"Now, pretend this guy is Lee Ziemba and he is gonna try to chop block you when your not lookin, do what you have to, but never leave your knees unprotected, he is a sneaky bastard."
Foley,AL: Julio Jones, a man of few words, commits to Alabama.....Bama fan suicide watch called off....The legend of Nick Saban grew a little larger today with the capture of Julio Jones, Jerrell Harris, Mark Ingram, and a whole list of others that are here:http://insider.espn.go.com/ncf/recruiting/tracker/school?schoolId=333&season=2008&action=login&appRedirect=http%3a%2f%2finsider.espn.go.com%2fncf%2frecruiting%2ftracker%2fschool%3fschoolId%3d333%26season%3d2008
And as far as in state goes, Alabama did not lose one recruit to Auburn, thanks to their turmoil with the firings and resigning of the OC and the DC, both for greener pastures....Most would show this Alabama/Auburn saga as the Star Wars triology, with Alabama being the Death Star under construction and Nick Saban as Lord Vader...Well the Dark Side just got a helluva lot stronger with the Rivals number one recruiting class committing to the Dark Side. And we got a shitload of Storm Troopers and will be running a full on Kevin Steele Sith-Lord Defense ......
So now we have some sure enough studs that should be able to help us like Harvin/Tebow helped Florida and Moreno helped Georgia..... Rumor is that Notre Dame and Miami got some good players, but I dont think they have the coaching to put the pieces of the puzzle together as fast as Nick Saban can. I believe we are 3 yrs away from the SEC championship which should put us in the hunt for the MNC game since it looks like if you win the SEC, your in the MNC game and usually the winner by default since you have to play tOSU or some other poseur who shouldnt be there. IT seems the media or ESPN simply hates Nick Saban. Rivals-the real experts on recruiting-pegged Alabama as the #1 class, where as ESPN has Alabama as Number 3. As far as short term goals for this year is to beat Auburn, then beat Georgia and Tenn.....Georgia will be the toughest game along with Clemson, then Auburn. Mark it down, payback for Miss. State and ULM will be painful and hopefully full of death and dismemberment and relentless since Saban believes in running up the score, and routine beheadings on the 50 yrd line....Hopefully once the SEC keeps killing everyone year in year out, there will be a playoff to prove once and for all every conference should have a title game to send someone to the playoff, maybe 4 teams or 8 teams......
Austin,Tx Major Applewhite, former redheaded Texas Longhorn QB and now former redheaded Lil- Opie- Cunningham-Crimson Tide offensive something or another, is now back(clap clap clap) deep in the heart of Texas as a new and improved-lateral sorta kinda move from the sketchy title of Alabama's "Offensive Coordinator" to the even more sketchy title of Asst Equipment Manager for the girls Softball team......No, really, he is involved in the football team somehow someway to the tune of $300,000 large.....And with the added bonus of no more Nick Saban or JPW and his rag tag band of offensive linemen.....I am sure Major is still getting phone calls at home, at night as we speak...some how some way, Tide fans have a knack of getting Asst. Coaches PrePaid Cell phone numbers, even though they are given a new one every week to throw off the drunk dialin' offensive geniuses that call themselves Tide fans....
This saga began last year when Nick Saban was announced as the Head Coach and he went on a mission to put a staff together....Many raised an eyebrow, or both eyebrows when it was announced he would be the O- Coordinator..... We had seen this before when we hired a young coach named Mike Shula.....except we paid him ALOT more to learn on the job. I am sure MA will be a great O-Coordinator, he just didnt have the talent or felt he didnt have the talent to run what he wanted to run. The biggest gripe Tide fans had was the offense, at times, seem to magically score at will for 1 or 2 quarters, then it would seem that the magic would fade away and would not be able to run up the score or sustain any sort of drive to run out the clock, therefore pinning our thin defense against the wall to hang on barely while the other team came back or relinquishing the lead altogether....perfect example was the bowl game against Colorado. Simply jumped their asses and put 27 points up, then "poof", just like that, the magic was gone, then Colorado went on a run....Its like we have a fast break, run out of gas, and cant recover like a out of control stock car ,then let the pack catch up and pass us instead of standing on it and trying to lap 'em.....
And that my friends, besides the ritual shooting ourselves in the foot when we are in the game with PICK 6's and fumbles and all that rest, was why there was gonna be some changes made. In Nick Sabans words "We just didnt FINISH"..... On the upside, recruiting has the future shining a little brighter and hopefully if we can put some back to back classes together, we can be contenders for the SEC Crown, which in turn should put us in a spot to play for it all in the future. For now, no matter how small our victories are, we need some positives to string together. The main concern I have is that this will be JPW's number 3 in the line of O-Coordinators, and I hope this one will be a charm. I just hope we can run the damn ball on 3 and 3 instead of throwing it out of bounds and over the press box, which basically is why our 3rd Down Conversion Rate sucked----thats the one stat teams that are successful have a high percentage in converting, thus sustaining drives, keeping your defense off the field and hopefully getting to the red zone to put some points on the board.
