I enjoy stats as much as the next guy, but all I have to do is think of the '92 Miami game and the Ohio State games of the last few years (and of course, Utah) to know they only mean anything if both teams come into the CG with the right mental attitude. That is my hope and that it will be a classic game to remember.
Bama/Texas matchups
- Thread starter RTRinGA89
- Start date
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Arenas is the #1 ranked punt returner in the nation that is why they are laughing....
Exactly - if you don't know how good Arenas is, you know nothing about Bama football. He will break the NCAA all-time record against Texas. Add his ability as one of the best CBs in the NCAA and how can a fan of college football NOT know about him?
I mean, I have friends who went to Rutgers that know about Arenas (they want the Giants to draft him this year).
No offense to the original poster but there is no way that the coaching is equal. Just the head coaching would send this category to us. Outside of Texas I doubt you would find any that would take Mac over CNS.
Not sure if you have been paying attention, but this is not a good thing... :rofl:
DT_hah:
Redeemed myself? Just pointing out some information that I think any rational fan of football could see that Colt probably isn't lightyears ahead of GMAC. I put forth that if Colt McCoy played SEC defenses his stats would be less than what they are. Conversely if GMAC was given Big 12 gameplans and defenses his would be much higher.
Keep in mind that I did not even factor in GMAC playing against weaker Pass Defenses. Those hypotheticals were him still throwing against the teams he faced. The great thing is we will get to see these guys settle it on the field.
You guys understand that while stats can tell some of the story... it can't tell the whole story.
Bama is a run first team, that has become more balanced recently. Defending the pass isn't the first thing on Bama's opponent's minds. Its stopping the run. With that said... its opposite for Colt. Every one of our opponent's gameplans have been to stop the pass.
Moreover, lets talk about the Bama passing defense. Great no doubt, but how well tested are they? These are the passing offense rankings of teams Alabama has played: 98, 60, 50, 10, 114, 53, 43, 47, 99, 113, 56, 58, and 38(in the FCS though). Fact of the matter is that the Bama defense hasn't really played any great passing teams save Arkansas, where they did well. One game isn't going to tell the whole story.
Bama should be scared of our secondary, and at least concerned what their secondary will be able to do to stop McCoy, especially if we are actually running the ball effectively.
My last point to be made: How can ANYONE say the SEC is the conference of great defenses, if you can't really show how good or bad the offenses are? Reverse that for offenses in the big 12.
We aren't going to know squat until these teams play.
Anyone have SEC vs. Big 12 OOC results? I don't know what they look like, but you could look at rivalry week and see that the SEC shut down very strong teams in other conferences with ease. We had mid-tier teams take apart ACC championship game teams.
See, the SEC beats everyone, everywhere. Look at our conference bowl results. The SEC has never lost in a BCSCG. The strength of SEC defenses was a myth to OU until they played Florida last year. The best offense in the history of college football was exposed as average when it was forced to play an SEC defense.
Guess what? Bama's defense this year is much better than Florida's defense last year. We have at least 7 NFL players starting on defense.
Bring the facts, man. you can't be using last year's OU/FL game as an indicator for anything. I also don't want to turn this into a big 12 vs the sec battle. I'm just saying that you can't really quantify how good offenses or defenses are based on stats alone, especially when most games are played in conference.
57, 52, 55, 35, 49, 35, 45, 58, 62, 66, 65, 61, 62, 14
Oklahoma vs. The Big 12 and their powerful non-conference schedule and then one lone over-rated SEC defense. Yeah. Stats do tell some of the story.
I'd agree with that line of thinking. And I think that with the talent on both teams there will be a lot of cancelling out. The one big fear I'd have as a Texas fan is how the OL will perform. If they have a good game, UT has a chance. If they have a bad game, look out.
The other big match-up in this game, in my opinion, is the coaching staff. Saban will not be out worked. The man is a machine. Have you read his book? He and his staff will know more about UT and their tendencies than some of the coaches on UT's staff.
The players still have to make the plays, that's true. But I have no doubt that UA's staff will have the better game plan in hand.
What NY said!
Just something to consider. GMac was planning on playing in the Big 12 before he got the Bama offer. He knew that if he wanted to throw it all over the place and have big stats he could have gone to TT, but something inside of him wanted to play at Bama. No Bama qb is going to get to throw it like they would if they played in the Big 12, but that was apparently OK with GMac. I kinda like the fact that he chose Bama over big stats and he's real close to becoming part of Bama History for making that decision.
That intanglible means alot to us. Colt McCoy is a great person and player and I'm a personal fan of his, but GMac is the perfect fit for the program that CNS is building at Bama.
Don't forget the Ole Miss shutdown of TT in the Cotton Bowl last year and us shutting them down in 05. Longhrn, you don't want us to use these as examples but you want to compair SEC defenses against good offenses and the only way you can do that is to use history. You don't want us to use history because it doesn't help you cause.
Saban doesn't lose twice to the same opponent. He learns. Its pretty much his trademark.
I'd prefer to use Texas vs. The SEC history, which isn't much recently.
I know this. Arkansas BACKED OUT of playing us this year. I also know that we beat Saban last time we played him. I also know that despite how long he had to prepare, Saban still got beat by Utah last year.
Otherwise we can probably go down the line A beat B who beat C who beat D so therefore A is better than D... we know this isn't the case.
History will not tell the story. Stats will not tell the story. The story will be told when we play and thats it. We'll go back and forth until then... which is fun. I just don't want to hear about this CONFERENCE ......... Unless we played a big enough sample size against the SEC, you can't make a judgment call on which conference is better. We WISH we could play SEC teams every year. It just doesn't work out that way.
How can we say our defenses are the best?! Let's see, because when they shut down the best offenses in bowl games. Look at what Texas Tech did to Texas last year on offense. Then look at how Ole Miss absolutely shut them down and embarrassed them. And they were maybe the third best team in the SEC. Look at what Florida did to Oklahoma's freaking prolific offense in the most important game of Bradford's career. Every year this happens. SEC teams simply embarrass their opponents. Even LSU handed it to Georgia Tech. Alabama lost to to a very good Utah team, true, but they had an amazing game plan and our players just weren't prepared for that game. When will you learn?
I know people like to point out the Utah game as if it means anything today. Consider that the O-Line for Bama was gutted due to a suspension and injuries. In addition to turning the strong point of the team into a glaring weakness, playing in the Sugar Bowl was a let down for Bama, while Utah played with a chip on their shoulder. The result was sadly predictable.
