SummerOfGeorge

Bonus : Ron Franklin, Mike Gottfried and Adrian Karsten on the call :bow:

#1 Oklahoma came to Tuscaloosa to play Alabama in week 2. Alabama was in the midst of the worst 24 month period in the history of the program - crippling probation announced in February 2002, Fran bolts for A&M in January 2003, Mike Price fired for strippergate in Spring 2003, Mike Shula hired in May 2003.

This was Shula's first game in Bryant Denny (Alabama beat South Florida 40-17 the Saturday before at Legion Field, the last game they ever played there). While the season began to fall apart 2 weeks later in a loss to Northern Illinois and ending in a 4-9 year, Alabama played about as well as they could in this one and it was an exciting game. Oklahoma slammed the door shut with a classic Bob Stoops balls on the table fake punt call after Alabama had cut the lead to 13-10 and forced a 3 and out late in the 3rd quarter.

Oklahoma cruised into the Big XII Title Game that year as possibly the greatest team of all time only to get blown out by Kansas State and then lose to Nick Saban and LSU 21-14 in the Sugar Bowl, giving LSU it's first national title since 1958.

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From what I'm seeing on tape of Simpson, I don't think there's a QB comparison to a year ago.

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He's good and fits the general scheme better. However, he's been cracking a bit the last few weeks and the run game situation really puts everything on his shoulders. He's handled it pretty well but he's missed some throws the last few weeks he was not missing earlier and for the first time since week 1 really showed some emotional frustration late in the LSU game.

But he's been great overall for us and even his bad games have still been pretty solid. The problem is he has to be very good for us to beat good teams because there isn't any help in the run game - at all.

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Bama fans are shockingly in denial about South Carolina who would have easily won had they not fumbled at the end of the game giving Alabama a chance for a miracle

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They fumbled at their own 30 in a tie game. What are you talking about?

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They had a 2 score lead on you late into the 4th

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No they didn’t

Alabama people will go because it’s an easy trip.

A&M is a toss up, but if they’re 12-0 and chasing a special season + first trip to Atlanta + easy flights in + wealthy and large donor base…….I’m guessing they bring a pretty large contingent.

Everyone gets asked about it and everyone says the same thing - what they do is legal, they’re very good at it and we will be adjusting.

And if you take that and then remove how many games the teams have actually lost you get to FEI's strength of record number

1. Indiana (+1.29)
2. Texas A&M (+1.19)
3. Ohio State (+0.72)
4. Alabama (+0.62)
5. Georgia (+0.40)
6. Oregon (+0.26)
7. Ole Miss (+0.23)
8. BYU (+0.18)
9. Texas Tech (+0.05)
10. Texas (-0.45)
11. Vanderbilt (-0.68)
12. Oklahoma (-0.78)
13. Notre Dame (-0.82)
14. North Texas (-0.85)
15. James Madison (-0.86)

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He also talked about double team scheme and also talked about poor blocking by TE

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Yea - which makes sense. This unit doesn't really have a punishing TE blocker like we did with Outzs last year. Some of the young guys might turn into that, but they aren't yet.

We have nailed the portal for the most part but it looks like we whiffed on our 2 in-line tight end targets who never even get snaps (Troy and WVU kids).

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You're taking a snapshot after he's already initiated the cut

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That's his biggest problem - he's initiating cuts so early that he loses any hole that does exist. He's either seeing ghosts or not trusting his vision or something, but he missed 4-5 holes in this game that were clear cut 4-6 yard gains with 1 man to beat to be much more. And his initial breakdown/cut led to the hole to close, him to dance around and end up with 0-1 yards.

Hill presses holes. Our run game still isn't great, so sometimes he runs into guys backs, but he doesn't miss holes and he has enough steam to break a tackle or two or fall forward.

Jam has seemingly stopped doing it completely. And it is another reason that his YPC after contact numbers are the worst in the country - he is already reacting and has no momentum once he gets to defenders. So he just drops.