I was among the masses who were calling for Lee after Jefferson fell flat on his face (literally) through the first half. That said, there HAS to be more to this than we are being told so I tend to take stock in bhelm's comments. Regardless, this was a total team loss and I am not sure that JL could have made a difference. Saban had Miles number on Monday night and no QB was going to change that.
It was a total offense failure, but I wouldnt say total team. But don't overlook how demoralizing offensive struggles are for the whole team. One spark could have ignited the Tigers, as we saw countless times during the year when they exploded. Vs Georgia for instance. One spark could have completely shifted the momentum. For the first time all year, that emotional spark never came. In retrospect we fans overlooked two key clues that all was not well with the Tigers--the slow starts, especially versus Arkansas and Georgia. How do you go a whole half without a first down as in the Georgia game? At the time I excused it as the Tigers being a bit flat (but it was the SEC championship! How can you be flat?), being tired and Georgia being on fire emotionally. Looking back, big defensive or special teams play made the offense seem more solid than it actually was. I don't know how we all overlooked that. 40 points a game can mask a lot of flaws. I'm now of the opinion that if you subtract out all the help and advantages the offense got from the stellar defense and special teams play all season, that the offense was mediocre or worse. Don't know to what extent this is due to the players and/or coaching. Its possible (I'm not sure) that we need an OC much more badly than we realize.
This! J. Lee aside, SOMETHING different needed to be done. Let Mettenberger have a chance. Crack that dang playbook wide open and try something that nobody has seen yet. It was the GD NC game for crying out loud, and we beat our face into a brick wall running plain old vanilla offense (Gary Crowton style). The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results. We literally watched insanity unfold on the field Mon night. I like Les. I always have, and I will still support him because I think as a whole he is an outstanding coach. However, on Mon night he had his head jammed directly up his azz. o:
I have to admit, as mind boggling as it was, Miles just didn't play Lee for no good reason, and the fact that he is keeping it quiet in his eyes is to protect Jarrett from whatever it was that he did. That is admirable in my opinion.
I didn't overlook the slow starts. There were TONS of red flags to indicate JJ couldn't handle a top defense alone. I really hoped for a two QB system so we could at least have options and to force Alabama to prepare for different styles. I was also aware of JJ's previous performances over the past three years. I'm not sure what some on this site saw in him or why they clung to his jockstrap but he was a one-dimensional player who never learned clock management, how to read defenses, how to avoid staring down a single target, etc. On the interception he had Randle all alone down the sideline but never realized he wasn't covered because he was never aware of his surroundings. It's amazing how we only lost three games the past two seasons. That's less than either of the past two BCS winners...and without the services of a decent QB. The future looks bright with Mett, Rivers, and Kiel. In an "either/or" situation, I'll gladly take a smart QB with average mobility over an athletic QB with a below average IQ. Mauck - :crystal: Flynn - :crystal: Jefferson - ZERO points
Miles was due a huge pay raise if he won the title, so his hands must have been really tied if he didn't try to use every option at his disposal. It'll all come out eventually.
Regarding mention above about the slow starts vs Arky and Ga... Certainly bad signs for the offense and great that the team could overcome it both times. One item that I don't think has been mentioned, and maybe it belongs in a more relevant thread -- The extra game (SEC Championship), and the fact that we went the entire first half w/o a first down, plus JJ only throwing 30 yards the entire game definitely gave Saban a huge advantage. More film to study where he could really zone in on JJ's flaws and render our offense ineffective. I guess I'm just spewing and venting against the entire system (we play in an extra game while Bama rests at home, etc.). :geauxtige
