Important words from a national podcast:

***Thread for respectful discussion only. If you're looking for a fight, look elsewhere.***

After listening to a number of podcasts today, and one in particular (Cover 3 podcast), I thought it important for the board and fanbase to hear what national media members/professional bettors/folks who know the game had to say.

And the general consensus was that LSU looked like the slightly better team going into the game, and that proved to be true, but that it was also obvious that Alabama didn't play it's best in the game. And it's not an excuse - just the explanation of events.

Tom Fornelli specifically noted that Tua had surgery 3 weeks ago, hadn't really practiced live much, and was maybe 85%, but he still improved through a slow start and threw for 418 yards and 4 touchdowns, after which he said, "How good would Tua have been at 100% versus LSU?"

Barton Simmons noted that his buddies had been text-discussing the game, and his friends commented that "LSU played the perfect game, and Alabama still nearly won the game and only lost by only 5." Barton replies, "Yeah, but LSU has been doing that to everyone, on offense anyway, and they did it to Alabama, too." The general opinion is that LSU is just that good, at least offensively.

And specific to the question of whether this was LSU being better than Alabama or Alabama just playing badly for half the game, Simmons replies that yeah certainly Alabama could have played better and maybe the game would have gone a bit differently, but he says that the reality is that Bama has real issues on defense. And the totality of his explanation of the issues was (paraphrasing), "Maybe Shane Lee and Christian Harris will be good LBs one day, but they're not good today. They're starting 2 True freshman on the Dline, too. And 2 True freshamn at ILB. When was the last time Alabama didn't have good LBs? (shocked tone at the end)".

At the end, the question is posted to the 3-man group as to how far Bama will/should fall in the playoff rankings, Fornelli snapped "Four" before the question is even finished and Simmons says "Five".

And the reality is that people who know the game and who I've listened to enough to value their opinion - national people with no ties to any team involved - basically believe that Alabama is a very, very good team - maybe still a playoff team, but they have issues on D this year that can't be hidden, and that it's the jimmies and joes - specifically freshman.

And I'll finish by saying that I know a large portion of the board believes the problem is coaching, but you do realize that LSU just put one of the best 3 offenses on the field Bama has faced under Saban, and we couldn't even afford to have our starting Mike and Will on the damn field and had to scheme around it. You do realize that, right?

I support everyone's right to believe whatever you want, but many here need to understand that we have personnel limitations on our front 7 - and those limitations would hamstring any other DC just as much. Yes, I know other players and units had breakdowns too, but surely you can understand that we were trying to cobble together a gameplan with insufficient pieces, which stresses all the units. Hell, Lewis played ILB half the game and McKinney nearly did as well. The reality is if the defensive personnel that we started fall camp with had been available for this game, we'd have played a wildly different scheme and likely played much, MUCH better.

LSU's offense is great, and this is the poorest front-7 two deep under Saban due to injuries. Neither Pruitt nor Buddy Ryan himself could fix that.