| FTBL It's the topic of the day. Let's address it.

[bamarooski]

Last year vanilla this year french vanilla

 

[bamatommy]

Let me ask this question; Is it good offensive philosophy when the opposing defense knows the play before it is run? I mean, if we know the play that is coming you can bet that opposing coordinators know the play as well. We only observe from the sidelines or the television screen while coordinators are paid to examine these things.

I have to think that it is bad offense to line your team up in the jumbo package and run the same dive play to Tim Castille on each and every third and short or goalline situation. Without variation you can execute till the cows come home and never achieve full success because the opposition already knows what you're going to do before you do it.

IMHO the play calling needs to be a lot more imaginative to keep opposing defenses off balance. Shula would do well to turn over these duties to the OC and concentrate more on being a head coach.

AMEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Preach it, Brutha Chop!!!!

 

[Bamaman37]

I too think Shula needs to give Radar complete control.

I do agree with Porter though, if BAMA had executed better the last 2 games wouldn't have been close and we might not have been discussing this.

 

[bamarooski]

Yes Chop this is a good topic for the day for the last 1460 days Shula should have more confidence in Radar an turn him loose! only then will we know if it's the OC who can't coach! Shula is not coaching the D and we sure know Kines can coach! his defenses have been a comfort to this Bama fan..

 

[Argo]

I voted Shula letting the offensive coordinator take control of the offense. Not because of the Hawaii and Vandy games, just because I think it would make his job easier.

As for why we haven't been too hot so far this year. I'm sticking with the o-line blocking. If any of you want to watch the Vandy game again, I think it's on today....but you'll find that most of Jimmy Johns rushing yards were to the left side.

Now with that said, look at it this way. Any of you play golf? I do. When I started playing I had a very bad slice. While trying to correct the slice, I started to over-compensate and begin to hook the ball. So instead of slicing, I was hooking. That's what I think has happened with the o-line. Remember last year? Our line opened huge holes for Darby, but gave up many sacks. You think maybe someone got their butt chewed on a little after the Iron bowl? I do. I think we worked sooo hard on pass blocking that it has affected our run blocking. The good thing is, it can be fixed. Has anyone noticed the pass blocking so far this year? It's only been 2 games, but already looks MUCH better than last year. We'll get it fixed.

We might lose a few games this year, but look how young we are. Anyone not expecting to lose a few games this year doesn't know much about football.

A few things I wanted to point out this week, that I wasn't expecting.

1. The fake fieldgoal. I loved this call. Yeah, it didn't work, but at least it shows me that Shula is sick and tired of not sticking it in the endzone. Signs of life near the redzone makes me happy.

2. The over-the-top run by Jimmy Johns(which he fumbled). Yeah, he lost the ball, and it cost us a touchdown that could have possibly broke the game open, but it wasn't the ole Jumbo package halfback dive we do everytime we are in that situation. This staff is TRYING to fix the problems in the endzone. We're not there yet, but we are trying some things different.

 

[firestorm]

I watched the game last saturday... and the reality was that Alabama lost two importants tournovers in redzone (Tim Castille and Jimmy Johns rushing plays), and i don't think play-calling was horrible... so i voted "We just have to execute better". Passing game was very good, JPW impressed me but nowadays we have a problem in rushing game (KD isn't well)...