Is this the most doubt you've felt headed into a season?

rgw

Suspended
Sep 15, 2003
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If they don't lose to Aggy (its in Clemson this year), I don't think they're gonna lose before the playoffs.
 

ecraj

Scout Team
Jan 24, 2009
196
16
37
Florence, AL
I haven't read every reply yet so if this has been said already I'm sorry. If your like me and approaching 50 years old then the answer is a definite NO! I started becoming a fan in about 1983 at the age of 13, and there was always doubt about the start to a season for me. The doubting slowly diminished for me in 2009. By the way, if anybody can answer a question for me I would appreciate it. Was Alabama football on TV every week when I started watching Bama games (1983)? I live in Florence so I'm sure it could have been a regional TV audience, and we had a TV antenna on top of the house and only got 4 channels. For some reason I don't remember much about being 13. Anyway it's just a silly question that I'm throwing out there, Thanks.
 

The Ols

Hall of Fame
Jul 8, 2012
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I was a freshman in '84. ESPN was a fledgling operation, Chris Berman was a field reporter!!! My folks back in Chicago couldn't watch most of the Bama games. Not sure if that helps or not, mine is more of a national take, but it was a quick/fun memory trip for me!!! RTR!!!
I haven't read every reply yet so if this has been said already I'm sorry. If your like me and approaching 50 years old then the answer is a definite NO! I started becoming a fan in about 1983 at the age of 13, and there was always doubt about the start to a season for me. The doubting slowly diminished for me in 2009. By the way, if anybody can answer a question for me I would appreciate it. Was Alabama football on TV every week when I started watching Bama games (1983)? I live in Florence so I'm sure it could have been a regional TV audience, and we had a TV antenna on top of the house and only got 4 channels. For some reason I don't remember much about being 13. Anyway it's just a silly question that I'm throwing out there, Thanks.
 

Blueguitar

3rd Team
Nov 19, 2017
213
96
47
I haven't read every reply yet so if this has been said already I'm sorry. If your like me and approaching 50 years old then the answer is a definite NO! I started becoming a fan in about 1983 at the age of 13, and there was always doubt about the start to a season for me. The doubting slowly diminished for me in 2009. By the way, if anybody can answer a question for me I would appreciate it. Was Alabama football on TV every week when I started watching Bama games (1983)? I live in Florence so I'm sure it could have been a regional TV audience, and we had a TV antenna on top of the house and only got 4 channels. For some reason I don't remember much about being 13. Anyway it's just a silly question that I'm throwing out there, Thanks.
I'm a decade older, and my recollection was that fewer than half the games were available on TV until about 20 years ago. But I lived outside the south for much of that time, and Bama wasn't the national brand that it is today, so there were probably a lot of regionally broadcast games that I missed.

To answer the main question on this thread, Nick Saban has earned my trust, and I don't have any doubt any year that we will be NC contenders through at least the end of the regular season, and probably beyond. We've had previous years where we ended with an ugly loss (Utah in 08 and Oklahoma in 13) and bounced back just fine. I don't think the reload this year is much different from any prior year in the Saban era. The strength of the team last year was at quarterback and wide receiver, and that won't change. The relative weak spots, inside linebacker, corners and kickers, should be improved. Position coaching was also suspect in some areas last year, and that is probably fixed now. Saban also knows how to use a bad loss to motivate (see Florida 2009, LSU NC game 2012), so I think the Clemson loss will be a great psychological motivator for us.

Look at it this way. For the last decade, if you had bet Bama against the field for the NC, you would have broken even. Let that sink in. This year won't be any different.

Please God let us get Clemson in the playoffs again this year.
 
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BamaMoon

Hall of Fame
Apr 1, 2004
20,810
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In the 70' and 80's TV coverage was just on the main networks.

IIRC, Bama would only be on TV for big games like big home and home series like (Bama/USC, Bama/Penn St.), or big conference games (UT, Auburn) or bowl games.

My guess would be we'd be on TV about 3-4 games a year and Keith Jackson and ABC would show up for most of them.

I know for a fact that I caught more Bama games on the radio than tv in the late 70's and 80's.
 

Blueguitar

3rd Team
Nov 19, 2017
213
96
47
It's the most preseason doubt I've had since 2007....sure.

We just got skulldrug in a National Championship game. No built in go to excuse this time like 'It was a consolation bowl'.

It was THE GAME for THE TITLE and we got whipped, mudholed and walked dry, bludgeoned, destroyed etc etc.

On Paper the 2019 team will certainly be talented enough to go 15-0 but there are too many X factors for me to be confident.

Will ANYONE step up on the Defensive side and be THE LEADER?? What will team chemistry be like in general? Can we navigate the landmine that is playing AU in JH??

Will the Defense be better or worse? What will fuel them if they make the Playoffs and Clemson isn't there? What will fuel them if Clemson IS there?

Will the players actually properly prepare themselves this time for both Playoff games or will Key guys be more preoccupied with the NFL Draft and Twitter??

Can they even beat Clemson with both teams on almost equal footing (Talent) because Clemson definitely had the better coaching staff last year?

Can our Coaching Staff hold their own vs. Clemson? It's a huge unknown.
As long as some people are posting stuff like this for the players and coaches to read, I feel very, very good about 2019. Stay thirsty my friends.
 

tusks_n_raider

Hall of Fame
May 13, 2009
12,096
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As long as some people are posting stuff like this for the players and coaches to read, I feel very, very good about 2019. Stay thirsty my friends.
I feel I posed several valid questions.

If I have any kind of reputation here it's more 'Sunshine Pumper' than 'Eeyore'....

In fact I'm the moron who posted a thread 8 games into last season asking if it was the Best 8-0 start to a season... EVER?

I'll admit I was drunk off how explosive the offensive was thanks to Tua, the WR Corp, Irv, and the play-calling of Locks.

But after that slap back to reality that was the CFPCG it's easier to see we had major defensive problems all year long from certain players to the coaches. I think we just kept hoping it was getting better when it wasn't and the Elite teams at the end exposed our deficiencies.

There's no need in rehashing every detail but long story short..... we have lost a LOT of ELITE Defensive players to the draft 3 years in a row and it seems to have finally caught up to us in the sense that we haven't had enough time or the right players come in yet to be able to run our complete/complicated defense.... and losing Pruitt/not properly replacing him was devastating to boot.

Then overall we have basically completely changed the entire coaching staff on both sides of the ball TWO years in a row, save for a few key mainstays.

So.... I mean yeah.... it's pretty valid to have some degree of concerns and questions after multiple years of mass coaching and player turnover.

I DID say we could go 15-0 with the talent we have..... it's not like I just blasted the whole complex and said we'll be lucky to win the SEC West or anything.

Plus IF anyone that's a part of the team needs motivation from random fans on the internet then we've got even bigger problems.
 

bamaslammer

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The championship game was hard to take and does need to serve as a focus on getting better, but Clemson in addition to being a better "team" got a few breaks. For instance after the fake punt our corner chooses that moment to get hurt allowing their receiver to house the short pass. The whole game was like that. I don't want to call it luck, but let's just say that infrequently is a team able to take advantage of every opportunity so effectively, even when they are better. They also had that defensive line, when in today's college football do a bunch of NFL eligible all stars choose to stay in school? Certainly we have not been so lucky and I don't know if Clemson will again unless Dabo has some power of persuasion that is beyond the rest of us.

This season in my opinion we just have to get better on defense. Every time we faced a good offense last season we just got tore up. This has to end, I know nobody's going to stop good offenses under the current rule set but allowing points is one thing, allowing 40 points is something else.
 

BamaMoon

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The championship game was hard to take and does need to serve as a focus on getting better, but Clemson in addition to being a better "team" got a few breaks. For instance after the fake punt our corner chooses that moment to get hurt allowing their receiver to house the short pass. The whole game was like that. I don't want to call it luck, but let's just say that infrequently is a team able to take advantage of every opportunity so effectively, even when they are better. They also had that defensive line, when in today's college football do a bunch of NFL eligible all stars choose to stay in school? Certainly we have not been so lucky and I don't know if Clemson will again unless Dabo has some power of persuasion that is beyond the rest of us.

This season in my opinion we just have to get better on defense. Every time we faced a good offense last season we just got tore up. This has to end, I know nobody's going to stop good offenses under the current rule set but allowing points is one thing, allowing 40 points is something else.
I don't remember it being discussed too much, but their QB, after a slow start, just had "one of those games" that Gary Danielson used to say a QB needed to beat Bama. Obviously, he's better than Stephen Garcia, but he had a Stephen Garcia game too where he was putting the ball in the perfect places. And he and Ross were connecting telapathicly, or so it seemed, with those back shoulder throws.

Make no mistake about it, we gave them plenty of openings to take advantage of but they played a great, opportunistic game.
 

ccc2259

All-American
Oct 29, 2010
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I have no doubt we'll be in the NC hunt this year. Losing the NC game like we did still stings, but it does nothing but make me even more excited for this year.

By the way, if anybody can answer a question for me I would appreciate it. Was Alabama football on TV every week when I started watching Bama games (1983)? I live in Florence so I'm sure it could have been a regional TV audience, and we had a TV antenna on top of the house and only got 4 channels. For some reason I don't remember much about being 13. Anyway it's just a silly question that I'm throwing out there, Thanks.
Up to mid- to late-70's, the NCAA owned TV rights to college football games, and had control over which games were broadcast on national TV (as I recall). Then, some of the major conferences formed the College Football Association to negotiate TV contracts and the number of games per week increased from 1 or 2 to 5 or 6 as I recall. Then ESPN rose to prominence and in late 80's / early 90's Notre Dame withdrew from the CFA and entered into a contract with NBC, which led to what we have today.
 

81usaf92

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Apr 26, 2008
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I don't remember it being discussed too much, but their QB, after a slow start, just had "one of those games" that Gary Danielson used to say a QB needed to beat Bama. Obviously, he's better than Stephen Garcia, but he had a Stephen Garcia game too where he was putting the ball in the perfect places. And he and Ross were connecting telapathicly, or so it seemed, with those back shoulder throws.

Make no mistake about it, we gave them plenty of openings to take advantage of but they played a great, opportunistic game.
A "Stephen Garcia" game refers to a mediocre quarterback becoming an elite quarterback for one day. Lawerence is probably THE BEST qb in the country, and we just didn't have the horses to put up a fight against him. So I don't think passing it off as a "Stephen Garcia" game is accurate. Its more like Lawerence had a "Deshaun Watson" kinda game
 

rgw

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Sep 15, 2003
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Lawrence made maybe two impressive throws all game. I'm not bashing him but I think we were awful more than he was "best." I still think Tua is the best QB in the country. What happened is exactly what happens when your defense has no ability to rush the passer and your secondary can't cover for even 3 seconds. A QB with a good arm and a quality WR corp will do what he did to our defense every time. Hell, it happened the previous game two games leading up to the CFPCG against two future 1st round QBs.
 
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81usaf92

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Lawrence made maybe two impressive throws all game. .
I think there were about 10-15 more.

I'm not bashing him but I think we were awful more than he was "best.".
Maybe, but at some point you have to give the man the credit he deserves. We destroyed that same Clemson team a year prior when they had Kelly Bryant.


I still think Tua is the best QB in the country. .
Maybe, but Trevor Lawerence is more willing to make safe reads instead of always going for the home run ball than Tua... That much was certain

What happened is exactly what happens when your defense has no ability to rush the passer and your secondary can't cover for even 3 seconds. .
Trevor's height gives him an almost unfair advantage in a RPO system. It also doesn't help that our best cornerback, and our two best linebackers were out. Trevor's vision and accuracy were the death of us along with the worst offensive playcalling since the 2013 Iron Bowl.

A QB with a good arm and a quality WR corp will do what he did to our defense every time. Hell, it happened the previous game two games leading up to the CFPCG against two future 1st round QBs.
Yet the majority of the average fanbase thought the Clemson game was going to be the easiest of the three. Clemson and Lawerence are elite commodities.
 
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RTR91

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Alabama’s 2017 defense is the one that whipped Kelly Bryant, not the 2018 defense. Pretty significant difference.

Lawrence is a great QB. Alabama played poor enough to make him look excellent that night.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

B1GTide

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Lawrence is a great QB. Alabama played poor enough to make him look excellent that night.
Agreed. Watson was a great QB playing at an elite level against some great defenses. Lawrence was a true freshman QB made to look like a veteran by a pretty mediocre Alabama defense
 

FairlyAmazing

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Mar 17, 2019
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Kelly Bryant was beaten out early in the season by Trevor Lawrence.

The difference in their abilities was huge and obvious.
 

Professor

Scout Team
Sep 3, 2017
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I feel very confident. Clemson was better prepared than Bama because they had been practicing for that game for a year and Bama was worn down by a tougher schedule. I fully expect the defense to be much better this year and the offense will be the best in the country. Injuries can change anything, but if our team stays healthy, enjoy the show.
This!!!!
 

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