Arkansas Grades: The Report From The Tire Store

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That was an excellent edition of The Grades, Commissioner.  Oddly, we find we have very little to add.  Excepting what is being reported today as a season-ending knee injury to Vinnie Sunseri, whose loss will be felt in far more than his physical play, Saturday bordered on the near-flawless.  Most importantly, this team continues to improve from its early showings in most every phase of the game.  Weakness of opponents aside (see below) things such as reducing penalties, securing the football, downing punts, making kicks -- in short the “little” things that win football games -- are often wholly in your control.  Alabama is beginning to control those little things.

 

Hubris is an interesting term.  Our modern day meaning isn’t how the Greeks used the term, necessarily, though there are parallels, such as when Ajax supposedly informed the Goddess of War that she could lend her aid to others in the battle, because he didn’t need it.  The modern day meaning of over confidence, pride, arrogance and overweening self-regard is starting to apply to many in this more-than-half-completed college football season. 

 

This weekend’s outcomes in the SEC, particularly, invite philosophical wonderings about just exactly what is going on in the world.  Upset Weekend doesn’t quite seem to cover it.

 

Georgia, crowned by many as the SEC East Champion (at least) after its defeat of LSU, has seen a spate of injuries on the offensive side of the football that I am not sure any team could overcome.  LSU itself went to Oxford and lost a game to the Mississippi Admiral Akbar Rebel Black Bears that was downright puzzling.  Mississippi had lost three straight.  LSU’s quarterback, who had played well enough that some considered him the class of the league -- a league that has one quarterback who is the current Heisman Trophy winner, another with three national championship rings and a touchdown to interception ratio that may set a record for all of college football history, and another who just set the SEC record for total offense with six or seven games still remaining in his career -- threw three interceptions in the first half, to go with only seven completions.  Frankly, Mississippi probably should have picked a couple of more.  Texas A&M, supposedly with the best player in college football, and an early dark horse favorite to win it all, has now lost two games at home, and may be an underdog at least twice more before the season ends.  Florida’s nationally-respected defense was methodically picked apart by a redshirt freshman at Missouri. Clemson was run out of its own stadium (admittedly by a very good FSU team) while holding a number 3 national ranking. South Carolina may be as dramatically internally dysfunctional as an episode of Big Brother. According to media reports, Oregon’s defensive coordinator complained publicly (and rather directly) that the opposing coach continued to call pass plays after the game was pretty much decided and he had therefore freely substituted on defense.  For a team that regularly plays its offensive starters late in the second half of games that are, shall we say decided, that seemed sort of cheeky.  What of those teams that fought hard and managed significant upsets last Saturday -- can they manage success?

 

More than halfway home, Alabama is undefeated, ranked number one, leads the SEC West, and laying aside Texas A&M no opponent has come closer to it than 25 points.  In fact, since the closing horn in College Station,  the defense has given up a grand total of 16 points.  Even with the Aggie game figured in, the defense is giving up on average fewer than 10 points per game.  The offense gained over 1000 yards combined in the last two games, which have been absolute shellackings, and by late in the third quarter featured players you might not identify with a program. Yes, we have won two consecutive games over conference opponents, but between them they own a grand total of 4 wins, coming against the likes of Samford and Louisiana Lafayette (no disrespect intended). The UA scoring offense is ranked 16^th in the nation; scoring defense is ranked 1^st in the nation. Could Alabama fall victim to reading its own press clippings?  To underestimating an opponent?  To not preparing mentally and physically for a challenge?  Coach was reportedly displeased with the efforts at practice last week, which makes one wonder what would have happened Saturday if the team had prepared harder. 

Coach Saban has structured The Process ®© to guard against the sort of overconfidence and self regard that leads a team to think that it can, to quote him, “throw its helmet out on the field and win the game.”  The team is supposed to play against a standard.  How good is it measured against how good it could be, not the opponent?  How good is it measured against its historical predecessors?  As an individual player, how well did you play on second and 6 early in the fourth quarter of a blowout game?  Was your effort, effect, and grade on that play the best you could achieve?  The issue is finding a way to make young men between the ages of 17-22 (with apologies to Jai Miller, who played Saturday) find that point of balance between confident and cocky.

It is a good thing, to my way of thinking, that Alabama knows that Tennessee took a very good Georgia team to overtime, and defeated highly-ranked South Carolina. Tennessee plays well on the line on both sides of the ball.  They do not quit.  Thus far, the Alabama players seem to be saying all the right things.  Let us hope their actions match their words. 

Hope to see you all in Tuscaloosa on Saturday.