re: The low point of your fanhood

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That's fair. You need something after last year.


SMILE

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Well after we pushed your shite in for 70 years, we had to at least let you get one win. Conference games are no fun if there's no parody.

I don't know what was worse, losing to ulm, or having my agony captured on the front page of the state paper. Then the next week CBS showed it in their intro to the bama game.

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Bitter pill that was needed. Phoenix rising and all that bullshite.

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Yup.

I was beyond crestfallen at the time, though.

After Alabama's 4-9 campaign of 2003, it was dead in the middle of all the coaching turmoil (Fran, Mike Price) and still under heavy probation sanctions. It was also clear Shula was gonna probably suck and we'd be stuck with him for a few years.

Utter darkness, no light at the end of the tunnel.

And within just a few years Alabama would become a perennial top ten team, embarking on one of the most successful 5 year runs in college football history.

Bama's losing to ULM wasn't that big of a deal to me. Yeah it was embarassing, but I was at the game. They didn't lose because they were outmanned or out-coached, they lost because they had completely quit and were going through the motions. Every play you could spot the few guys on the field giving it their all and the others just sorta phoning it in and not seeming to care they were losing to an inferior team. That team actually started the year great but the first sign of adversity they folded up like a lawn chair, the classic Shula syndrome.

The upper classmen on that team were complete poison that had been ruined under Shula and they needed to be purged. I knew Saban would turn the team around.

Not only was Shula a terrible game day coach, he pretty much built the exact opposite of a winning, team attitude in his players.

Saban's new attitude couldn't be instilled in them, they were just lost causes.

2007 ULM loss was the final bow of the Mike Shula era.

Sugar bowl vs Utah.

Yeah 80's Alabama was schizophrenic as hell. Mostly mediocre teams but occasionally good ones. And the mediocre teams would beat top 10 teams regularly and then lose to crummy teams, it was just all over the place.