re: Alabama's defense will be just fine next year.

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You're about to get skull fricked by leslie

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We may get skull-fricked next season.... but it won't be by Leslie.

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Alabama's defense will be just fine next year.

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As long as Saban is there it will be.

I'm as pessimistic as anyone, but even I have to like our chances to make some noise next year. Alabama is still Alabama, and now we have elite athletes. Having a coach like Saban doesn't hurt my confidence either. It's nice to expect to win the games we should win. No more sweating the mediocre Homecoming opponents.

you're gonna miss rolando mcclain like florida missed percy harvin. they made it to the SEC Championship but fell short.

bama will have a good defense under nick, no doubt. bama could win almost all their games next year and still recognize the d was not what it was. let's face it, last year's d was really special. the offense, other than Ingram was not. But the defense was so good you won a championship anyway. without that d, you couldn't have ridden ingram as hard. you would've been passing the ball more, which would not have been good.

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you're gonna miss rolando mcclain like florida missed percy harvin

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I loved Ro but this is not as big a loss as everyone would like to make it out to be.Imo, Hightower is the better player if he gets healthy and from what I have heard he is ahead of schedule.

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Hightower off ACL surgery <<<<<<<<<<<< Butkis Award Winner

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It think you could make argument that Hightower was the best player on the defense before his injury. So, Saying A healthy Hightower( Which will be the key) will not be a huge drop off from McClain is not a stretch.

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I loved Ro but this is not as big a loss as everyone would like to make it out to be.Imo, Hightower is the better player if he gets healthy and from what I have heard he is ahead of schedule.

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I think you're missing the point. Hightower may be the better "player", but I can almost guarantee you that McClain is the better student of the game. McClain ran that defense last year. He was like Peyton on defense. He knew where everyone was going to be, and he had about a 75% idea at what play the offense was running, or what direction it was going to go. There's no doubt in my mind that Rolando watched more film than probably 95% of players in CFB.

Also, you have to take into account leadership ability and experience for everybody that left. I know Alabama has Saban and gobs of talent, but they lost senior leadership in Cody and Arenas, while losing their heart and soul McClain as well. I think a lot of people don't understand how important experience is in the SEC. I know that a lot of Bama's backups may have been better players than the starters in front of them, but you cannot discount the losses and say they will be "fine" IMO.

With all that being said, I think Alabama is probably a one or two loss team, and still goes tot the SECCG, and possibly the NC game. There will be a lot of parity in the SEC next year.

Hightower used the whole last season to learn to be a student of the game. He was making calls from the sideline to Nico, etc. He soaked up everything he could from Rolando.

Hightower will be the defensive QB next season, Barron and Green will take care of the secondary.

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Hightower will be the defensive QB next season, Barron and Green will take care of the secondary.

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I actually think Barron will be the best player on Bama's D next year.

I agree with your points, I'm just saying it's delusional to write off McClain, and say he isn't a big loss.