Given injury news today, a rethinking of schedule/practice structure is needed

BamaFlum said:

If anything, it shows need for more schollies.


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I agree with this 100%. Injuries are a part of football and that's never going to change but 85 scholarships is too low for power 5 schools. The wear and tear at this level is significant. They need to add at least 10 more scholarships, The worst thing that can happen is (gasp!) 10 more guys get a college education. As for the schools that say "they can't afford it" Please.... Colleges are a money making machine, they can all afford it.

BamaFlum said:

If anything, it shows need for more schollies.


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10 more scholarships would be the cost of 20 (Title IX) or would cut into the already limited schollies in men's golf or baseball. Guess they would have to start up a women's tiddlywinks team.


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I sure have missed these crazy topics for the past 8 months. My opinion is that Hurts and Francois were both freshmen last year and we didn't do too shabby by making it to the playoffs and if Hurts were to have gotten injured against FSU, we would have put Tua in as QB and by midseason we would have been clicking right along and if Hurts came back rehabbed next season we would have two experienced QB's next season. Blackmon will be a good QB by midseason and as far as us getting 4 LB's hurt, CNS can put D. Harris in as LB, he seems to be able to do everything else. We will still be a good team as will FSU .

One point that needs to be made is that playing a football game has been compared to getting into a car wreck. Yes, many injuries suffered in a car wreck can be suffered in other ways, but that doesn't make a car wreck any less dangerous. If you consider it in that context, then one can also understand why getting hit by a truck can do more damage than being hit by a compact.

That aside, I don't think we're trying to debate the long term consequences (sitting is a rather dangerous activity in terms of long term harm), but rather the competitive disadvantage that physical matchups can pose. I mean, Alabama lost SDH last year in the Florida game. What good did that game do Alabama? It gave them a disadvantage, and that's just the simple truth of the matter. So, when people call for more SEC games, more tough games, etc... they should probably consider the implications a bit more.

Bamabuzzard said:

I remember not to long ago when we were complaining about playing FCS teams or "cupcakes" in non-conference games because it was too much risk to lose players to injuries in games "like that".

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Not I.

rgw said:

The big problem is we have a legislative body that has their head in lalaland (the NCAA) and they don't really accept that the game is a good deal different financially and competitively for 60 or so teams than everyone else. Their collegiate sense of fairness hinders a practical sense of fairness. The other problem is that we have a profit-driven body that has de facto control over the sport that tries to push the sport in directions that benefit their bottomline but doesn't really work well within the structure defined by NCAA pinheads.

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I wanted to come back to this because I think you did illustrate the problems being faced. What kind of sense did it make to keep adding games while giving them less players? That's nuts, but what did they do? They added conference championship games, they added a regular season game, and they added a playoff game (two of those all but guaranteed to be tough games) and keep in mind that in 1991 you could have 95 scholarship players! So you add 3 games and drop 10 players, that is an absurd proposition that obviously does the most harm to teams that play those additional games and face the additional attrition.

I do think there's been some slow moves in the right direction. I remember a couple of years ago, some coach was complaining that they'd been "trying to even the playing field for years" and that now some changes were going in the other direction. Good! The extra on-field coach is an improvement, the four game freshman rule would help (avoid scenarios like choosing between playing a hurt QB or taking off a redshirt), and I also argued in favor of the stipends. It didn't seem fair to keep asking more of these guys without doing more in return.

But, in a perfect world I think they'd break through more barriers you alluded to. Personally, I'd like to see one less regular season game. I was not a fan of the extra playoff game, I still don't see what good it does, I think it's just an extra obstacle. But, playoff, so not going away... so, I don't care if it's the FCS game most teams play that come off the schedule, but I honestly think they are playing too many games now (and the idea that playing at a school like Alabama can mean 3 extra games every year, basically a full extra season of tough competition over a college career is kind of worrisome). Also, they do need to relax the scholarship limits some. Even if it's just an extra scholarship per year, and 5 more total, it is absolutely absurd they could add 3 games and remove ten scholarships.

I struggle with this because it's the opening game of the season. So around selection time, will this game still matter if FSU now goes .500 for the season? Will they look back and say Alabama beat a 6-6 team, or will they remember that FSU was/could have been top 10 all year long?

I think the question really comes down to, what did the game do for each team? For Alabama, I keep reading it was our toughest in-season challenge, and I think that's a horrible thing to think for any of us. For FSU it could have solidified their place in the top 5 had they had won the game.

But if more and more teams don't start adapting and playing a tougher out of conference game, this is going to start becoming less and less of a big deal, and the risk will eventually out-weigh the reward to me.

Bamabuzzard said:

Maybe not you, but many on the board were. I probably was one of them to be honest. It's been some years now but we went through a few years where we'd suffered some significant injuries during these "cupcake" games. Games that were supposed to be for resting players, getting other players playing time etc. But it seemed they had become counterproductive. One of the things I've noticed in these cupcake games is Saban still plays a lot of the starters into the third quarter. So in essence they're playing approximately 75% of the game. From a fan's perspective, I hate the cupcake games. College football comes and goes fast each year. Once it's over we're stuck with the long six months or so offeseason. So I cherish each game I'm able to watch. I'm really not interested (from a fan's perspective mind you) in watching a Charleston Southern game when we could have scheduled a lower tier P5 team. We don't have to play top tier P5 teams for every OOC game. But let's not go to the other extreme and "waste a game" on a glorified scrimmage. Again, this is from a fan's perspective. Not a coach's.

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Has anyone else noticed these cupcakes tend to use more dangerous blocking techniques to compensate for their physical disadvantages?

Bamabuzzard said:

I think one of the complaints on the board was these teams come in with an attitude of "we have nothing to lose" and they tend to play on the edge of the rules and many times play to the echo of the whistle. Which is dangerous.

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It is exactly the problem. I cannot remember which one it was, but they were particularly egregious in their employment of the cut block. I specifically remember JessN's post game article mentioning that we should never schedule the opponent again because we were paying them 6 or 7 figures to play the game and they had the audacity to come in and try to injure our players.

I just read Anfenee Jennings had ankle surgery, so I guess that was more than sprain. He will be out a long time. I don't recall ever having this many injuries in one game, especially at the same position. I hope we are done with the injuries!

TideEngineer08 said:

It is exactly the problem. I cannot remember which one it was, but they were particularly egregious in their employment of the cut block. I specifically remember JessN's post game article mentioning that we should never schedule the opponent again because we were paying them 6 or 7 figures to play the game and they had the audacity to come in and try to injure our players.

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IIRC, Western Carolina was pretty bad in 2015.

RTR91 said:

IIRC, Western Carolina was pretty bad in 2015.

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WCU wrap-up: Alabama not getting its money’s worth from FCS opponents

This past Saturday, it was Western Carolina again knocking key Alabama players out of the game. Amari Cooper bruised a knee, Brian Vogler and ArDarius Stewart were knocked out for the remainder of the regular season with knee ligament injuries, Cam Robinson twisted an ankle and Jalston Fowler suffered a mild shoulder injury.

Then there was the case of A’Shawn Robinson, whose ankle was injured as the result of an especially dirty, messy chop block. Western Carolina was flagged for a second chop block later in the game and the officials might have missed a third one in between those two; it was borderline.

And here’s where FCS opponents need to learn their place.

It’s one thing to beat a Division-IA school straight-up in one of these mismatches. It’s the archetypal David-vs.-Goliath story come to life on a football field, and whenever one of the smaller schools follows through with the upset, you can be sure to see it replayed on SportsCenter for a month, usually accompanied by 15 minutes of analysis over whether the larger school’s coach needs to be looking for other work at season’s end.

It’s another entirely to get to that point by chop-blocking and hurting players in the process.

There are only four explanations for a chop block, and none of them is very flattering to the offender: It’s either badly coached technique, the players are so bad that they can’t execute properly, the offending players are dirty, or their coach is.

By the very nature of the penalty – two players coordinating their efforts to high-low an opposing defensive linemen who is being held up in a vulnerable position – it’s the only live-ball foul that carries such a stigma. Holding, blocking in the back, clipping, etc., can all be explained away; even the hot-button targeting foul doesn’t always look intentional, even when the call stands up under replay. Only an intentional punch, kick or stomp is worse than the chop block.

And it happened twice.

The reason FCS teams sign up for these bloodbath games in the first place is that they need the money. Alabama paid Western Carolina just under half a million dollars to play Saturday, and with that check came the understanding that Alabama had found an opponent against which it could rest its starters. Too bad that rest came because the starters were heading to the nearest first aid station.

Western Carolina head coach Mark Speir spent a lot of time over the weekend criticizing ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit over comments Herbstreit made about the makeup of his Catamount team. Perhaps in the future, Speir should focus on ways of improving his team’s technique, rather than seeing his team’s play confirm Herbstreit’s analysis.

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That was it, but it was 2014.

rgw said:

I didn't realize it was still at 95 as late as 1991 (the year before the first post-season non-bowl game). In that context, it is even more head scratching. I know how this happens though because as I pointed out in that post you quoted there are two bodies that really rule college football: the NCAA and broadcasters. The NCAA is making their NCAA decisions while the broadcasters are making their broadcasting decisions and the two are incongruous.

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Really nice thread! And, though I am not in favor of your proposal I must commend you on your word choice from the above post. Good stuff!

InsaneMustang said:

I struggle with this because it's the opening game of the season. So around selection time, will this game still matter if FSU now goes .500 for the season? Will they look back and say Alabama beat a 6-6 team, or will they remember that FSU was/could have been top 10 all year long?

I think the question really comes down to, what did the game do for each team? For Alabama, I keep reading it was our toughest in-season challenge, and I think that's a horrible thing to think for any of us. For FSU it could have solidified their place in the top 5 had they had won the game.

But if more and more teams don't start adapting and playing a tougher out of conference game, this is going to start becoming less and less of a big deal, and the risk will eventually out-weigh the reward to me.

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If FSU goes 6-6 on the season we'll get the benefit of the doubt because we beat them at full strength. If FSU went 6-6 with Francois (which would be very unlikely) then I could see how this win wouldn't look as good. Regardless of how FSU performs the rest of the season I think in the committee's eyes we will get credit for beating the #3 team on a neutral field by a pretty wide margin..

InsaneMustang said:

I struggle with this because it's the opening game of the season. So around selection time, will this game still matter if FSU now goes .500 for the season? Will they look back and say Alabama beat a 6-6 team, or will they remember that FSU was/could have been top 10 all year long?

I think the question really comes down to, what did the game do for each team? For Alabama, I keep reading it was our toughest in-season challenge, and I think that's a horrible thing to think for any of us. For FSU it could have solidified their place in the top 5 had they had won the game.

But if more and more teams don't start adapting and playing a tougher out of conference game, this is going to start becoming less and less of a big deal, and the risk will eventually out-weigh the reward to me.

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I just don't get that line of thinking. This game was hyped as the best opening game in the history of college football. I would much rather play FSU in the opener that East Southwest Booneville State Technical College. Frankly, the formula is Win Conference Championship Game in the SEC = playoff spot and that is what we aim to do.

BamainBoston said:

I'm not sure there was anything that would prevent an injury like Francois's. Freaky thing, and no way to condition yourself to avoid it.

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Have to agree and add that to me, the injuries our four linebackers sustained fall in the same category. A sprained ankle, a groin injury, a torn bicep, and an elbow injury, I honestly don't believe that any one of these are easily preventable through either improved conditioning or improved safety equipment, and probably would be equally likely to occur against opponent on our schedule. To actually reduce the number of incidents of such injuries would likely require playing fewer games or reducing the number of plays in the games, say for example not stopping the play clock during a half of play, solutions which I doubt many of us want to see.

Some of you need to think about what CS said when he came to Alabama.

We want teams to hate to play us because of how physical we play. Think about that long and hard. Basically some here are saying you feel that way about other strong teams. Thats sad to here our own fan base is scared to play other strong teams. Yes I know we play lots of strong teams because we are in the SEC west. But how do you think every team not named Alabama feels about playing us?

Our coach does not coach scared or timid. We play our best players on special teams to take advantage of that part of the game. Our coach has brought us 4 NC is 10 years. Let the man do his thing without acting like we know better. Trust me. We Dont!!! Otherwise we would be making $10M a year too.

I hope our team doesn't take the same mentality that we dont like to play tough games. And honestly I know they dont. Fans worry about injuries, what ifs, worst case senarios. Players dont!!! They go out there and play hard and its the next man up attitude. It sucks to lose good players, any players. But fans need to listen to our coach and man up!!!! We have lost lots of good players all four years we won a NC and we still prevailed. Injuries are a part of the game. They affect the outcomes of games and seasons. But talent and depth allow the better teams to overcome those during the course of the season. No one has the talent and depth we do. Why? Because we also have the best recruiting coach in history!!

Next Man Up! Roll Tide.