Congrats, Alabama fans

TL;DR

Now that that's been established... I've been a little tied up the past few days, but finally have some time to issue some congratulations. Had an incredible four days down in south Florida, despite the result. Great experience that I'll never forget. Met some great Tide fans down there, a few bad ones, but that's to be expected.

We're just not quite ready for the big stage, but we're definitely going in the right direction. We were only a good team but had a very, very good season (what I mean by that is we were probably only about the tenth best or most talented team in the country that had one of the top five seasons of anyone this year, because we just always found ways to win in the clutch), not a great team, let alone elite, but given that we were unranked coming into the year and with the preseason expectations, I will take it in a heartbeat.

I hope our team (more specifically our coaches) takes a lesson on how a championship team prepares with a clear example like that. CBK said something in the past that we want to model our program like Bama's. Barrett Jones had a quote after the game:

"They're good because they are so simple," Jones said, "but, also, they're simple. We knew if we had certain shifts, they would get into certain formations that we felt like we would have good runs against. We were right -- every play, almost. This is not a flaw in Notre Dame. We watched a lot of film. We had a lot of time to figure out what they did in certain formations."

I like Kelly a lot, and believe he is a great fit. It's clear, however, that right now, his strengths are recruiting, building a program, strength and conditioning, and laying foundation. He still has a lot of work to do in the game-planning/playcalling department, but I think CBK can get there. Saban wasn't a great bowl coach early in his career, and now, he turns three point home losses into 21-point blowout wins where the other team doesn't cross the 50 until five minutes left when he has five weeks instead of one.

Anyway, I'm excited for our future, especially with our incoming recruiting class and many of our players who are returning. Hopefully, we can take this as a lesson. Congrats on the dynasty.