I'm Trusting The Coaches

Who ever said recruiting equals wins?

These guys probably were reading some message board and saw these numbers and it filled a column so they could play golf on Friday instead.

 

Not the most impressive article. They can't even write in complete sentences. (Though they are from SC after all.)

 

I did not post this additional thought earlier as I do not mean to trash Saban.(any more Saban talk gets to be quite sensitive or tiring:angry:these days)

Objectively, putting myself as a player, I might have some funny feelings when Saban talks about commitment to the team, particularly when the press was blasting Saban about his character and commitment the way he treated the Dolphins last year. THAT might also factor in the way the players responded to Saban.

That being said, I think BAMA would be a force that has to be reckoned with, particularly when the defense got to finally learn Saban's complex system, and when you have a good and experienced OC. I would love to see the day when you see Crowton pitted against Saban's established defense.

 

Then you must have not been around the LSU program in the 90's when y'all lost over half y'alls games in that decade. I watched LSU games and their signature move was imploding when and if anything was going their way. I watched games where y'all had won then all of a sudden like setting your watch by it the meltdown occurred.

To cut to the chase it's called a loser's mentality and a losing culture. That mentality and culture was prevalent in Baton Rouge in the 90's until someone came along and changed it. The "change" didn't happen over night. You didn't get there over night and you didn't come out of it over night.

Same with Bama. A losing culture/mindset has slowly established itself at Bama. It was evident in the way Mike Shula coached, it was evident before Mike Shula got there. But Mike Shula did little to turn it around and did more to add to it. That type culture didn't just appear one Saturday morning and it's not going disappear in another.

And while we're walking by it I've got to address this. Y'all hammer Bama fans for not being patient, not giving coaches a chance, time etc. Being unrealistic and all, yet when we do give a coach time to turn it around then we're wrongfully "extending a coach's honeymoon". People can say all they want about Bama fans. But there's a lot of playing both sides of the fence going on that has nothing to do with Bama fans. We don't give a coach more than year to turn it around and we're bashed. We try to take a patient mindset with a coach and ........we're bashed. :huh:

 

There was a clash of culture, but I don't believe it was due to the Miami storylines.

One of those I expected in Jan and Feb of last year, but had faith in some of those kids that they would buy into the system he was bringing. After seeing how it worked at LSU, I couldn't see how they couldn't.

I've mentioned problems with S&C over the past few years here. Now, take a player who thinks they are good enough to the point they didn't have to participate in the off season programs and compare that to what Saban requires in the 4th quarter program.

Attitudes were allow to develop and weren't able to be broken within the span of the few weeks a coach and team can interact. Some of those attitudes resulted in former starters and back-ups who had seen a lot of snaps sitting on the bench. Some of those starters lost their roles to true freshman.

Literally, when I look at last years Sr. class, I can count on one hand the players I am going to miss. Two of them can be found on the line, another in the defensive front 7...if that tells you anything.

There still persisted a "me" attitude even in the last of the season. After the loss to ULM, one of last years starters who wasn't seeing a lot of playing time was just surreal in his press conference interview. "I had this many catches." "I had this many yards." A Sr., a player I will not miss.

 

It's a nice bit of research, but in the light of this thread and how the star numbers effect success consider this...

If you take the class that is graduating this year (a combination of '03 and '04) you'll find this.

In '03 and '04:

0 - 5 Stars.
8 - 4 Stars.

Incoming class this year alone.

2- 5 Stars
17 - 4 Stars (making up more than 3/5th's of the class)

In '07 about half of that class were guys that weren't on the radar when Shula was there. In that class, 10 of the commit's were 4 stars.

27 versus 8. It's a good class versus great classes coming in. Big difference if we are looking at this purely from a ranking standpoint.

But, this all comes back to evaluation and development.

 

Somewhat off-topic, Terry, but you mentioned after the Alabama season ended that you wouldn't mind discussing what went on with DJ Hall and his one-half suspension.. the circumstances surrounding it..?

I've been wondering about that since it was discussed.

 

He's been a walking problem since day one. He was caught doing a few things that should have had him kicked out of the school, IMO.

In this case, it was him running his mouth on the practice field and not in a smack talk kind of manner but verbally attacking a few there with him in game preparation.

One example of the attitude problems that were almost fostered under the last coaching staff and something that created problems with others completely buying into the system/process. I feel nothing close to an "I'm going to miss him" in our program.

Brown was another one of those guys. In his situation, with the depth at RB, it was easy just to sit him most of the season. If it weren't for injuries and the text book suspensions he wouldn't have seen the playing time he did in one game in the last of the season.

I'm sure you can relate. There are players that come through that you appreciate what they did on the field, but it only goes that far.