The SEC Forum at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

Strange that Bama would only have one cream puff in the pre-season, sandwiched around FSU and Wisconsin?  
I don't recall many SEC teams in recent memory playing this many P4 opponents in the non-conference games?  

That @ UGa looks like a potential blood bath, with UGa still being in their prime, and Bama looking mortal.  

You take the GD points.  Sarkisian has screwed this up so many times now it's almost a fireable offense.

Alabama looks....Mortal.  About time.

If you're the Bama fan base today, you're having serious dynasty withdrawals.

All game yesterday there was zero energy on the Bama sidelines, from both the players and from Coach Deboer looking dazed.

Why does Alabama rotate in so many players so constantly? In just the first quarter there were up to 20 different defensive players switching in and out. It meant players didn't attain rhythm and inexperienced players were mixed onto the field during key moments.

Bama's defense missed most of their first-chance tackles and were consistently pushed around up front by a Seminole's OL built from the portal, with no experience playing together as a unit. Not used to seeing Bama lines pushed around.

Which leads me to how poorly Bama's OL played. Seminoles defensive ends flooded Bama's backfield.

As bad as Bama's opener was, there are a few bright spots to build on. The new QB Ty Simpson played tough despite being rushed all game. Many of his passes were thrown too quickly. The better news is Simpsons has good targets to work with. WRs/TEs Bernard, Williams, and Cuevas played well.

To sum it up from this Yahoo article:

"Florida State made the Tide look soft and slow, and it showed up at the line of scrimmage, where the Seminoles had 230 rushing yards while Alabama got very little out of the ground game (74 yards on 29 attempts) and did a poor job protecting quarterback Ty Simpson, who was running for his life way too often."


https://twitter.com/DanWolken/status/1962007426745479315

Excluding last season (9 wins and a big win over Georgia), the last time Alabama won less than 10 games was 2007.  There are kids out there 20 something years old, assuming you start at age 5, that have never seen an Alabama team win less than 10 games in their life.  All they know is 11, 12, 13 and 14 wins a season.  

From 2008 to 2023 Bama won 10 games exactly once.  11 games 3 times.  12 games 4 times.  13 games 4 times, and 14 games 4 times.  Incredible.  There are people out there who are close to 30 years old who have never experienced a down season as Tide fans.  The last time they even had a losing record was 2006.  They don't remember the whole Mike Price Mike Shula fiasco.  

The even more amazing thing is that during that time period multiple teams in the SEC West have won the MNC and also the SECW.  

Somebody (on social media) pointed out that social media (as we know it) came out after went on this run of greatness.  FB was in it's infancy in 2009.  Instagram wasn't even invented.  Tik Tok wasn't invented.  Twitter was barely a thing.  Hell, the internet was probably half on dial-up about that time.  There are a lot of Bama fans out there that won't know how to deal with being on the losing end of it on social media.  

Yeah that's... an odd response.

Was he referring to his own fans, maybe?  

Yeah that too.  There are probably some backups who aren't getting paid. That's about it.

I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around this one. 

Nick Saban, arguably the greatest head coach of all time.  Dozens and dozens of other coaches have matriculated under him over the years.  Lots of talent has roamed the sidelines, including several coaches of successful programs.  

Now, DeBoer, by all means not a bad coach from what I can tell.  Successful at Washington....but not much (if any) experience in the SEC.  I just don't understand why they wouldn't try to find somebody from the Saban coaching tree to takeover...instead of hiring an east coast guy who to my taste looks out of place.