re: What are the chances we 3peat?

I'm very confident in saying that Bama will be the best team in the country next season. Whether or not they play for a national championship is a different story. They needed a lot of luck to win the NC the last two years. We can't keep relying on missed field goals from other national championship contenders. Bama needs to run the table next year IMO.

This is how I feel as well. The schedule is perfect for repeating and our talent level is the highest it's ever been I think.

I think we have a better chance at repeating this year than we did last year before the season. If we can get a win in College Station then we will be in very good shape to win another one.

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I'm all for the guys getting PT, but not if they're gonna play like crap. We should've shut a lot of teams out, but even their second team O scored against our second team D.

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The fact that they "play like crap" is precisely why they must get playing time. You can't practice in-game experience. People are going to frick up when they aren't used to playing in a live game setting.


I want a shut out as much as the next guy, but the reason we have been consistent from year to year is because we can play our backups in blow outs to let them get their frick ups out of the way when it doesn't matter. That is the only way they'll learn. Do you want the frick up when we are blowing a team out by 35 points or when the SEC championship is on the line with 2 minutes left in tie ball game? The frick ups will come. There is no stopping it. The only way to get rid of in-game frick ups is to actually go through the frick up when it counts (but really doesn't).

This excerpt from a Chris Walsh article recently published points this out perfectly....

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Over and over again, it was the same story in many University of Alabama’s games last season en route to another national championship. The starters came out, got a big lead and then took a seat sometime during the second half while the reserves kept grinding away.

Although one of their objectives was simply to run the clock out, they also scored their fair share of points.

“It was just fun for us,” said center Ryan Kelly, who has replaced Barrett Jones at center. “Being a one is a little more serious. Being a two you still need to be ready but at the same time mentally it’s kind of hard. You don’t know if you’re going to play so you get ready mentally, but at the same time you might not play. That’s the best you can ask for, to go out and have fun with it.”

However, much like their defensive counterparts who earn roles and then work their way into the staring lineup, the experience was invaluable to the offensive players who are now looking to step up.

Kelly played in 10 games last year and then worked with the first unit for most of the bowl practices while Jones dealt with an injury. Come this fall, when Alabama opens the season against Virginia Tech in Atlanta, a lot of the anxiety and jitters that go with being in such an environment shouldn’t be much of a factor.

“I remember the first game going in against Michigan,” Kelly said. “There’s five minutes left in the fourth quarter and I hadn’t played in a game since my senior year in high school. This was my second year and I was so nervous. I didn’t know what we were supposed to do, got in there, messed everything up.

“Arkansas came around and we’re beating them pretty good at halftime and come into the third quarter, they asked us to play the third, the rest of the fourth and from there you just feel more comfortable as the games go on. I give all the credit to the ones for making that happen. That’s only going to spark our careers and every rep you get in a college game is more valuable than you can imagine.”

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Met some people here for the weekend that were from VA Tech and they loved it here and admitted that we were going in dry on them to start next season but they would be happy to just get a couple TD's against us.

Don't forget our schedule. It was brutal. There were all of these teams had their bye weeks the week before they played us. The sheer volume of tough games on our schedule that year was ridiculous.