Well, Commissioner, we are glad you and your heir made it
safely to the game and back, as opposed to your last attempt to see the SEC
Championship match up. Perhaps staring
down the memory sharpened your senses, because that was a championship edition
of the grades.
Regular readers won’t be surprised to know that we are a little
old school down here at the Tire Store.
We get nostalgic about all sorts of stuff. One of those things is the time when being the
SEC Champion was about as big a prize as you could be sure of winning. Who got named “National Champion” was in the hands
of a mostly anonymous group of “sportswriters” and “coaches” who might not know
a thing about your team, how it won or lost, had no accountability to anyone at
all, and who sometimes voted along regional/political lines or based their
decisions on considerations that must’ve included the zodiac and goat entrails. See, for example, 1966.
Conference championships, though, were another story. Things were pretty cut and dried. You won more conference games than anyone else
and you were the champion. That is as it
should be. Back in the early 90s, the
chance to resolve the occasional tie and -- let’s be frank -- to make money by
the barge load, caused the SEC to exploit a provision in the NCAA rules in a
way the NCAA had never intended. The SEC
set up a championship game so the two best teams could decide matters on the
field. Either way, we didn’t have to
worry about “votes” from namby pamby sportswriters on Manhattan Island or the coach
of the Northwest Montana School of Mines and Ice.
All that to say that winning the SEC Championship was a big
darn deal, decided on the field. It is still
just that big a deal down here at the Tire Store. So we were very excited Saturday night when the
boys brought home the twenty-fifth Conference
championship in school history. The team
did it with our favorite combination -- great coaching, a pounding running
attack, and a relentless hard-hitting defense.
What’s not to love?
We agree with an A+ for everybody. Winning the SEC Championship was the whole point,
stretching all the way back to the 4th Quarter program last winter. That goal, at least, this team has
achieved. Other goals are within
reach. After all, 128 FBS teams started
out the season with the goal of playing to win the National Championship. The teams for which that is actually a
possibility is down to four. Putting yourself
in that position is more than Excellent.
This is a time of the year for looking back and examining
achievements. And looking back towards the
late summer this team has clearly exceeded expectations. The 2015 campaign was a daunting combination
of a quarterback battle featuring two players who had not started a game since
high school, a defensive backfield that was unquestionably athletic but as green
as the grass in Bryant-Denny, and a schedule that seemed stacked against
success (did you realize that Alabama did not play any of the four weakest
teams in the conference?) full of playoff contenders many of whom again managed
to have the week before Alabama off (or substantially so), plus difficult games
away from home against Wisconsin, Georgia, Texas A&M, Mississippi State,
and Auburn.
Two or three losses with perhaps a second-place finish in
the West Division was considered a ceiling.
As it turned out, Alabama lost one game by less than a touchdown and had
to surrender five turnovers and see a play as rare as a pink unicorn to lose
that one.
No less an authority than Nick Saban said that this is one
of his favorite teams -- one he wanted to win a championship. Us, too, Coach, us, too. Before it gets lost in the shuffle, this season
may be one of the best coaching jobs of his illustrious career.
By the way, in case you are keeping count (and we are) the
SEC has been a conference continuously for 83 years now. In those 83 years, Alabama has been its
champion 25 times. You’re darn right
that’s a big deal.
Normally, we’d use this space to spout off about the Officiating
-- Matt Austin’s crew is the best the conference has (for whatever that is
worth, sort of like being the best recipe for turkey hash) and the CBS
Broadcast -- we’ll just say that when
Gary mentioned that he “should have gone to Medical School” the entire Tire
Store crew said, “we agree”. At least
CBS doesn’t cover the championship series.
Instead, we’d like to talk a bit about the Heisman
Trophy. Derrick Henry is a
candidate. Like the old National Championship,
though, this is a voting process that you really can’t predict very well. The politics of the process are thick enough
to spread with a trowel and ESPN is proud of its outsize, and to our way of
thinking unwholesome, influence over the whole process.
Henry’s statistics are downright eye-popping. He has 339 carries for 1986 yards with 23
touchdowns, that’s just this season. Saturday, on another bruising run between the
tackles, he passed the great Herschel Walker’s record for yardage
gained in one season (1,891) which had stood for 34 years. Henry did
it on about 60 fewer carries. We are not
actually big fans of comparing different players’ achievements over different eras. However, running the football the way Henry and
Alabama have done it this year is not very different from how it was done in
1981 -- or 1881 for that matter.
In various interviews after the game on Saturday, Henry was
quick to deflect attention from himself and onto his teammates. He said getting to play and break records was
a privilege and a blessing. He refused
to look forward to the playoff series and instead talked about the need for the
team to work hard and prepare. Last
Tuesday, after carrying the ball 6,327 times against Auburn, he squatted 500
pounds in the weight room. Perhaps most
telling was the comment from Coach Saban on Sunday. He was discussing bringing Henry back in the
game after Florida scored a quick touchdown and two-point conversion late in
the fourth quarter. Many would second guess
that decision. Coach Saban said that it
made Henry happy to come back in the game and it made him, Coach Saban, happy
to see Henry run the football. Let that
sink in just for a minute. Something
about football made Nick Saban happy. That ought to be what the stuffed shirts say
when they hand Henry the trophy Saturday night.
If they don’t give it to him, they ought to just melt the darn thing
down into a lump and use it for a door stop.
We don’t get to see the Crimson Tide take the field again
until late in the evening on New Year’s Eve against Michigan State. It promises to be an exciting game. We suggest you not miss it.
In the meantime, from everyone here at the Tire Store, we
wish you a safe and happy holiday season.
Roll Tide, everyone.
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