You are right, but I think that we have a better roster than Ole Miss.
South Carolina wrap-up: Battered defense comes up with the stop it needed - this time
- Thread starter JessN
- Start date
What I don't get when I read posts like these -- thankfully, not so much on here, but they're all over X at the moment -- is that, well, they're just not all that realistic ...
1) We've been celebrating touchdowns in over-the-top ways for years. We've had related items, like the turnover belt going back to Scott Cochran (and the sideline mugging for photo ops post-turnover) for just as long or longer. It didn't just start this year.
2) The Heisman is basically a media popularity contest, has been for years, and guys that have big "moments" (especially later in the year) from big programs get pushed quite a bit. This has very little to do with us/UA, anyway, and more about the overall direction the media machine chooses to go.
3) This is a good point and the highlight of the post.
4) We've done this plenty of times under Saban if you're talking about the South Carolina win as an extension of the "falling apart." The Vandy loss was disastrous but a lot of people also forget Bryant lost to them once and tied them at least twice that I can remember. It didn't happen under Saban, but losing to Tennessee almost didn't happen, either, which sort of goes to the point that Saban is the greatest ever to do it -- which also means you can't hold DeBoer or any other coach to that same standard. If you expand the "falling apart" to include close wins over lesser opponents, I can point you up and down Saban's 17-year history here at Alabama where it happened multiple times.
As to DeBoer's way of doing things, one of the reasons I think Alabama went with a guy like him is that Byrne is looking at the way college athletics in general is shifting -- the players have far more power than they did even five years ago, and in the coming years where the players are compensated as much as the coaches are, but without the benefit of maturity that NFL players have -- hiring guys who are extremely strict with players isn't going to be the winning play. It's going to be a more collaborative way of running a program, and unless the NCAA makes (or is allowed, by judges to make) changes to the transfer portal system writ large, there are going to be a ton of Jehiem Oatis scenarios every year, across the landscape, where you suffer roster attrition in-season that you can't sustain.
A lot of people think you can still run a Junction Boys-style program with an iron fist in the head coach's chair, but you can't. Even Saban's best-ever protege, Kirby Smart, can't seem to get his roster to do something as simple as not treat Georgia highways and interstates like a racetrack.
As for Lane Kiffin, I like Lane, I think he's matured a lot ... but he has two losses on the year to teams he should have beaten, he's never been a consistently good HS recruiter and now that he has the portal, he thinks he can use that as the primary building avenue for his team, which I think time will prove he cannot. There's also no evidence that he's a better offensive mind than DeBoer, certainly not a significantly better one, so you don't even get that benefit by replacing one with the other. It doesn't matter anyway, because UA admin is not going to knee-jerk on DeBoer, especially not after he opens a transition season, which everyone above him knew was going to be difficult anyway, at 5-1 with a signature win. He's going to get multiple years here and a chance to build it his way. And he should.
Yep, as he should. I've said it before, but Saban's decision to retire, IMO, was the realization he no longer had the same control over players that he once did. It was the reason he left the NFL for CFB. He had more control. With the loss of control, he knew how he liked to run things was over and if he couldn't run them the way he wanted, then he wasn't going to do it at all. Hence, his retirement.
It is only fair to allow three-four years for DeBoer to put his stamp on the program. You can see flashes of what we can be under him, but I think it will take his system, philosophies, and way of doing things a couple of years before we see what he can really do.
Jess, let me start by saying that I appreciate your posts. Moreover, I find them to be the most insightful and informative articles in any media format, and I thank you for this. I'm sorry that you choose to demean my comments, but I will try to explain them if I may.
Assuming what you say about the Heisman is true (and I mostly agree with you), after the winning Iron Bowl last season, Milroe was running up and down the sideline yelling,"give me the m.f. Heisman." I'm sure that you saw this. Couple this with the recent media talk of Milroe being this year's "odds on Heisman favorite," this leads to what I consider to be "rat poison," thus my comment.
I mentioned Kiffen because he coached for Saban and has SEC experience. These things matter imo. He is also (again imo) one of the two best offensive minds in college football. The best is easily Sark, but he ain't leaving Texas and their money, just like Kirby won't leave Georgia.
You are correct that I am probably judging DeBoer too soon. OK, but do you think that Malachi would be acting out like he did under Saban? Would the defense have stopped playing in the second half? Would we have lost to freaking Vanderbilt? Call me crazy but I think not.
Once again, I thank you for your great articles. They ARE the best. I do hope that my future posts live up to your standards.
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* Kiffin has proven over and over he's going to lose at least two games per year he's not supposed to. He's already accomplished that this season and the season is only at its halfway point. As good of an offensive mind as he is, he does not coach well in big games. He throttles teams he's supposed to then turns around and will lay two eggs against teams like Kentucky, who he should have beaten, and LSU, whose defense isn't much better than ours.
** I firmly believe Saban was beginning to lose control of his own players in his last few years. The lack of discipline at which they played were nothing like the Saban teams we'd grown accustomed to. Saban alluded to how different the post season meetings were with players since the NIL/Transfer portal. They didn't care anymore about knowing what they needed to do to get better, all they cared about was if they were going to play and how much they were going to get paid. That ties nicely into what we saw on the field by Saban's teams in his last few years. Highly undisciplined teams that committed dumb penalties at the worst parts of game. You can easily go back over the game threads and post game threads and read if you want. So to point to DeBoer as the reason we're seeing it now may be unfair seeing that we started seeing it under Saban as well. The animal of the NIL/Transfer portal has just gotten bigger each year and is starting to get too big even for the coaches.
Is it fair to say he was choking on Gamecock?
Now I'm confused about what we're arguing about with the Heisman. All players would love to win it. Making a public comment about it (especially in the heat of the moment, like Milroe was in post-AU) is understandable. And he did that with Nick Saban as his head coach, so if pushing Milroe for the Heisman (not sure to what degree we're actually doing that, mind you) is something DeBoer should avoid, remember that Milroe made his comment under Saban, not DeBoer, so if we're talking about lack of program discipline or too much focus on individuals, remember that DeBoer wasn't even here yet.
On a greater scale, we've been actively promoting players for Heisman since Saban got here. We had an entire marketing team dedicated to pushing Mark Ingram. I suspect we're doing that for Jalen, too, because what brings him recognition also brings the program recognition. To sum it up, I think any concerns about the Heisman is a red herring. For that matter, we have two legitimate candidates for the award this year (Williams being the other) but Jalen has the edge because whatever production Williams gets has to run through Jalen to start with.
In regard to Kiffin, he's one of the best offensive minds in college football, but that list isn't steep. It's not like we have 2-3 guys out ahead of the rest of the pack, and that's before you get down to the coordinator level. Kiffin is probably the best pure QB coach in CFB. Sarkisian is a superior playcaller. DeBoer may be better than both in formation design and use of motion. Sarkisian is a great route tree developer. But Todd Monken (the former UGA OC) is up there. So was Alex Golesh (former UT OC). The point is if you're hiring based on "we've got to find the best offensive mind out there" you are very unlikely to find a guy who stands head and shoulders above about 50 other guys.
Then you have to evaluate Kiffin for everything else, and that's where it sort of goes a bit sideways. Is he a great recruiter? No. He's a good one, and when he's motivated to get a specific guy, he can be highly effective. But he doesn't embrace it. As soon as he was given the transfer portal as an option, Ole Miss became frequent fliers to the portal. Is he a strict disciplinarian? No. Is he a great defensive mind, or does he even modify his own playcalling to help baby a struggling defense? In the former, no, and in the latter, only begrudgingly. Does he have his personal life cleaned up? It seems like he's on the right track where he is, but can he maintain it if he ever returns to this pressure cooker of a program? A lot of what kept Kiffin down the official list the last time was the list of things he did here or allegedly did here when he was OC, and if for some reason you had to replace DeBoer tomorrow I don't think Kiffin would get much traction.
As for Moore, I don't know what Malachi would have done under Saban, but I know what a bunch of players did do under Saban and were still allowed to play. I know all the names of the people I'm about to refer to here but there's no need to put them out there: We had a starting CB walk out of meetings more than once. We had a starting DL shove a coach and tell Saban something that wouldn't pass our language filter when Saban got onto him about it; he didn't miss a snap the next week. We've had a lot of guys behave badly around campus. And I don't know how long that's been going on, but firsthand I know it went on all the way back to Stallings because I was in school at the time.
It's clear a lot of people are never going to give up on "it was Vandy," no matter how many times it's been pointed out that Bryant lost to them, or any number of other weak-sister losses we've endured over the years, so I'll just say this: The fact that it was Vandy was irrelevant. What's relevant is what caused the loss and can it be corrected.
There you go injecting logic and forethought into what should be a two-year-old's temper tantrum!
I want what I want when I want it, dangit! And I don't want to have to pay for it!
Seriously (and paraphrasing Rudyard Kipling), I sincerely appreciate you bringing a mindset of not losing your head when all about your are losing theirs and blaming it on you.
