01/03 The Sugar Bowl
Notice how I titled this blog “Sugar Bowl” instead of “Utah.” I did that on purpose, because we would have gotten pummeled regardless of our opponent. Friday night was one of the worst performances I’ve ever seen by a Bama football team, and even though pundits from around the country are going to be singing the praises of the Utah Utes and the Mountain West Conference, the truth is that we played horribly in every aspect of the game from start to finish, and Utah was simply in the right place at the right time.
If you haven’t read my previous blog titled “SEC Aftermath,” I encourage you to do so. In that blog, I detail the weaknesses in our team that need to be corrected. We have been fortunate throughout the season in that we’ve played opponents that either couldn’t exploit these weaknesses, or for some reason just didn’t. However, on Friday night, every single weakness that I detailed in that blog was exploited to its fullest, which is a scenario that I’ve been dreading for the vast majority of the season.
First and foremost, our pass protection is absolutely without a doubt the worst in the nation. There is a real danger here. Andre Smith, our best offensive lineman, was suspended for the game for being an idiot, and there is a real temptation to say that our feminine performance against the Utah pass rush was largely a result of that suspension. Understand with crystal clarity, that is not the case. We have been terrible in pass protection all year against everybody without exception. It’s just that we haven’t really needed to pass all year, so nobody (but me) noticed. Saban has to address this deficiency immediately. He can’t skate around it; no excuses. If he has to fire Pendry (our OL coach), our offensive coordinator, our strength and conditioning coach, whatever. He needs to drill down into the problem, find the root, and solve it (and by the way coach, if you’re reading this, the problem is Pendry). This problem simply cannot continue to exist. If it does, then we’re going to see a whole lot of games like we saw last night against that mighty team from the Mountain West.
Second, on the opposite side of the ball, we have to improve our pass rush. As I said in that prophetic blog, we simply don’t know how to blitz. In last night’s game, I don’t know how many times I saw a safety or linebacker do nothing more than occupy an offensive lineman or back instead of actually applying pressure to the QB. Since our defensive backs are average at best (also mentioned in that blog), pressure on the QB is a must. I’m a little more hopeful about this problem than the one with the offensive line, mainly because I know that Saban knows what he’s doing in this area, and next year I expect improvement in every aspect of the defense, including blitzing and coverage.
Anybody and everybody watching last night’s game recognized our need to upgrade our QB position. We have a lot of young talent at that position, so hopefully Greg McElroy, Star Jackson, or even AJ McCarron will be able to step in next year and do better than JPW did. They’ll easily be an improvement over last night’s pathetic display of spastic flailings (exactly how many wide open men did JPW miss?), so I’m definitely optimistic at that position also. Of course, if the OL play doesn’t get better, the amount of improvement will be limited, but as I always say, anything is better than nothing.
I could go on and on about our areas of improvement, but nothing I say will change last night’s disgusting performance. This team missed a golden opportunity last night. Instead of being remembered as one of our best and most cherished teams, they will now go down as nothing more as another pretty good team, along with 2005, 2002, 1999, and 1996. In other words, they’ll soon be forgotten, and that’s a shame, because for most of this year, they played with such passion. Last night they played like they really didn’t want to be there, and that’s something that is absolutely inexcusable and unforgivable for an Alabama football team. The tens of thousands of Alabama fans that traveled to the game and spent thousands of dollars to watch this team deserved better than that.
So that’s it; the season is over. We went from spending over a month ranked Number 1 to being just another team, and that’s very hard to swallow. Hopefully the players that are returning will learn a lesson from last night’s game, and hopefully the coaches will now recognize our problem areas and immediately start to address them. To Antoine Caldwell and Rashad Johnson, I have never questioned your passion for the game, and I hope you realize how much I and the rest of the Bama nation appreciate everything you did for our football program. You will always be remembered among the Alabama greats, and you absolutely deserved to go out under better circumstances than what happened last night.
I’m sorry I can’t be more upbeat, but those of you that read this blog need to know that I will always tell it like it is; otherwise, why read it? I will post more as signing day draws near. We all saw this year what a difference the incoming freshman class can make, and we are having another fantastic recruiting class, so be sure to check back for my signing day recap.
Until next time, as always free to send me any questions or comments.
Kenny
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