Cecil Hurt
TideSports.com Columnist
The 2008 University of Alabama football team appeared briefly in the news on Thursday when a "mock committee" made up of sports writers decided that the Crimson Tide, which lost one game in the regular season, a fourth-quarter defeat against eventual national champion Florida in the SEC Championship Game, wouldn't have belonged in a four-team playoff.
It was a silly exercise with a silly outcome, although it probably offered a hint of the true madness that the real Selection Committee will inflict upon us in the weeks ahead. Any news value it might have had was quickly wiped away by the news Georgia had suspended its star, Todd Gurley.
There was irony of a sort, though, in the fact the 2008 Alabama team is a good one to think about in the light of Saturday's Alabama-Arkansas game.
Now, no one would compare the 2014 Arkansas Razorbacks to the 2008 Alabama Crimson Tide in terms of talent. That Alabama team, one year away from an undefeated national championship run, already had many of the players that were the foundation of that success.
Arkansas is still rebuilding its roster and looking for one breakthrough SEC win, not a trip to Atlanta. If Bret Bielema somehow gets these Hogs to six wins and a bowl game, he will have done Coach of the Year-type work.
There is more to football than physical talent, though. That is where the comparison comes in. Bielema is in his second year at Arkansas, just as Saban was in his second season at Alabama in 2008.
The first year was spent in chopping away the deadwood, finding the players that would buy in, then using those players as the foundation for building an identity. Alabama did so, explosively, in games like the blowouts of Clemson, Georgia and Auburn.
Arkansas isn't there yet. They punched Texas A&M hard two weeks ago, but couldn't deliver the knockout blow. But Bielema's team seems committed to a rugged style of play and, to borrow a Saban phrase, to making the other team quit.
That begs another question: does Alabama still have that mentality? This isn't Saban's second year, it's his eighth. None of the players on this Alabama team have known the misery of a long, grinding losing streak, a fact no matter how miserable the current 4-1 start may seem to Crimson Tide fans.
By virtue of their predecessors' success, this Crimson Tide team has inherited a massive trust fund of respect (if you need proof, go find the Ole Miss goalposts). There has been no need to scratch and claw for recognition. But it has been a good while since Alabama played a game that matched its identity that was forged in 2008. That requires full-on buy-in. AJ McCarron might be wise to talk a lot less than he does, but that doesn't mean he is wrong on that point.
This isn't news,at least not to Nick Saban, who has been preaching it all year. For most of two years, in fact.
Give credit to the other teams in the SEC West for gaining ground, hiring good coaches, spending millions of dollars on facilities. Alabama can't control that.
But what it can control is this: it can fight to hold its ground - or find itself climbing to get back on top.
https://alabama.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1691027
TideSports.com Columnist
The 2008 University of Alabama football team appeared briefly in the news on Thursday when a "mock committee" made up of sports writers decided that the Crimson Tide, which lost one game in the regular season, a fourth-quarter defeat against eventual national champion Florida in the SEC Championship Game, wouldn't have belonged in a four-team playoff.
It was a silly exercise with a silly outcome, although it probably offered a hint of the true madness that the real Selection Committee will inflict upon us in the weeks ahead. Any news value it might have had was quickly wiped away by the news Georgia had suspended its star, Todd Gurley.
There was irony of a sort, though, in the fact the 2008 Alabama team is a good one to think about in the light of Saturday's Alabama-Arkansas game.
Now, no one would compare the 2014 Arkansas Razorbacks to the 2008 Alabama Crimson Tide in terms of talent. That Alabama team, one year away from an undefeated national championship run, already had many of the players that were the foundation of that success.
Arkansas is still rebuilding its roster and looking for one breakthrough SEC win, not a trip to Atlanta. If Bret Bielema somehow gets these Hogs to six wins and a bowl game, he will have done Coach of the Year-type work.
There is more to football than physical talent, though. That is where the comparison comes in. Bielema is in his second year at Arkansas, just as Saban was in his second season at Alabama in 2008.
The first year was spent in chopping away the deadwood, finding the players that would buy in, then using those players as the foundation for building an identity. Alabama did so, explosively, in games like the blowouts of Clemson, Georgia and Auburn.
Arkansas isn't there yet. They punched Texas A&M hard two weeks ago, but couldn't deliver the knockout blow. But Bielema's team seems committed to a rugged style of play and, to borrow a Saban phrase, to making the other team quit.
That begs another question: does Alabama still have that mentality? This isn't Saban's second year, it's his eighth. None of the players on this Alabama team have known the misery of a long, grinding losing streak, a fact no matter how miserable the current 4-1 start may seem to Crimson Tide fans.
By virtue of their predecessors' success, this Crimson Tide team has inherited a massive trust fund of respect (if you need proof, go find the Ole Miss goalposts). There has been no need to scratch and claw for recognition. But it has been a good while since Alabama played a game that matched its identity that was forged in 2008. That requires full-on buy-in. AJ McCarron might be wise to talk a lot less than he does, but that doesn't mean he is wrong on that point.
This isn't news,at least not to Nick Saban, who has been preaching it all year. For most of two years, in fact.
Give credit to the other teams in the SEC West for gaining ground, hiring good coaches, spending millions of dollars on facilities. Alabama can't control that.
But what it can control is this: it can fight to hold its ground - or find itself climbing to get back on top.
https://alabama.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1691027
