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CECIL HURT: Even the best team in the country can make mistakes
Cecil Hurt | Sports Editor
Disappointment was destined to appear on Saturday night.
It would not have mattered if Alabama had beaten Chattanooga 100-0 at Bryant-Denny Stadium, gaining 1,000 yards in the process. Nothing was going to be good enough to equal the pre-game perception, which was Invincible Alabama against "just" an FCS opponent. So the panic in some circles when the Crimson Tide won only 31-3, holding its opponent without a touchdown for the third straight game but not looking perfect in he process, was palpable.
A billion words, at least, have been expended this week on how the media influenced the presidential election last week and I'm not politically savvy enough to know how to unravel an issue so complicated. But it was easy to see what was happening with Alabama last week. Sports "media" was as unified as it can be in proclaiming that the College Playoff Championship was a foregone conclusion, a two-game waste of time, that a pair of victims had to be selected from the blighted landscape of college football to face the wrath of the Crimson Tide.
The main engine for that storyline was ESPN, still the most influential voice in college football if not the only one. And it's not that their narrative was wrong - Alabama is the best team. It just isn't inhumanly good. Closer to the ground in Tuscaloosa, it has been evident Alabama has its assets, plenty of them, but also has issues. The offense has limitations. The defense can give up plays, because all college defenses allow yardage from time to time. But the mantra that Alabama "couldn't be beaten" rolled on, virtually unchecked. Maybe - to the extent that this game is noticed at all on the national level - that effusive praise will slow down this week.
The issue, of course, isn't what fans hear and believe, or want to believe. It's the effect that an attitude of entitlement has on players, even good, hard-working players like Alabama has. Even the tiniest slippage matters. ArDarius Stewart broke a team rule this week - head coach Nick Saban didn't say which one - and his absence matters, even against Chattanooga. The offensive line, which has been going through some mix-and-match, didn't seem cohesive. That matters.
Saban self-censored most of his halftime talk to the team when the media asked about it, but he did reveal one thing he said.
"Do you believe me now?"
Saban is the high priest of focus and attention to detail, but he knows the message doesn't always sink in. He knows it's more important to get that message across in preparation for Chattanooga than LSU, which is the sort of game that generates its own heat. For whatever reason, this was a week that the message didn't sink in - and it showed in the performance on the field. No sugar coating here - it was, except for the second-half defense, a clunker.
But there was something else that Saban said that is worth repeating.
"I'm proud of our team," he said. "Our team has won 11 games this year."
Only one other FBS team - a tip of the hat to Western Michigan - has managed not to lose a game. For some teams, those losses have come in games that they "should" have won. These things do happen. Maybe they won't happen to Alabama. Time will tell. The optimist will say that Alabama will learn from this game and be back in fine form. The pessimist majority will conclude, despite the previous 10 games, that Alabama is now terrible and only disaster awaits.
Hopefully, a few will understand that there is a middle ground that all teams, even the best, occupy. That's because all of them - even Alabama - are human.
TideSports.com - CECIL HURT: Even the best team in the country can make mistakes
Cecil Hurt | Sports Editor
Disappointment was destined to appear on Saturday night.
It would not have mattered if Alabama had beaten Chattanooga 100-0 at Bryant-Denny Stadium, gaining 1,000 yards in the process. Nothing was going to be good enough to equal the pre-game perception, which was Invincible Alabama against "just" an FCS opponent. So the panic in some circles when the Crimson Tide won only 31-3, holding its opponent without a touchdown for the third straight game but not looking perfect in he process, was palpable.
A billion words, at least, have been expended this week on how the media influenced the presidential election last week and I'm not politically savvy enough to know how to unravel an issue so complicated. But it was easy to see what was happening with Alabama last week. Sports "media" was as unified as it can be in proclaiming that the College Playoff Championship was a foregone conclusion, a two-game waste of time, that a pair of victims had to be selected from the blighted landscape of college football to face the wrath of the Crimson Tide.
The main engine for that storyline was ESPN, still the most influential voice in college football if not the only one. And it's not that their narrative was wrong - Alabama is the best team. It just isn't inhumanly good. Closer to the ground in Tuscaloosa, it has been evident Alabama has its assets, plenty of them, but also has issues. The offense has limitations. The defense can give up plays, because all college defenses allow yardage from time to time. But the mantra that Alabama "couldn't be beaten" rolled on, virtually unchecked. Maybe - to the extent that this game is noticed at all on the national level - that effusive praise will slow down this week.
The issue, of course, isn't what fans hear and believe, or want to believe. It's the effect that an attitude of entitlement has on players, even good, hard-working players like Alabama has. Even the tiniest slippage matters. ArDarius Stewart broke a team rule this week - head coach Nick Saban didn't say which one - and his absence matters, even against Chattanooga. The offensive line, which has been going through some mix-and-match, didn't seem cohesive. That matters.
Saban self-censored most of his halftime talk to the team when the media asked about it, but he did reveal one thing he said.
"Do you believe me now?"
Saban is the high priest of focus and attention to detail, but he knows the message doesn't always sink in. He knows it's more important to get that message across in preparation for Chattanooga than LSU, which is the sort of game that generates its own heat. For whatever reason, this was a week that the message didn't sink in - and it showed in the performance on the field. No sugar coating here - it was, except for the second-half defense, a clunker.
But there was something else that Saban said that is worth repeating.
"I'm proud of our team," he said. "Our team has won 11 games this year."
Only one other FBS team - a tip of the hat to Western Michigan - has managed not to lose a game. For some teams, those losses have come in games that they "should" have won. These things do happen. Maybe they won't happen to Alabama. Time will tell. The optimist will say that Alabama will learn from this game and be back in fine form. The pessimist majority will conclude, despite the previous 10 games, that Alabama is now terrible and only disaster awaits.
Hopefully, a few will understand that there is a middle ground that all teams, even the best, occupy. That's because all of them - even Alabama - are human.
TideSports.com - CECIL HURT: Even the best team in the country can make mistakes
