Cecil Hurt
TideSports.com Columnist
The punch lines come easy in a week like this. It is easy to laugh at cupcake scheduling, easy to poke fun at the 56-point line, the incongruity of the No. 1 team in the country playing a team that is just trying to survive in the Football Bowl Subdivision. It is easy to laugh at the big paycheck that Georgia State received or the gaps in the student section where some young people made the understandable decision that they had better things to do on a lovely afternoon. The jokes just transfer themselves along the line from an Ohio State-Florida A&M game, the easy target moving from one mega-stadium to the next in September and October. That isn't sanctimony. I make the same jokes from time to time.
But it is worth remembering that there is a value in games like Alabama 45, Georgia State 3. There is a benefit beyond another game in the win column for the home team, or some extra padding on the statistics. Nick Saban has been as merciful as he could in such situations over the years, pulling starters quickly and keeping the clock running whenever possible, not needing to win by 70 points or have a quarterback throw for 500 yards to attract attention. Alabama gets plenty of that.
Saban knows, though, that this game helps his team. It isn't the same sort of crucible that winning on the road at College Station was for the Crimson Tide. But a season is long, and no one can have a game like that every week and survive. It also takes weeks like this one, in part because a team is more than just 11 starters on offense and 11 more on defense.
"I have been here (as a walk-on) for two years," said Parker Barrineau, a Tuscaloosa native who made his first career catch at Alabama on Saturday. "It's a lot of work, a lot of running, a lot of practice.
"But this week, we twos (the designation for backups right down to the scout team), we kind of know it could be a big opportunity for us. The whole team knows it. The ones start preaching it early in the week. They say their goal is to go out and do their job early so the twos can get in there as soon as possible. They are pulling for us, and then, when the game starts, we are rooting for them to stop the (opposing) offense and to score on every drive."
Teammates pulling for teammates is an essential reaction in what coaches refer to, broadly, as "chemistry." It matters for every time. It matters especially for Alabama, which, in case you have not heard, is looking for a third straight BCS title and carries a 10-ton boulder of expectations on its back into almost every game. Therefore, anything that can ease a few thousand pounds of that load, and shift the motivation from "must win, must win, must win" to "playing for my buddies" is welcome relief. That happened this week. It showed in the Tide's performance, and the faces of the players, and the chance to play for something more positive than the weekly pressure to avoid the planet-shattering negative of a loss.
So laugh if you must at the Georgia State game. We all do. But in the Alabama locker room, most of the faces; starter or anonymous reserve - weren't laughing, just smiling. For this team, that was a rare and welcome sight.
http://alabama.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1558091
TideSports.com Columnist
The punch lines come easy in a week like this. It is easy to laugh at cupcake scheduling, easy to poke fun at the 56-point line, the incongruity of the No. 1 team in the country playing a team that is just trying to survive in the Football Bowl Subdivision. It is easy to laugh at the big paycheck that Georgia State received or the gaps in the student section where some young people made the understandable decision that they had better things to do on a lovely afternoon. The jokes just transfer themselves along the line from an Ohio State-Florida A&M game, the easy target moving from one mega-stadium to the next in September and October. That isn't sanctimony. I make the same jokes from time to time.
But it is worth remembering that there is a value in games like Alabama 45, Georgia State 3. There is a benefit beyond another game in the win column for the home team, or some extra padding on the statistics. Nick Saban has been as merciful as he could in such situations over the years, pulling starters quickly and keeping the clock running whenever possible, not needing to win by 70 points or have a quarterback throw for 500 yards to attract attention. Alabama gets plenty of that.
Saban knows, though, that this game helps his team. It isn't the same sort of crucible that winning on the road at College Station was for the Crimson Tide. But a season is long, and no one can have a game like that every week and survive. It also takes weeks like this one, in part because a team is more than just 11 starters on offense and 11 more on defense.
"I have been here (as a walk-on) for two years," said Parker Barrineau, a Tuscaloosa native who made his first career catch at Alabama on Saturday. "It's a lot of work, a lot of running, a lot of practice.
"But this week, we twos (the designation for backups right down to the scout team), we kind of know it could be a big opportunity for us. The whole team knows it. The ones start preaching it early in the week. They say their goal is to go out and do their job early so the twos can get in there as soon as possible. They are pulling for us, and then, when the game starts, we are rooting for them to stop the (opposing) offense and to score on every drive."
Teammates pulling for teammates is an essential reaction in what coaches refer to, broadly, as "chemistry." It matters for every time. It matters especially for Alabama, which, in case you have not heard, is looking for a third straight BCS title and carries a 10-ton boulder of expectations on its back into almost every game. Therefore, anything that can ease a few thousand pounds of that load, and shift the motivation from "must win, must win, must win" to "playing for my buddies" is welcome relief. That happened this week. It showed in the Tide's performance, and the faces of the players, and the chance to play for something more positive than the weekly pressure to avoid the planet-shattering negative of a loss.
So laugh if you must at the Georgia State game. We all do. But in the Alabama locker room, most of the faces; starter or anonymous reserve - weren't laughing, just smiling. For this team, that was a rare and welcome sight.
http://alabama.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1558091
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