DeBoer is capable.
We can't afford to do the blame game thing. Let's move on.
We can't afford to do the blame game thing. Let's move on.
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Tough loss but we'll get over it
- Thread starter theballguy
- Start date
You literally just beat Georgia. Pump the brakes. It’s a bad loss. Bama is still in it.
The potential silver lining is that this is the external motivation that cranks up the internal motivation for this team.
Coaches can talk till they’re purple in the face about being complacent, but these fellas just got a front row seat to what hungry does to slacking talent.
Mr. T in Rocky comes to mind.
Wommack isn't changing his scheme. Heupel is going to tear him a new one.
Yep, and they just had one of their D move out of the way to let Ark score so they could get the ball back.
Well Milroe has taken some steps, but the defense has ran backwards.
Yep, Milroe has improved. Never thought I'd see a D look that bad.
I mean Kirby lost at Home to Vanderbilt his first year. I guess Georgia was stupid in keeping him as their head coach.
Seriously some of y’all need to just wait a few years to write the book on Deboer. I get expectations here are through the roof every year, and after beating Georgia they went higher. But let’s temper the expectations and accept we have a very young and depleted team with a brand new staff. Growing pains are to be expected even if they are Vandy. Be happy we beat Georgia and move on from this loss after a day. Tennessee lost to a 2nd string quarterback and only scored 14 points.
Seriously some of y’all need to just wait a few years to write the book on Deboer. I get expectations here are through the roof every year, and after beating Georgia they went higher. But let’s temper the expectations and accept we have a very young and depleted team with a brand new staff. Growing pains are to be expected even if they are Vandy. Be happy we beat Georgia and move on from this loss after a day. Tennessee lost to a 2nd string quarterback and only scored 14 points.
Well, Norvell might be available after this year.
There will never be another Nick Saban!
There will never be another Nick Saban!
The old way of thinking was that coaching tenures were judged on 4-year cycles. NIL and the general shortening of the American attention span has cut that to 3 years, sometimes even 2.
But it's definitely not 5 weeks, nor will it ever be anything that short.
After putting up the recap, I had a discussion with someone about Wommack and the lack of D adjustments. Going back to our preseason articles, I said then that in my experience, any SEC team changing O or D systems was good for an extra loss in a year above whatever their par was supposed to be. Alabama is changing both. I thought we might slide by after Georgia week but it's probably not going to work out that way. I had us 10-2 in the preseason and that's par, I think.
Specific to Wommack -- because defense is where the problem is, not offense -- what we see over the next month will tell a lot. Bama has 3 choices: change the scheme mid-season (risky even under optimum conditions, but it has been done; South Carolina changed a lot of theirs on the fly in '23), wait until year's end to replace guys who don't fit the new scheme, or manage the adjustments in a way that smooths the transition over a bit and lean on the offense. I think we're going to take the third option. And how well we do it probably informs the discussion of D staffing going into 2025. I'd love to be a fly on the wall for coaches' film review tomorrow but I won't get to do that.
Bottom line, this was always going to be a transition. We got fooled a bit last week thinking we could get around it, but we can't and that's that.
My opinion is even with transitioning offense and defense losing to Vanderbilt is a bridge too far. Not too far yet in terms of supporting this staff, but they definitely need a come to Jesus discussion on some things.
Personally I love the offense. I only wish that there was a little bit more physicality showcased on week to week. And I think they need to really focus on that. The run game is flashy and creates big plays. But a little bit more power will be needed. With the horses they have up front, some simple power left or right should not be that hard to get some tough yards with.
The reason it will be needed is because they need to keep this struggling defense on the sideline.
In terms of the defense... I don't even hate the idea of the scheme. I think a simple option will be that they need to use more lingerieon the line more often... Like instead of a Wolf...2 bandits.... In particular in games like this when they're being gashed on the ground. #22,#23 have both proven they can get sideline to sideline too
We've done the double-Bandit thing a little already. I know we deployed it against USF with Renaud.
We're definitely going to either have to add in to the front, or we're going to have to do a better job of bringing the ILB in to fill. Maybe we've been trying to help the secondary by leaving the ILBs on level but it bit us today.
I disagree with trying to force power run when we're good enough elsewhere. The bridge too far for me here is trying to guard against a defense giving up multiple 15+ play drives in a year, regardless of opposition. If the defense is consistently that bad, then you have to give yourself as many possessions as possible on offense and then use the defense more as a serve-breaker than a shutdown unit. Force a couple of turnovers, get a big negative on a sack, something to take one possession off their side without losing one of your own.
Against Vanderbilt, they took very few deep drops. They kept everything quick and short; our biggest issue was failing to take away the valve routes to the tight end. Offensively, we produced almost as many yards as they did in a third to half the snaps. If our offense was struggling to answer, then yes I would get on board with trying to elongate drives but we have a much different problem on our hands.
Before you run out and buy the domain www.firekalendeboer.com, let me gently remind you that we went 7-5 in Nick Saban's first year in Tuscaloosa.
Honestly… all this week has done is reset my opinion before last week in that your best pony in the race is still Georgia because of depth and experience and Texas and Tennessee are still wait and see teams.
I think our performance vs UGA has set some very unrealistic expectations about our team in year 1 of a transition. For a second we thought we were the 2001 Hurricanes but in reality we maybe closer to 05 LSU.
Saban was left with Shula's players.
DeBoer was left with mostly Saban's players.
The comparison is apples to oranges.
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