Better Late Than Never....End of Year/New Year Roundup

We whip the

Barn, they fire Tubby, hire Chizik, we lose Andre and Mike

Johnson.....then it all comes crashing down in flames in New Orleans............

"I'm snazzy, and I love Olan Mills."

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What the next 10 yrs will look like
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Well, what a ride. I have been thru the highs and the lows of the financial market this year, and it was nice to have Bama lift many fans spirits in a surprising way, me included. Things are starting to turn in the right direction finally, and looks like Bama peaked for Auburn, and just didnt have the depth for Florida or Utah. My take has been well documented and I predicted 8-4. End of story. So 12-0 and undefeated in the SEC and SEC West Champs was a nice surprise.... But what I didnt count on was how good the freshmen Saban recruited were going to be. I kinda guessed Julio had the tools to be special, and I bet his breakout game is yet to be played once we get a QB that is decent. We had the line, and JPW had his moments, just Julio was our ONLY weapon, kinda like last year when we had DJ Hall and JPW would tend to lock onto him, making it easy to defend what little passing we had. Now, this year, we actually had a running game, it gave earlier opponents a little to think about, and I kinda think Georgia was suprised when JPW actually connected on some key passes that he usually overthrew. Turned out we were ok playing against sub-par competition since we really jumped on opponents early and got them out of their usually SEC style run first game plan, and most times they were looking at our tail lights as we ground the clock out. We kinda saw what Andre meant to the run game vs Tulane and that style of offense vs our defense. I knew we were thin, but damn, we struggled vs Tulane, and lucky for us we have Arenas pulling our asses out of the fire for that game. We tightroped the injury bug, got lucky and JPW managed the game well, and our line was really good on both sides of the ball.

Then Terrance Cody gets a strained MCL and we kinda revert back to last year since he was a force in the middle. I knew we would be strong vs LSU, even though Cody was about 75%.

And I felt with all that BS at Auburn, they would be either fired up to win or roll over and die.

They rolled over and died. I wanted to beat a good Auburn, and we got to beat up on the Special Ed version, the one that drools while eating a Ritz cracker. But they gloated enough, Tubbs walks out with 7 fingers and we promptly break em off one by one. Where is that streak now? Oh, yeh, in that suitcase filled with $5.1 million dollars, and I think Saban should get a cut of that, since he sealed your fate. Jimmy Sexton is a MF'n evil genius. Its his world, we pay to live in it.

I felt going into the SEC Champ game we were over our heads, but with Harvin out, we had a chance if we can keep the deep ball and big plays contained. It was a good game, and frankly, had we had some better breaks along the way, we could have had a shot. Florida is too talented and has too much of a head start on Saban as far as scheme and players. I thought Florida would beat us kinda in the fashion that Utah did, just speed, hurry up and throw, catch ya off guard and get us away from the run game and make JPW beat them......Newsflash---we had all of our arsenal and were in the game til Tebow took over. He made throws that were on target and his receivers were there to make plays. We played one of the best teams in the nation, they are just that much better, and I think games like that give you a look at where you really are. Since we had never played a game without our line at full strength, we never knew what to expect once that happened......ENTER THE SUGAR BOWL.....

Someone in Andre Smiths family on his behalf decided to talk to an agent. Big No-No. Then Saban has to suspend Andre for the Sugar Bowl. Thats gonna hurt, but its Utah, what could possibly go wrong? We are big, strong, still somewhat powerful. They are Mormons. And mainly white and shifty. No big deal. We will wear them down. Hell, we could take a week off and go drankin in the French Quarter. Who the f*&* is Utah? If Utah is gonna beat Bama, it will take some help....either injuries or penalties, or disrespect from the media and our coach, they will have to come out and play like its their Super Bowl.....well it all came together nicely...for Utah....

Ya see, had we been in the Big 10 or Pac 10 and gone undefeated, we would be in the BCS Championship game against a bigger name program, someone we could take seriously, someone we could get up for. We would be there because we didnt have to play a Conference Championship and we didnt lose a game. Florida would be out since they lost to Ole Miss. And we didnt lose and would keep our numbe 1 ranking. Now had we played Oklahoma and Andre gets suspended and Mike Johnson gets hurt, hell Oklahoma or Texas blows our doors off and we get embarrassed on the big stage. So thankfully, due to the BCS, Florida gets to win it all with a better team. Now if we had Andre and Mike, we could stay close vs Texas or Oklahoma and maybe have a chance to win. But we didnt vs Utah and got exposed big time. We need linemen on both sides and we need a platoon. A platoon that knows how to block and pass rush. Speed is what we need, some speed off the edge since we didnt get a whole lot of sacks. Sacks cause disruption, and throws timing off and basically causes havoc. We didnt have that. Utah did, and took advantage. We even came back after spotting them 21-0 in the first quarter. But it was not to be.......so Saban has some material to motivate and recruit what he needs to fill in the gaps...............Come on Feb 4, and God keep us out of the Fulmer Cup!