Tuesday
Jul052005
We're all entitled to our opinions...
Tuesday, July 5, 2005 at 10:49PM On tonight's SportsCenter-
Trev Alberts' top 5 "sleeper teams"
- Purdue
- Alabama
- Penn State
- Florida State
- Texas A & M
Either tomorrow or Thursday, Trev enlightens us with his 5 "overrated" teams. ESPN snuck in some video of Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops in its teaser.
in General, Punditry/Media, Teams
General, Punditry/Media, Teams
Reader Comments (21)
Tennessee scored 17 on them, (yes the same Tennessee that put 55 on Texas A&M with a back-up QB) and Auburn scored 21 on them. What is "truly dominant" in your opinion?
Their offense suffered season ending injuries to their starting QB and starting RB very early which hurt them.
In another season or two Ainge might be the better of the two, but not as of right now.
When you face conservative offenses, your yardage and scoring allowed totals are going to be low. Nothing outstanding there.
Alabama gave up 20 points to Minnesota.
Alabama gave up 21 points to Auburn.
Alabama gave up 26 points to LSU.
Alabama gave up 17 to Tennessee.
Alabama gave up 27 points to Arkansas.
That's 22.2 PPG against some alright, not great offenses (Auburn aside, and even then, Auburn's at the bottom of the bell curve of the better CFB offenses).
Against offenses that knew how to manufacture points, Alabama was fairly good, but not dominant.
FWIW, total defense is a really bad way to measure a defense's output. Points allowed helps. And knowing how good the offenses it faces also helps. Even with the above listed teams, there wasn't a team anywhere near pre-eminence nationally, other than Auburn.
What I saw of the Alabama defense last year was what I see out of most SEC teams, athleticism, a few good skill guys, size, and a physical style of play. But I didn't see them demonstrating any ability to cage any of the more resilient offenses they faced, to dictate a game.
In my book, that makes Alabama a decent defense, not a "very good" defense.
I'd love to see how they'd do against one of the Big Six (USC, Florida, Louisville, Boise State, California and Utah).
I honestly don't know how Alabama did as well as they did last year, when I watch them I keep thinking I have an old tape stuck in there with the slow motion stuck on. Oh wait, now I know how they did it, 5 of their six wins came against Utah St (no comment), Western Carolina (heh), Kentucky (2-9), MSU (3-8) and Ole Miss (4-7).
This is a team I would pick to maybe improve to an 8 win season, not a 9 or 10 challenge-for-the-league-title type "sleeper" team.
They're just not a very good team. Its amazing how bad their offense looked at times last year.
What is a "resilient" offense? Which teams have one?
The 'Bama Way' became outmoded... around 1992. Otherwise the Tide would have won a few more championships, right?
College football evolves, just like everything. And now Alabama is way behind (much the same way that the SEC is falling behind).
As for Tuberville, that guy's a survivor, gotta give him that. Whether he's a competent head coach, who knows. But for now, sadly, he's got your number. Too bad Franchione left and Mike Price got stupid or we'd be having this discussion about Auburn instead...
The Bama way isn't outmoded. That's like saying making coffee with your good old mr coffee is the way of the past. There are fancier ways to do it and big pretty machines that make a lot of fuss, but in the end coffee is coffee no matter how you make it, just like winning is winning. The traditional Tide method is really just basic hardnose football. It's the same reason the Steelers were so successful this year. Tough, reasonably mobile QB, push the pile running backs that account for the majority of your yardage, a legitemate deep threat to stretch the field and catch a sleeping defense off guard, and your own bad ass defense to keep their offense off the field. Same way the Patriots shamed the "explosive" Colts offense. Corey Dillon ate up almost an entire quarter to keep Manning off the field. That's the same principle that kept Stallings winning his entire tenure. Three and outs then get the offense on the field and eat the damn clock up. It's not pretty, but it works. No, he didn't win another national title, but he put up good wins and kept Bama as a perennial contender. The last time the traditional Tide offense was really tried was when Dubose won his SEC championship (Zow and Alexander fit the QB/workhorse back mold perfectly), plus Fran's option mutation of the traditional Tide offense was starting to work pretty well when he left (this time with Watts and Williams). I'll agree with you that it's a damn shame Fran left but I can't really blame the man. He was put under probation for the last regime's misdeeds and was looking at a dry stretch for a few years recruting wise and the inevitable blame if things went sour, plus his wife was making it well known that she prefers Texas anyway. And I do think Price got a raw deal. If it hadn't been for the Dubose scandals there would have been a little uproar but once he got to winning no one would have cared (other than the fact that stripper was UGLY). I'm really impressed by his season with UTEP and glad to see he got another chance and hope he does well.
As for Tubby, I don't know if he's a survivor. He's more of a parasite really, like that little fish that rides along on the back of sharks, living off the success of his underlings. Think Petrino and now Borges. Without a good OC he's nothing.
Pittsburgh went way 1-dimensional, and it worked, but its not something that works in CFB right now, as long as the Big Six are around.
As for Urban Meyer, he is likely to go undefeated this year, but his offense won't be anywhere near what it will look like a year from now. Just use his previous teams as models, or USC under Chow. Players need to acclimate to a new offense, which takes time and game experience and usually finding the recruits to best suit that offense.
Borges will have some offensive talent issues, but I think Brandon Cox should be fairly effective, and won't have that elite national recruit pressure that Jason Campbell had to live up to. He's been in the system a year now, and has some experience.
Again, Auburn does things on the field that the SEC just isn't used to defending. A lot of these teams have elite strong safeties and outside linebackers who are now having to be everywhere BUT the line of scrimmage or their team gets burned when playing Auburn (and soon, Florida).
So in that regard, I don't think the drop in talent at TB/QB is going to drastically change Auburn's offensive output.
"Bama Ball" isn't going to work anymore, because with each year where Auburn and Florida and South Carolina maintain their systems, and Alabama maintains it, Alabama is going to get worked more and more by these teams. That Bama style of play works in the absence of a dominant style. It worked until Steve Spurrier came along, then fell back into the pack, for example.
Why Price and Fran would have done great at Alabama is precisely why Auburn is doing well now, why Spurrier did so well in the 90's---a new style that is so disparate to the other SEC offenses and defenses.
Lastly, gotta love Tuberville. His ego made him chain up Petrino and chased a great OC away (then again, Pete Carroll might have pushed Norm Chow out the door), and he lucked into another good one when he figured out how inept he personally was on the offensive side of the ball in a conference full of stone age offenses.
It's worked out though. Survivor.
The problem I have with the idea that the Borges offense is going to turn Auburn into a national power is the reason you are praising him. Yeah, SEC defenses aren't used to that style of play NOW, but we all saw it last year and we'll all see a good dose of it this year and learning to defend against it is just a matter of time. Same with Meyer.
I'll give you that Price would have brought a different offense to the table than the usual Bama style, but Fran's wasn't that different. He brought the option with him, but that's pretty much it. All of Bama's success under him was due to defense and special teams and running backs like Shaud Williams and Ray Hudson. Price would have been succesful if Croyle would have stayed healthy but given the nature of the back ups available at the time Price could have stuck with his guns and gone down in flames since neither Pennington or Guillon would have been able to lead a pass heavy offense, or he could have put his future in the hands of his defense and running game. Here's you a quick example of sophistication vs. old school SEC ball. Southern Miss. The wide open sophistication of Tedford's Cal got him 26 points against the Golden Eagles (while his defesne gave up 16). Bama's barbarism got them 27 (while the d gave up 3). Cal's sophistication got them out of a tight spot, but Bama's defense kept them from getting in one in the first place while Southern Miss's couldn't stop that same old Darby up the middle over and over again.
Lastly, no love for Tubby here, survivor or not.
As for Southern Miss not stopping the Alabama running game, Arrington had ripped 260 yards on 30 carries (that is over 8.5 ypc), and Cal got 323 ground yards on 44 plays. That was 11 yards less than Alabama gained in their 60 total offensive plays.
Granted, Alabama was without their starting QB, but So. Miss was without theirs as well that game.
I really can't figure out what happened to Cal's pass D as the year went on. Agaisnt Oregon St, the #7 passing team in the country, they gave up 211 passing yards on 49 attempts. USC, the #13 passing team gained 164 yards in the air. Against AZ St, the # 5 passing team, 238 yards. In fact, 238 was the second most passing yardage given up through and including the Oregon game - the 8th game of the season. At that point, something must have happened, because in three of the four final games, they managed to allow 328 to Washington, 304 to So. Miss, and the 520 to Texas Tech. Go figure.
Here's some food for thought: the game never gets rescheduled due to the hurricane, the full strength Cal team that beat Oregon State 49-7 runs away with the game, and Cal doesn't play after beating Stanford 41-6, so the polls don't change on the final pre-bowl ballots, and Cal goes to the Rose Bowl.
Also, somewhere in Japan, a butterfly is flapping its wings like there is no tomorrow.
Best . . . tangent . . . ever . . .
Here's another tangent for you: what happens to pass D at the end of the season? That seemed to be a trend last season along with missed extra points and terrible officiating. Cal lost theirs, Tennessee's took a huge slide, UAB (not really a big program like Cal or UT, but another team I keep up with pretty seriously besides Bama) lost any semblance of a defense at Tulane and never got it back. I know their weren't any serious losses to injury for the Blazers and I don't really recall any for UT. So what happens to these guys?
Especially when the soon to be ginsu'd pass defense cannot anticipate its own defensive weaknesses and thus cannot anticipate what is coming---familiarity.
Also, the more capable passing offenses tend to SLOWLY build up over the course of a season. Plays are added, and dropped, scripts are developed, and more is built into the offense. Just look at what USC did last year in the Orange Bowl compared to what it did against Virginia Tech through the air. With more to implement, there's more chance for explosion.
These two forces both work heavily against a secondary towards the end of a season. But they also work to a secondary's advantage in its earlier parts.
Call Alabama's defense whatever you want, but they're going to be playing the same offenses this year that they held down last year, with the exception of Florida (and South Carolina, but they won't be as potent as Florida), and most of those offenses will be worse off than last year. With a healthy Croyle, they will win the west. They'll lose to Florida in the CCG, but they will win the west.