Good grades Commissioner.
Very good. As was the team’s performance on Saturday evening.
Because of some stray mechanical work, a few extra brake jobs and a friendly
season ticket holder, we were able to go out to Dallas for the game. Here
are some observations from the State of Texas and inside the Jerry Dome.
You should go to Dallas for a
game some time if you get the chance. It is quite the experience.
There are some things to be aware of.
They have a good interstate
system around Dallas and most of those roads run flat and straight as an
arrow. They stay crowded at most hours. The state highways are
good, but run like they follow old game trails. Sometimes they are designated
by numbers and sometimes by the names of Texas politicians, but not always
consistently. Bottom line, take a good GPS with updated maps.
Traffic getting to and from the
stadium was about like going to BDS. The thing was, I thought this was a
great big city and they built their stadium out where it would be easily
accessible. I was wrong about that. The Texas Rangers (the baseball
team, not the cops in cowboy hats) share the acreage and had closed down
the road in front of their facility because they had a game Saturday,
too. This was not good planning. Getting to the stadium, you would
get contrary instructions from the permanent signs, temporary signs and your
GPS. If you go, take along an extra cooler full of patience. Same
thing leaving. They do not have helpful people out in the street to send the
traffic home. I will say that even with the snarls in T-Town, the
Cowboys could take a few lessons from the way we do it.
The facility is really
big. They were using a metal detecting wand on everyone who went
in. Despite being in line at our gate 1:45 before the game, we stood in a
crowd in the 101 degree sun for almost 20 minutes. Worst part of the
night. They need to do something about this. Coming out, some of
the gates were shut, pushing people all into a herd to leave. I don’t
know why they do this.
Michigan’s fans travel
well. They were there in force and pretty vocal, well, through the end of
the first quarter. The ones we talked to knew their football. The
didn’t exactly expect to win, but it’s safe to say they expected to be more
competitive than they were. The crowd was announced as the biggest in
stadium history at 90,400+. That didn’t especially impress us or the
Michigan people, of course, but it was more than came to the Super Bowl.
The jumbo tron they have?
However big you think it is, well, it’s bigger than that. You have to be
careful not to get mesmerized and start watching it instead of the game.
Great for the goal line plays that are far away, though.
They sell all kinds of stuff in
the stadium, the usual fare like hot dogs and popcorn, but also, if you didn't mind standing in line, beer,
red and white wine, margaritas, and other beverages. They even had a stand with fresh
fruits and vegetables. The lines there were, um, really short.
The Alabama memorabilia about
the game sold out early in the first quarter, at least on our end of the
stadium. The Michigan stuff they still had plenty of as we walked out.
To our female readers, let me
compliment you on the way you turn out for games. It’s not just that you
are there, you are fashionably dressed and have spent due time on hair
and makeup. More than one male Michigan fan commented to me about
it. The UM female fans are by no means ugly, they just showed up
like it was time to wash the car on Saturday morning. When they started
doing that alternating pretty female fan shot stuff on that giant jumbo tron,
well, it’s great to be from Alabama.
On the actual football, it
doesn’t really matter about all the fancy schmancy surroundings, games like
this are won in the trenches, and we mostly whipped them all night. If
you told me before hand that Lester, DePreist and Jesse Williams would all take
the second half off, I’d have been very worried. The plan to control #16
was excellent and effective. His passing leaves some to be desired.
And they would have undoubtedly been better with their first string running
back in the game, but not the difference between 41-14 better.
A few specific players….
Why they decided to pick on Milliner is beyond me, but I hope everyone we play
goes that route. Belue is fast, but needs work. Sunseri is not the
biggest guy out there, is a little slow in pass coverage, all kinds of stuff
you can nit pick about, but he hits hard. Really hard. He’s going
to knock somebody out this year, I hope it isn’t Sunseri. Yeldon is
at least as good as advertised. People keep calling him “little”
T.J. He may be small compared to say, Fluker (and I’ve not seen a
program, they ran out of those, too) but my guess is he’s over 6 feet tall and
maybe 200 pounds. Michael Williams has lost some weight and will be a
weapon this year. Norwood has gained some weight with the same result.
McCarron made a couple of iffy decisions and held the ball too long a time or
two, but I’ll put that down to first game jitters. He was not as good as
January 9, but better than November 5. Good for everyone on a 50+ yard
field goal, but I hope it’s the last one we have to try this year. I
still don’t think we have a kicker who can kick off the football into the dadgum
endzone. Lastly, I really wish we did better clock management before half
time. We CAN do it; the drive in Baton Rouge for a field goal going to
the locker was nearly picture perfect. We got the ball with about 1:20
left in the half Saturday night, and went to the locker room with time outs on
the board and not that far from field goal range.
Officiating actually wasn’t bad,
but there were a few missed calls both ways and times these guys needed to be
reminded that we play TACKLE football in the SEC. Whatever. They’ve
got to get a handle on this new helmet rule. Lots of incentive to pull
the other player’s helmet off in the pile. It happened to Lacy
twice. Apparently if you don’t grab his facemask there’s no call and the
player just has to leave the game for a play. There will be more of this
until someone puts a foot (or flag) down. More Ready, Shoot, Aim from the
NCAA.
We will have to play a different
game plan and play better-especially in the defensive backfield-to beat some
SEC opponents this year -- Arkansas and LSU come immediately to mind. But
this was a great victory on a large national stage. Roll Tide. Beat
Western.
The Correspondent From The Tire Store
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