2016 Fall Camp Thread (Practice Reports, Press Conferences, Interviews, etc.)

rgw said:

Nah, they were a 7 or 8 win team. I think 2009 VT may have been the best to be honest. That was a very talented offensive unit...had a few stars on the defensive side of the ball too.

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That may be who I am thinking of. You know Penn State 2011 may be pretty good to. They didn't lose a game after Bama until the scandal kicked off.


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B1GTide said:

USC gave up 26 PPG last year - ranked 50th in the country. They gave up 400 YPG - 65th in the country.

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That Sarkisian debacle was the start of last year; also, they have a knew DC... Pendergast. This from an old ESPN report on the hiring:

Pendergast was naturally one of the first names to come to mind. He had a successful one-year run in charge of the Trojans defense in 2013 when the team led the conference in total defense and was among the national top 25 in eight different defensive categories. Those accomplishments look even more impressive when you consider the team had finished the previous season giving up the second-most yards per game in USC history.

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My point... don't expect last year to be a good predictor of this year.

I guess this is as good a place as any:

http://www.espn.com/college-footbal...ball-defending-champions-alabama-crimson-tide

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- Preseason camp is heating up at Alabama, and Nick Saban has a million things on his mind as he points his Mercedes down his long, narrow driveway and heads toward campus.Football is never far from his thoughts. But on this steamy August morning, one of his first orders of business is touching base with a former priest of his in Louisiana by phone to check on the flood victims. Saban and his wife, Terry, still have several close friends in the Baton Rouge area from his time as LSU coach, and Saban wants to know how they can help.
"It's amazing everything those people have been through in that state over the last several years, and they just keep bouncing back," says Saban, music from Michael Jackson's "This is It" softly filling the car.
It's just past 7 o'clock, and his mind is racing as he organizes his thoughts for his 7:30 staff meeting at the Mal M. Moore Athletic Facility.

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Harmost said:

... they could trot out 3 former five star CBs if they want to.

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To play devil's advocate: We could have, but have some guys that were coached up and turned out to be better than 5 star recruits.

I think everyone needs to prepare themselves for a 2-3 loss season to occur sooner or later. We have all been extremely spoiled by our unprecedented success the last several of years. We certainly have the talent, but sometimes the stars just don't align.

We'll see what happens and i have faith that our coaching staff will have our boys prepared as can be. Alabama football is always a fun ride!

RTR


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B1GTide said:

The simple truth - if USC beats Alabama then Alabama will have slipped considerably. This USC team, with new coaches and schemes, should not be able to compete with Alabama. If they do, it will say more about Alabama in 2016 than USC, IMO.

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I'm not predicting a loss. I'm responding to your initial comment, which indicated that a challenging defense wasn't coming until mid-season and that USC's was a defense we could putter around with (or still be figuring out our offense against or whatever) and still expect have offensive success against. I responded -- just to keep track -- by pointing out that USC's defense is very talented, particularly on the back end, and will likely be well coached. The implication being that we shouldn't be so dismissive of the USC defense. A fairly uncontroversial point, I would've thought.

But now I'm internalizing your "Bama is much better; therefore, Bama need not worry that any aspect of game X will even so much as pose a challenge" approach and thinking about the point I wasn't responding to. Yes -- I like that! You earlier said that we would face a very good defense sometime mid-season, and seemed to indicate that, whoever's defense that was, they were different from the defenses before it in that we would actually need to have our offense and QB situation figured out for them. But I'd invite you to reconsider: I double-checked the schedule and I don't see any NFL teams on there (or even that 2014 Arkansas Razorbacks team! ... although there does appear to be a 2016 version...), so surely we'll be the better team in all our matchups and therefore shouldn't need to have things figured against any of the defenses.

drwho said:

To play devil's advocate: We could have, but have some guys that were coached up and turned out to be better than 5 star recruits.

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Agreed. I'll go a step further and say I'm happy we have our defense and not USC's. But then, I think most teams would expect a challenge from our defense, no?

B1GTide said:

The simple truth - if USC beats Alabama then Alabama will have slipped considerably. This USC team, with new coaches and schemes, should not be able to compete with Alabama. If they do, it will say more about Alabama in 2016 than USC, IMO.

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You have to factor in the most important factor when it comes to college football or I think so anyways.."Emotions"..On paper no team in college football can match us in sheer talent & coaching from top to bottom in our football program..But..When you factor in that college football is a true "Game Of Emotions", you simply can't apply that on paper, we Bama Fan's have witnessed more times than we care to remember, when a team plays over their head or all of a sudden a QB becomes Peyton Manning passing the ball & they beat us on those emotions they got when they play us..I dunno it's hard to explain..

I feel like we have not been this green in experience at RB since 2008. I think I might be more nervous there than at QB.

bamacpa said:

I feel like we have not been this green in experience at RB since 2008. I think I might be more nervous there than at QB.

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It's a legitimate concern too, but, other than the center, the qb touches the ball every snap other than on special teams. And with our core of receivers it's pretty important to get the guy in there that can distribute the ball ball effectively.

Also, multiple running backs play in games for obvious reasons so those things seem to work themselves out, as for as the depth chart is concerned, pretty fast. And, FWIW, we've seen enough of Bo to know he's the real deal and can be our #1 back if he can just stay healthy.

bamacpa said:

I feel like we have not been this green in experience at RB since 2008. I think I might be more nervous there than at QB.

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We are green but very talented at RB and I have no concerns other than the occasional missed block. Coach Saban has said RB is the easiest position to transition into at the college level.

TiderJ said:

We are green but very talented at RB and I have no concerns other than the occasional missed block. Coach Saban has said RB is the easiest position to transition into at the college level.

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I'm not worried about RB, QB will be the biggie.

Thank you sir.

As every year, I look for Bama to win it all, especially since Saban's arrival. 2008 on and been a dream and I don't see any reason why we should look for anything less. This team still has what it takes, and I truly think we will go back to back again. This team is just that strong.

All in my honest opinion of course.

Bamabuzzard said:

I'm an Alabama fan. I don't "prepare" for 2-3 loss seasons. I prepare for national championships and brag about them before we even win them. Because that's what real Bama fans do. Ole Miss, LSU and Georgia fans "prepare" for multiple loss seasons. Bama fans have no place for that type thinking.

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TiderJ said:

We are green but very talented at RB and I have no concerns other than the occasional missed block. Coach Saban has said RB is the easiest position to transition into at the college level.

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Agree with first statement, but I'm pretty sure I've heard/read that he said that about wide receivers rather than running backs.

Running backs do have to learn to block and pick up blitzes and that's pretty heady stuff sometimes.

BamaMoon said:

It's a legitimate concern too, but, other than the center, the qb touches the ball every snap other than on special teams. And with our core of receivers it's pretty important to get the guy in there that can distribute the ball ball effectively.

Also, multiple running backs play in games for obvious reasons so those things seem to work themselves out, as for as the depth chart is concerned, pretty fast. And, FWIW, we've seen enough of Bo to know he's the real deal and can be our #1 back if he can just stay healthy.

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True about QB, but we have had several seasons with brand new QBs who have never taken that many game reps and been just fine.

OTOH, since Saban arrived we have never been in this scenario with RB, where the #1 guy for the season wasn't the #2 guy the year before and got considerable game time. At RB we've always had a guy who'd proven himself waiting in the wings - till this year...

BamaMoon said:

we've seen enough of Bo to know he's the real deal and can be our #1 back if he can just stay healthy.

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We have?


EDIT: Personally I thought Harris looked better in the A-Day game, but what do I know.

bamacpa said:

I feel like we have not been this green in experience at RB since 2008. I think I might be more nervous there than at QB.

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Bama will be fine. It all starts with Allen, Payne and Tomlinson (and their backups) and finishes with Robinson, Cotton, Pierschbacher, Boseman and Williams. Domination begins and ends in the trenches. We have more than capable runners and a QB that doesn't turn the ball over (which will always start for the Tide) will manage points on the board.

From the AL.com Practice Update:

— Freshman defensive lineman Raekwon Davis was working with the scout-team defensive linemen. It wasn't immediately clear why.

Think we can bank on Davis being forced into the "academic redshirt."