Auburn 2007

After seventy-two hours of letting the football season soak in, it is necessary to take a hard look at the past three months.

Unfortunately for Alabama the season had to be three months. Fans would be glad to have ended the season in November clear above .500. But the Tide had to play two teams from Louisiana, Mississippi State, and Auburn. What failed the Tide in the month of November? Was it something to do with the leaves falling?

An answer to this question is going to difficult and hard to explain. It will sound like an Alabama/Nick Saban bash, but here goes.

Coach Saban could not reach the players after the LSU game. Alabama fans want to put the blame solely on the players, players that Mike Shula recruited. Alabama fans essentially want to say, “It wasn’t Saban’s fault, it was Mike Shula’s; Alabama is great because we’re Alabama.” Translation, I don’t know a damn thing about psychology and football. Why psychology, because that’s where Saban lost the players. The players got tired of being yelled to by Nicky and just quit. He realized this fact after Louisiana Monroe and that’s when he threw the players under the bus in his post game press conference.

Then the offensive coaches put together an offensive game plan that would have made Mike Shula happy. Go to the “I” formation, JP and don’t fumble away the game. Well, JP didn’t lose the game for Alabama, but he sure as hell won the game. Why go to this conservative game plan after playing Tennessee tossing the ball around like a hot potato? Saban was afraid. He was afraid of the players and that he did not have control over them. He did not have control. That’s why fans saw Travis McCall line up as a fullback in the “I” formation. (This is a formation that Saban has repeatedly lambasted in the media as unimaginative and predictable.) The game plan might have worked if DJ Hall had paid attention to a pass in the end zone, if Keith Saunders does not hit Brandon Cox two seconds after he throws, if Alabama does not run into the kicker on a punt deep in Auburn territory. But those things happened, Alabama players were not disciplined enough to refrain from committing mental mistakes like those. That falls on coaching.

Everyday Alabama fan says: “Yeah, I can’t wait for next year, we’ll have Saban’s players and JPW won’t be the quarterback.” Yes and No. Saban’s players will be freshman and Sophomores, a minority of the team still. Who’s going to play quarterback if JPW doesn’t? … The quarterbacks that were on the bench this year? Some quarterback still going to Sonic after school today? No. JPW will still be the Alabama gunslinger that he is. (He is 1st and 2nd in the Alabama record books in single season passing yardage 2006, 2007, look it up). Saban is still going to have to learn to motivate players that he didn’t recruit. He’d better learn fast with four big road games on the docket next year.

All that said, Saban is still the better guy for the job. He is the last ditch effort to resurrect a program from the obscurity of the middle tier college football programs.