WKU wrap-up: Alabama finally takes care of business

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WKU wrap-up: Alabama finally takes care of business
By Jess Nicholas
TideFans.com Editor-in-Chief
Sept. 14, 2008

For much of the past three years, Alabama has taken a lackadaisical attitude toward teams like Western Kentucky. The lesser the opponent, the lesser the Alabama performance.

Alabama did it last week against Tulane (although the Green Wave came within an eyelash of upsetting a ranked East Carolina team, so maybe it’s time to re-evaluate the Greenies). Alabama did it last year against Louisiana-Monroe. In 2006, when Alabama sleepwalked against Duke and Florida International, it was those games that really foreshadowed Mike Shula’s exit; the Mississippi State and Auburn losses simply cemented it.

There was no such trouble against Western Kentucky. Alabama romped, never punted, and cleared the bench of nearly all non-redshirting players, down to such names as Robert Ezell and Sam Snider. If you didn’t get in this game and you weren’t hurt or suspended, chances are it would take an outbreak of typhoid fever at the football complex to draw you into a game in 2008.

Because Western Kentucky was so overmatched, there isn’t much analysis that would even make sense to talk about. It was curious the Hilltoppers didn’t try to beat Alabama across the middle of the field – which is the Crimson Tide’s defensive weakness – instead trying to spread Alabama laterally. That just played into the Tide’s hands, as Alabama was faster than WKU.

WKU’s only touchdown came on a tight end drag route across – drumroll please – the middle of the field. It would be easy to say the Hilltoppers should have exploited that area more often, but between the worst performance by an offensive center that many observers at the game had ever seen, and having to deal with Tide linebackers that were bigger than some of WKU’s offensive linemen, nothing was going to work.

The two most noteworthy happenings from the Alabama side were the de-redshirting of offensive linemen John Michael Boswell (who appeared to get a battlefield promotion at right tackle over Drew Davis in this game), Tyler Love and Barrett Jones; and the play of backup quarterback Greg McElroy.

McElroy had looked competent in earlier trials, but his A-Day performance this spring had been just OK. That was until McElroy appeared to find about 10 percent more velocity over the summer, at least, and when he entered the game against WKU, he looked like he’d been under center at Alabama for a year as a starter already.

It’s dangerous to do much quarterback evaluating based on a limited trial against a tired opponent that still hasn’t gained full Division-IA status – anyone remember Marc Guillon’s outing against Western Carolina in 2004? – but what it does say is that Alabama may be able to take more chances with starter John Parker Wilson. It also suggests the Tide coaches might not need to feel like they can’t bench Wilson in the middle of a poor outing.

And if you were keeping track of the Auburn-Mississippi State soccer match, consider that either team right now would trade a truckload of arms, legs and other body parts to get McElroy onto its roster.

The real fun starts next week. Alabama was counting on getting Arkansas after Texas administered a beating; instead, Alabama gets Arkansas after an off-week, courtesy of Hurricane Ike. The game is in Fayetteville to boot. Even though the Razorbacks have looked terrible thus far in 2008, as Mississippi State and South Carolina proved Saturday against much tougher opposition, in the SEC, anything is possible on any given weekend.

Hopefully, that also applies to Alabama when it visits Georgia and LSU as the underdog.