Who else thinks we just gave away a NC?

[crimsonaudio]

But recruiting is part of the process. And even though the musical chairs on the coaching staff had hurt us, we still had the most disciplined team in the country on the ropes and would have won without the fumble

After having just beaten what many believe is the best coaching staff at UGA.

so, where Coach has lost it a bit in the preparation, his ability to find and develop talent is still unmatched.

Ehh, maybe?

On paper, the 2023 Bama team was the most talented team ever, according to recruiting rankings, comprised of three #1 classes. I'm hearing this is "Saban's best coaching job ever" from folks and SMH - how did Bama have such a dearth of ready talent at QB if he did his job so well? Saban just lost to a guy whose team is largely comprised of 3* and 4* guys while 90% of Bama's roster was 4*or higher. How is that preparation?

(Rhetorical question, I know how people explain it, just making the point...)

 

[Bamabuzzard]

We have no idea if BoB tried to develop Milroe or not. What we do know, without a doubt, is that he told him to switch positions. I’m sure Milroe is not the only one he told that to.

I’ve just defended BoB, I need a shower.

I look at Ty Simpson and can tell you BOB didn't do much of any developing our quarterbacks. Bryce Young can publicly praise BOB all he wants (that's what he should do I guess) but to see two different highly recruited quarterbacks be that far behind in their second and third year in the program tells me all I need to know.

We can also look at the offensive line and go back and see the mountains of threads on here for the past several years about the inconsistency and the "what the hell's going on out there?!" we've been discussing on here. That isn't a talent issue. Sure, you may have a recruit that graded out a four star that once once on campus you find out really was a 3 star, but isn't that where coaching comes in to coach him to a 4 star level?

IMO, this is the area where Saban has developed a blindspot in his coaching.

 

[AlexanderFan]

I look at Ty Simpson and can tell you BOB didn't do much of any developing our quarterbacks. Bryce Young can publicly praise BOB all he wants (that's what he should do I guess) but to see two different highly recruited quarterbacks be that far behind in their second and third year in the program tells me all I need to know.

We can also look at the offensive line and go back and see the mountains of threads on here for the past several years about the inconsistency and the "what the hell's going on out there?!" we've been discussing on here. That isn't a talent issue. Sure, you may have a recruit that graded out a four star that once once on campus you find out really was a 3 star, but isn't that where coaching comes in to coach him to a 4 star level?

IMO, this is the area where Saban has developed a blindspot in his coaching.

He’s third, how much should he get with the time constraints in practice? Obviously they had to get Bryce ready, and work double hard with Milroe.

 

[Bamaro]

The worst game we played all year finished on the best play all year.

 

[Bamabuzzard]

He’s third, how much should he get with the time constraints in practice? Obviously they had to get Bryce ready, and work double hard with Milroe.

BOB is in charge of the offense, the entire offense, the ones who are third string falls into that category as well. He may not have the time to personally spend a ton of time with him but he can certainly spend enough time with him to set expectations and put things in place that Ty needed to do to meet them. Then, follow up at some point to see where Ty was with it. I'm also confident that BOB had people under him (at his disposal) to tend to the third-string guys and the practice squad offense. It's no different than management in a business. You charge people to get stuff done, then ensure it gets done. If it doesn't get done then you do something about it to fix it or something is done to "you" to fix it.

These coaches get paid enormously too well for me (and this is just me personally) to jump through too many mental hoops to give them passes. But I am entering that age of old and cranky.

 

[tusks_n_raider]

We could have beat Mich and the way the Defense played for 27-28 mins in the 2nd Half and we should have beat them.

But I’m not 100% we would have beat Wash after that.

This team was just so consistently inconsistent from game to game to half to half to qtr to qtr to series to series.

With all the issues we had that never really got fixed we probably massively over achieved to get into the CFBP.

Michigan was probably the most consistent ‘Good’ team this year and from their game with tOSU to Wash in the NC they were Very Good and close to Great… especially on Defense.

They earned this NC and Harbaugh aside I give them credit.

 

[CajunCrimson]

Ehh, maybe?

On paper, the 2023 Bama team was the most talented team ever, according to recruiting rankings, comprised of three #1 classes. I'm hearing this is "Saban's best coaching job ever" from folks and SMH - how did Bama have such a dearth of ready talent at QB if he did his job so well? Saban just lost to a guy whose team is largely comprised of 3* and 4* guys while 90% of Bama's roster was 4*or higher. How is that preparation?

(Rhetorical question, I know how people explain it, just making the point...)

We develop people. But don’t always prepare them as well anymore.

 

[UAH]

He’s third, how much should he get with the time constraints in practice? Obviously they had to get Bryce ready, and work double hard with Milroe.

I saw this morning that Jayden Maiava from UNLV who was committed to Georgia switched to USC. Kirby said that they had a hard number of 4 QB's and would continue to work to add another QB. I do wonder why they would recruit a QB who had an outstanding freshman year and expect that he would be contented on the bench.

My question is how does a team expect to recruit QB's capable of playing in the SEC. Do they admit to them coming in that they would not have time to develop them?

 

[Clay]

Michigan is the best team in the country mainly because their defense is light years better than UGA's. We could have beaten them. Maybe we should have beaten them. But we didn't give anything away. Michigan took it. Maybe we'll take it back next year.

I thought the same thing. I was impressed by how they tackled in space. reminded me of some of our teams in the past.

We were close and didn't handle business when we had the lead in the last 4 minutes of the semi.

Clay

 

[UAH]

BOB is in charge of the offense, the entire offense, the ones who are third string falls into that category as well. He may not have the time to personally spend a ton of time with him but he can certainly spend enough time with him to set expectations and put things in place that Ty needed to do to meet them. Then, follow up at some point to see where Ty was with it. I'm also confident that BOB had people under him (at his disposal) to tend to the third-string guys and the practice squad offense. It's no different than management in a business. You charge people to get stuff done, then ensure it gets done. If it doesn't get done then you do something about it to fix it or something is done to "you" to fix it.

These coaches get paid enormously too well for me (and this is just me personally) to jump through too many mental hoops to give them passes. But I am entering that age of old and cranky.

BOB filled the air with BS from the first day on. He never bought in and committed. Not a psychologist but have seen a lot of that in organizations. Have a good line of BS, butter up the boss and manage to slide through, then get out right before being found out.

 

[AlexanderFan]

BOB is in charge of the offense, the entire offense, the ones who are third string falls into that category as well. He may not have the time to personally spend a ton of time with him but he can certainly spend enough time with him to set expectations and put things in place that Ty needed to do to meet them. Then, follow up at some point to see where Ty was with it. I'm also confident that BOB had people under him (at his disposal) to tend to the third-string guys and the practice squad offense. It's no different than management in a business. You charge people to get stuff done, then ensure it gets done. If it doesn't get done then you do something about it to fix it or something is done to "you" to fix it.

These coaches get paid enormously too well for me (and this is just me personally) to jump through too many mental hoops to give them passes. But I am entering that age of old and cranky.

Simpson’s live game reps looked fairly good for the third string, what did you expect? He got the play in, got the play to the offense and executed the snap count. Any other growth he was going to get is not coming in Nick Saban’s third string quarterback position. He threw five passes Last year, including a nice fourth down conversion.

He wasn’t the backup until after the USF game. His play after that was much better when he began to get game reps that weren’t just handing off to kill the clock.

 

[UAH]

I think Tommy Rees deserves the "great coaching" badge and Nick Saban deserves being called on the carpet about the obvious lack of development of the QB's and OL that hasn't been taking place the last several years. I've come to the conclusion Bill OBrien owes 50% of his increased wages after being with Tom Brady TO Tom Brady for riding coat tails. The guy didn't develop jack squat in our QB room and for Nick to tolerate him and Golding the way he did makes me even madder the more I think about it. These issues with our OL and QB didn't just start. It was a culmination of lack of coaching for the past two years.

Any mortal individual can only stretch themselves over so many activities. The system pays them excessively over so many years which presents them with many more challenges than they can focus on.

There are a number of examples of that which makes me think of what younger coaches like Kirby are practically 100% focused on football.

 

[JohnD]

44 seniors, I believe. Unheard of in these times.

By contrast, Bama had 7 seniors and 3 graduates, and a couple of redshirt Juniors. But that's normal for Bama. It's a race to the NFL here.

 

[squib]

Pretty good article about Michigan out-Sabanning Saban.

Why Michigan's national title should haunt (but motivate) Nick Saban's Alabama | Toppmeyer

That’s Nick Saban’s (old) theme music! Michigan stole bully ball. Can Alabama regain rights on that brand of football?

sports.yahoo.com

 

[Bamabuzzard]

Simpson’s live game reps looked fairly good for the third string, what did you expect? He got the play in, got the play to the offense and executed the snap count. Any other growth he was going to get is not coming in Nick Saban’s third string quarterback position. He threw five passes Last year, including a nice fourth down conversion.

He wasn’t the backup until after the USF game. His play after that was much better when he began to get game reps that weren’t just handing off to kill the clock.

Yes, his reps looked "good" to decent in the USF game and much better in his appearances later in the season. But my point is, he's been in the system two offseasons and one full regular season in allegedly the same playbook. I expected more. Live game reps aren't the be all end all of the development process. Learning the playbook, being tested on the playbook in practice, and a lot of other non live game "things" go into developing. I guess I would give more leeway and grace if the offense and playbook had changed since Milroe and Simpson stepped on campus. But unless we're being told wrong, that isn't the case. So, I'm somewhat baffled at how underdeveloped these two players were for being in the same system (and playbook) for two and three years respectively.

 

[REBELZED]

Watching Michigan as much as I have over the last month or so, it's clear that they have developed their players well. We used to do that really well, but I fear that that's slipped over the last few seasons. Actually, I'm pretty certain that's the reality. I don't know why it's the case; maybe it's the coaching turnover, not having the same level of coaching we once had, or lack of player buy-in and sticking around, but I hope it gets back on track quickly. Otherwise, I'm afraid we will continue on this path of very good but not great.

I think the answer to this is multi-faceted:

1. Michigan had 44 seniors on their roster which is unheard of for top teams these days. Alabama pretty much never enjoys that type of seniority anymore. For comparison, we had 24 seniors/grad students this year (+2 redshirt juniors if you want to get technical). Even that number seems higher than what we have had in recent years. Top teams usually have a number of juniors leaving every year for the draft but Michigan was able to avoid that and it paid off with a mature, experienced, disciplined team.

2. The transfer portal has wrecked development. Where good players who were not starting used to hang around and take coaching until they started as upperclassmen (ie: developed), now they're hitting the portal as underclassmen. So then we are left with no backups with significant experience to step in after all the inevitable turnover. And all the coaching invested in those underclassmen goes out the door with them.

3. As a result of #2, it seems we are often starting players who are not quite ready. How many first-year starters have we had to break in the last couple of years? I may be wrong, but it seems like it has been an exorbitant amount. And back to #2, the first-year starters seem to be guys that do not have much experience. This leads to learning-on-the-job and all the headaches (hesitation, lack of discipline, blown assignments, incorrect routes, etc.) that brings.

4. Recruiting has been fundamentally changed with NIL/the portal. No longer can coaches sign recruits and assume they have at least 3 years with them. They now have to defend against their quality backups transferring out at the drop of a hat. And now it's not just about play time, they have to worry about NIL $$$ too.

5. To combat #4, it seems coaches have to devote more time and energy to recruiting than ever. And they were already devoting a boat load of time to recruiting before all these changes. But I have to imagine that since coaches are now having to recruit high school kids, replace transfers, keep up with NIL demands, etc. (all while trying to keep current players "happy") the "development" side of things is naturally going to suffer.

So we're left with constantly scrambling to replace experienced players through multiple channels of attrition while balancing all the new requirements/challenges of the NIL/portal age. And I think the quality of college football is dropping drastically as a result. Maybe I'll start another thread on that...

 

[selmaborntidefan]

"Who Else Thinks We Just Gave Away A NC"

Could we not do this?

Are we going to continue to pile excuse on top of excuse so that in our minds we somehow won games we lost? "If only."


======================
2012 aTm - it was Nussmeier's fault (sure was - the OC was to blame for the defense giving up 20 points in the first quarter, makes total sense to me)
2013 Auburn - it was the JHS voodoo, the kicking game, Auburn having illegal receivers downfield
2014 Ohio State - it was Lane Kiffin's bad play calling (yes, it was Kiffin's fault Ohio State gashed our defense for 537 yards, including 230 on the ground by Zeke Elliott)
2015 Ole Miss - but if we hadn't turned the ball over 5 times and the fluke TD and the 2nd fluke TD and oh yeah, we started the wrong quarterback.....
2016 Clemson - if only Bo Scarborough hadn't got hurt and oh yeah, pick plays
2017 Auburn - JHS voodoo and oh yeah, if Tua had only come off the bench that day....
2018 Clemson - but Clemson wasn't challenged, they didn't play nobody
2019 LSU - if only Tua hadn't fumbled the ball and oh yeah, don't forget the refs
2019 Auburn - the refs (I'll AGREE on this one) and Mac's two Pick Sixes
2021 aTm - it was Bill O'Brien's fault with his lousy offense - never mind that Alabama had 143 more yards of offense than the Aggies, more first downs, and kept the ball longer)
2021 UGA II - but if only our receivers weren't hurt....
2022 Tennessee - it was the refs (Agree up to a point as they were quite selective in their application), but the refs didn't give up 51 points, either)
2022 LSU - it was Pete Golding's fault!!
2023 Texas - well, we didn't have our QB ready to play, blah blah blah
2023 Michigan - if only that tipped pass (never mind Michigan held us to UNDER 300 yards total offense, which INCLUDES an overtime where we gained 23 of our 288 yards)
=============================================

Watching a pathetic Washington run defense against an average um run game by SEC standards
made me even more mad at the performance we put out in the CFP. We would of beat UW by 4 TD;s had we of not just fell off the I have a brain wagon......

You have a helluva lot more unearned confidence in this team than do I.

And the old "we would beat team we didn't play under circumstances we didn't play" I tend to leave for the fans who tell me "SEC teams are afraid to play up north in December," which is always stupid since B1G teams don't play up there then, either. (I promise you - a complete tool posted on Twitter a picture of the horrific snowstorm in Nebraska two days ago and mused how he was looking forward to UCLA having to play in that; never mind that UCLA and Nebraska would never be playing IN JANUARY in Lincoln...or the fact that the Pac-12 had actually had more SNOW GAMES this year than the B1G did with the added challenge of MUCH HIGHER ELEVATION).

I will never forget this CFP loss and it goes down as one of the worst performances since the Clemson beat down several years ago. UGA would of wiped the floor with Michigan and I am upset we let the entire SEC down.

And that's the other tell - "team we beat would've rolled them," which doesn't say much for us.

For those defending our center saying if we had a 6th year senior back there sorry but you live in a dream world. I could get my 8 year old football team center out there and I can promise you he would have less bad snaps than we had in one game. Fact is a bad snap to a freshamn is a bad snap to an NFL QB no matter how you slice it. What makes me even more upset is the issue was all 2 years long and it was never corrected by replacement.

We've got problems that go far deeper than the center, who has left.

I'm told Bill O'Brien was the problem - he's gone.
I'm told Pete Golding was the problem - he's gone.

In fact, every single person I'm told was the problem is gone EXCEPT Milroe, and we still aren't winning national championships. And for the record, WHO HIRED O'Brien and Golding, huh?

Michigan did play fast and loose with the rules, yes.
Michigan didn't play a "very" challenging schedule, either.

But they beat the SEC champs, they beat the 3 other best teams in the B1G, and then wiped the floor with the Pac-12 champs, most of those AFTER they were (supposedly) no longer sending their spy to do the dirty work.

At some point, you shake the hand of the victor and give them credit.

Alabama did not win six national championships under Saban by refusing to own up to the things done wrong. Yes, we had some luck (2011, 2017), but we also had some bad luck (2016, 2021).

I'm not in ANY way calling for the removal of Saban, I'm not crazy. But at the same time, it amuses me how he gets all the credit when things are so good but people deflect to other issues when things go bad.

You don't have to like Michigan has won, just accept the fact they won it on the field and beat us.

 

[Big Bama1966]

IDK why everyone thinks UGA would have killed Michigan. I’ve been reading that all day, but I don’t agree. I think Mich’s D line would have shut down their running game just like we did (78 yards, remember?) and their back end is just as good, if not better, than ours.

We didn’t get lucky against UGA. We pushed them around on both sides of the ball, and I’m sorry to say it, but MIch is more physical than we are. If our DBs catch a couple of the 4 balls Beck put right in their hands, we blow them out. I think UGA beating FSU has skewing the perception of what they really were this year.

It is pretty simple UGA has a QB that can hit wide open WR's, an OL that can protect said QB, a center that can get the snap to said QB. Most importantly when the run game is working outside Bobo will work that thing to death not run pass plays that are 50 yds or nothing.
I cannot even believe some of the stuff I am reading on some of these posts. So, I will go back to my man cave and kill some zombies on MW3 as it is the only thing that helps.

 

[CrimsonEyeshade]

It is pretty simple UGA has a QB that can hit wide open WR's, an OL that can protect said QB, a center that can get the snap to said QB. Most importantly when the run game is working outside Bobo will work that thing to death not run pass plays that are 50 yds or nothing.
I cannot even believe some of the stuff I am reading on some of these posts. So, I will go back to my man cave and kill some zombies on MW3 as it is the only thing that helps.

Kill some for us.

 

[lowend]

I think the answer to this is multi-faceted:

1. Michigan had 44 seniors on their roster which is unheard of for top teams these days.

2. The transfer portal has wrecked development.

3. As a result of #2, it seems we are often starting players who are not quite ready.

4. Recruiting has been fundamentally changed with NIL/the portal.

5. To combat #4, it seems coaches have to devote more time and energy to recruiting than ever.

One one of the semifinal related threads I said that all that matters now is if you can assemble talent. The guys in D2, FCS, and Directional State U need to be the developers. The guys at the top are going to have to be the assemblers. The team you assemble each year will be what have. Get in the portal, Coach!