September 10th, 2023 at 2:32 PM ^
They both looked like 9-3 teams honestly but Alabama is in big trouble with no WRs or QB. How they ended up in that situation is wild.
September 10th, 2023 at 2:39 PM ^
I dunno. Yes their passing game was surprisingly mediocre, but what was even more alarming was the way Texas manhandled 'Bama in the trenches. Milroe was sacked five times compared to zero for Ewers. I've never seen a Saban-coached team be physically dominated like that.
I don't know if Texas is back, but I think we might truly be witnessing the end of the 'Bama dynasty.
September 10th, 2023 at 2:45 PM ^
Alabama's OL was not good last year either. Bryce Young masked a ton of flaws.
September 10th, 2023 at 5:34 PM ^
They weren't great in 2021 either. What's scary is that a with healthy Jamo and Waddle, they probably beat UGA for another title.
September 10th, 2023 at 2:52 PM ^
Well they can thank Texas A&M for buying all the players that used to go to Bama for a bag of cash from Roscoe and Bo’s car emporium. Saban can’t be happy, but Bama used to stash players on their bench with those “ extra” incentives and now it’s more difficult
September 10th, 2023 at 3:08 PM ^
It's hard for me to imagine that Bama just outspent everybody. I'm sure they paid guys, but other SEC teams did as well.
I think their success mainly comes down to Saban being an incredible coach. But now that he's in his 70s, he may be losing a bit off his fastball.
September 10th, 2023 at 3:09 PM ^
The lazy uninspiring hires (Bill O'Brien, Tommy Rees) are big hints.
September 10th, 2023 at 3:21 PM ^
Yeah, despite regular turnover in assistant coaches and coordinators Saban always seemed to restock his staff. At some point you'd figure he'd miss on some hires.
September 10th, 2023 at 3:57 PM ^
It was shocking to see Texas’ d-line just manhandle the Bama OL. They were in the backfield constantly. How did Bama get like that?
September 11th, 2023 at 1:31 AM ^
Saban quiet quit in the aftermath of the pandemic. There is honestly no other explanation for this.
September 10th, 2023 at 6:33 PM ^
I think it was Bud Elliot on Twitter, but someone pointed out that Texas A&M signing all those elite big uglies on both offense and defense and then doing nothing with them has likely had a knock on effect of turning Ohio State and Alabama into 10-2 type teams instead of what they aspire to be. You look at the classes TAMU has signed and it's just extraordinary what they've managed to sign along the lines. They've got nothing to show for it, but I don't think it's a stretch to think it's had a major negative impact on elite recruiting teams like Alabama who likely would have signed at least half those guys if not for TAMU.
But I suspect the bigger culprit has been Nick's inability to hang on to coordinators.
September 11th, 2023 at 8:59 AM ^
Bama hasn't been the same since NIL took off. It leveled the playing field in way. Really UGA just took their spot.
September 10th, 2023 at 2:37 PM ^
I'm annoyed by the very notion of Texas being "back," but they did walk into Tuscaloosa and they did hand Saban his biggest home loss in his time at Alabama. So, credit to them. I still suspect we'll look back on both of those teams as overrated in retrospect at the end of the season, but we'll see.
September 10th, 2023 at 3:12 PM ^
There's still so much football left for Texas to do some Texas things to come back down to earth.
September 10th, 2023 at 3:31 PM ^
Oh yeah, I think some slapstick situation is VERY likely before the season is over.
September 10th, 2023 at 3:40 PM ^
It's still a Steve Sarkisian team. He has a remarkably consistent track record of screwing up good situations.
September 10th, 2023 at 5:10 PM ^
Texas will not disappoint; they will lay an egg or two this year. Agree with the many posters who noted how badly ‘Bama was manhandled at the lines.
September 10th, 2023 at 6:34 PM ^
Don't worry, there's still a possible future where Alabama goes 8-4 and Texas loses three conference games, forcing Saban to retire out of shame.
September 10th, 2023 at 7:43 PM ^
Whoa there. Let's not pretend Saban is some sort of human being. He will retire/decommission because his lithium ion battery has worn out, or because of a botched firmware update, or because the SKU reached EOL.
September 10th, 2023 at 2:38 PM ^
Once Michigan pulls Hinton for Jones and gets Johnson and Rod Moore back, they will be fine.
September 10th, 2023 at 2:49 PM ^
I mean, they literally have I think 3 other guys who have shown on the field they are better RTs than Hinton (Barnhart, Jones, and even Persi). I have no idea what they’re doing. This has shades of early years Vincent Gray starting despite abysmal performances
September 10th, 2023 at 2:53 PM ^
I'd guess that he looks good in practice when he can anticipate what the defense is doing but because he wasn't passionate about football he never developed instinctive understanding of what to do. It's all intellectual for him so it ends up being a half step slow.
Joe Bolden phenomenon.
September 10th, 2023 at 4:49 PM ^
Devin Gil is what I was thinking of.
September 10th, 2023 at 3:41 PM ^
I thought about this yesterday, but I’d it possible they’re trying to get Hinton as much playing time as possible in the three most “controlled environments” Michigan will have all year?
We all know Hinton has massive upside and I don’t doubt that Harbaugh and Co. want to tap into it as quickly as they can, so maybe that involves putting him in three easy non-con live fire situations, accelerate his ramp up process, and then bring in Jones when they get into conference play?
I honestly have no idea, and I could see problems with doing that as now you’re denying Jones live reps that he needs to get better himself. But if Jones is truly better than Hinton, this is the only reasoning for Hinton getting the start over him that I can think of.
September 10th, 2023 at 6:34 PM ^
We all know Hinton has massive upside
He's a senior with three years of experience prior to this season. Wouldn't his upside have materialized by now?
September 10th, 2023 at 8:57 PM ^
Normally I’d assume you’re right, but my understanding from listening to the MGoBlog Roundtable is that there were a multitude of factors that stunted Hinton’s development over the last few years (poor coaching at Stanford, Hinton questioning if his heart was really in the game anymore, etc,) so when he got here, it was going to more or less be a complete “tear down to the foundation stones and rebuild the man” kind of project.
How I took it when I listened to Brian and Co.’s analysis of Hinton is that if he puts it all together he can be really stinking good, but he essentially has to re-learn everything before he can get there.
September 10th, 2023 at 11:19 PM ^
If the three year player isnt good now my guess is that player wont be all that good going forward. Maybe a backup in case of emergency. Him and Goode on the other side must go at each other in practice because they seem to be on the same trajectory.
September 10th, 2023 at 10:47 PM ^
One of the podcasts IIRC, Seth + Brian did said Stanford ran a funny blocking scheme where the OL doesn't know if it's run or pass so some of the hope is that was the issue. There's also the fact that OL develop slower than probably any position, but there is some truth that it's getting late for him.
September 10th, 2023 at 3:45 PM ^
My operating assumption is that Hinton is going to redshirt, so they're getting him game tape to figure out the problems.
September 10th, 2023 at 7:36 PM ^
That was my thought as well. Get him as much live experience in a controlled setting as possible, then redshirt for next year
September 10th, 2023 at 3:17 PM ^
I wonder if there is a bit of transfer bias with Hinton starting? I get all the “best players play” talk from coaches and we’re all happy he’s playing well in practice but if Jones is truly better than Hinton, where’s the disconnect from the coaching staff to make the switch or better yet, what does Jones need to do to showcase himself over Hinton? I dunno…
September 10th, 2023 at 2:38 PM ^
It’s called NIL. Their main recruiting point is now diluted. Takes a few years to manifest but manifest it will. See ya saben. Don’t feel too sorry for him, his brilliant wife invested most of the money into property. They have hundreds of millions and counting. Go Blue
September 10th, 2023 at 6:37 PM ^
Yes. All the teams can buy players now. And the Portal means that you can't stack 5-stars three deep on your roster.
September 10th, 2023 at 2:43 PM ^
Don’t believe you since I can access the information through the link
September 10th, 2023 at 2:45 PM ^
Fun Alabama fact:
They are .500 (a whopping 1-1) in home games against OOC P5 opponents during the Nick Saban era.
September 10th, 2023 at 3:01 PM ^
Is this because they often play neutral site OOC games? I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around this number.
September 10th, 2023 at 3:04 PM ^
All of Alabama's marquee non-conference games except this Texas series have been Jerryworld type of things and there haven't been many of those. Their schedule usually looks like ours does this year.
September 10th, 2023 at 9:16 PM ^
That’s just flat out not true. They’ve scheduled at least one P5 opponent OOC every year since 2008.
2007: None
2008: Clemson (Atlanta)
2009: Virginia Tech (Atlanta)
2010: Penn State (home); Duke (away)
2011: Penn State (away)
2012: Michigan (Arlington, TX)
2013: Virginia Tech (Atlanta)
2014: West Virginia (Atlanta)
2015: Wisconsin (Arlington, TX)
2016: USC (Arlington, TX)
2017: Florida State (Atlanta)
2018: Louisville (Orlando)
2019: Duke (Atlanta)
2020: USC (cancelled due to COVID)
2021: Miami (Atlanta)
2022: Texas (away)
2023: Texas (home)
September 10th, 2023 at 4:23 PM ^
Not really that neutral
September 10th, 2023 at 9:22 PM ^
Yes. The only non SEC P5 teams they’ve played at home since Saban took over are Penn State in 2010 and Texas in 2023.
Saban is 1-1 in those games.
They played three road games against non-SEC P5 teams. Duke in 2010, Penn State in 2011, and Texas in 2022.
Saban is 3-0 in those games.
They’ve also played 11 regular season neutral site games in Atlanta, Dallas, and Orlando against Virginia Tech (twice), Clemson, USC, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Michigan, Florida State, Louisville, Miami, and Duke.
Saban is 11-0 in those games.
September 11th, 2023 at 9:30 AM ^
While technically true, the idea of staking a claim to a win at "Power 5" Duke coming off of 15 consecutive losing seasons is making me laugh.
September 11th, 2023 at 9:51 AM ^
They also played Penn State that year…
September 10th, 2023 at 2:56 PM ^
Didn't watch OSU but did they drop only because Texas's win or were they unimpressive in their own right? Without knowing much about YSU, 35-7 seems.... fine?
September 10th, 2023 at 3:00 PM ^
They had Marvin Harrison (and Emeka Egbuka, but I think he's overrated) against 1-AA corners so there's a bunch of points but their OL could not get push in short yardage. The most emblematic play was a 3rd and 1 early in the game (I think it was tied at 7). On which:
1) They ran toss sweep
2) They lost two yards
3) Their shitty LT held
Again, against Youngstown State. None of the problems are fixed and McCord is fine but he's not Stroud's fucking metronome of an arm.
September 10th, 2023 at 3:26 PM ^
They sucked at 3rd and short last year too. Glad they haven't missed a beat.
September 10th, 2023 at 5:11 PM ^
Might take some time for OSU to adjust, but I expect them to be fully functional (but perhaps not Stroud fully functional) by week 12.
September 10th, 2023 at 5:32 PM ^
They couldn't convert 3rd and short last year either.
September 10th, 2023 at 11:24 PM ^
Ryan Day doesnt have that smug look, like his shit dont stink, anymore. Gotta love it.
September 10th, 2023 at 7:59 PM ^