still don't know and may never know how the CKD and JM QB fiasco went down. Was JM guaranteed the starting role before CKD was hired? Did CKD feel it was the only way to hold the team together? Probably the latter, but, I'll end the "tale" by simply saying it is my firm belief that there's much more to the story of why CKD, a reported "QB whisperer," never uttered TS's name when JM failed over and over and over again this season.
By all reports, JM will not be back. I believe the "sources" who have assured me he won't play QB at Bama next year. Seems a transfer is more in order than a draft pick, but a bunch of rich people you'd think are real smart make stupid decisions about such, or so it seems.
So now, just maybe, we can really start the CKD era. It's not apples to apples but it's kinda like CNS's 2007 season. IMO, we can't hold what happened this year against him just like we didn't hold 2007 against CNS. This failed 9-4 season didn't happen in a vacuum. It goes back to 2019. It includes Covid, CNS's personality change/inability to hire better OCs/DCs and the much lamented NIL debacle that has unfolded before our very eyes.
As for me and my house, we are excited about the future with what I believe was the best hire we could have made after CNS's retirement. I believe the future, without the NIL entanglements and drama of 2024 will allow Coach to show his true style and coaching acumen.
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