First and goal at the six yard line and...

Series of odd calls...

High water mark for the Tide this season?

     I'll leave it up to the football experts on the forum board to answer this question - If you believe you have the best offensive line in America and Eddie Lacy is your running back, why not run him three or four times to score the winning touchdown?  I may be wrong about my personal feelings but when it was fourth and 2 for the winning touchdown and you have Lacy why throw ball?  Or even beyond that, why throw that type of pass? It was a long throw into a small box with a lot of people all standing around where the ball was headed? Welcome to the SEC Doug Nussmeier. You have landed in a town and state where a lot of fans honestly know enough to second guess your coaching decisions. A lot of times they could be right. I think this past Saturday was one of those times.

Loss of identity...

     In basketball the best thing that can happen on the offensive end of the floor is when someone catches fire.  You know, when shot after shot falls through to hoop. The other four players on the floor just find him and give him the ball.  It seems like to me that the same applies to football. Why throw the ball when you can just turn around and hand it to the running back when he is averaging 8 yards a pop?  Somewhere in the LSU game I think the Tide went from being steamroller and turned into a con artist. Trickery, by passing became a kind of unexpected move that became all to expectable. If we really believe we have the best offensive line in college football why not use them to run the ball. I understand that being a good lineman includes pass blocking. The heart and soul of an offensive lineman is to get down and mean in the trenches. That's what Bama did best. I suspect that the new offensive cooridinator got an earful after the TAM game. He's getting an earful on talk radio right now. It wouldn't surprise me if Alabama didn't throw a pass this weekend.

Barrett Jones lost some money ...

     I think Barrett Jones may be of the most beloved players is Jones. The whole family bleeds Crimson. He is a great lineman. On Saturday, he proved to the NFL that he can't play center. Time and time again TAM quickness got the better of Jones. If the center is having a hard time blocking then all the lineman struggle. A football coach told me that once. It makes sense. If your leader is getting beat it has to have some effect on the team. This might be the first time it was this obvious. He may still the best lineman in America but he wasn't this past weekend.

       Bama runs the ball between the tackles. Our version of a sweep is when Lacy or Yeldon runs off tackle and then cuts outside. Why doesn't the Tide run some wide plays to keep the defensive linebackers a little wary? I'm not saying I'm correct. I just wonder why we don't ever do that. We occasionally run a reverse. What good does that do when you never try to get the ball on the corner to set a reverse later?

      I still believe Alabama will lose no additional games this season. That means four more wins. Where else in America would 13-1 be a bad season. Auburn might win that many games for three years. Back to Forum