Fresno State Tire Store Report

You know, when you reach a certain age, you'll forget what story you've told to whom.   People will start to  interrupt you and say, "Yes, I've heard about the time the Deputy Sheriff let you go even though you were speeding on the way home from the game and he was an Auburn graduate".  When you get a little older, though, people stop interrupting you to say they've heard this one before and just sort of smile and nod indulgently, not realizing you can tell they are thinking inwardly "yes, I've heard that one before, geezer".   (Uh, we've noticed this indulgence usually doesn't apply within the immediate family).  After a bit of that you'll even start saying to people "Stop me if I've told you this before."

Saturday's game sort of gave us that feeling.  Last Saturday, Alabama played football against a quality opponent at a neutral site and won a convincing and exciting victory.  This week, it returned to Tuscaloosa for a home opener against an opponent that was, charitably speaking, a notch or two below last week's victim.  Alabama won the game by a comfortable margin, though they couldn't be accused of running up the score.  The team at times seemed a little lackadaisical; maybe let down from the level they were at just a week ago.  A lot of players saw action.  And at times, it sort of looked like the coaching staff had decided to run an experiment or two, rather than just taking some fairly obvious steps to gain yardage or stop the opponent.  In fact, in a few cases it seemed as important to keep everyone healthy than to score and prevent touchdowns.  Shoot, last week we played FSU and this week we played FSU.... Stop us if you've heard this before.

One of the problems with college football is how far out non-conference games are scheduled.  At the time Fresno State made its way onto Alabama's list of opponents it was coming off a stretch of nine-win seasons and Alabama's offensive coordinator was an alum.  By the time the game rolled around, that offensive coordinator had moved on and FSU was having significantly less success.  So to speak.

As you correctly point out, Commissioner, this game was not really in doubt after Alabama's first drive.   Fresno State had a good game plan, particularly on offense, that really seemed more geared to keeping the game from getting ugly and protecting its quarterback than necessarily trying to win.  How many 5-yard passes did he throw before he could feel any real pressure?  It is a sad fact of the current state of college football that smaller, less well-funded schools have to play games like this in order to keep themselves afloat financially and within the top division.  It is a reward to their players and a recruiting tool to say that they have played an opponent like Alabama or Michigan or USC, etc.  Suffice it to say there are a lot reasons that games like this are played.  Millions of reasons.  FSU walked away from Saturday's game with a reported payout of about $1.4 million.  They'll earn another $1 million next week for playing Washington.  That should ease budgetary concerns for a while. We'll not get up a stack of tires to preach about how we think this system should be changed/improved.  It should be.

That is not to say that a team like Alabama does not gain an advantage from playing in a game like this.  It most certainly does.  Issues that appeared in the first game -- calls that not all the players understood, failed execution, formation issues, injury holes to be filled, experiments with personnel groupings -- all are things you can address in a game that you should win rather more easily than last week.

And all that worked out with Fresno.   Except for Levi Wallace taking a finger in the eye, the injury bug seemed to stay away from the field.  Alabama was able to experiment with formations and personnel groupings necessitated by the epidemic of injuries at outside linebacker.  Hurts got a chance to toss the ball to receivers not named Calvin Ridley (including, gasp, a tight end).  Some of the formation/motion issues that seemed to have the players confused last Saturday seemed to be straightened out (or removed from the playbook). 

A LOT of younger players got into the game.  It was fun to see a true freshman quarterback throw a touchdown pass to a true freshman wide receiver at the end of a drive where the bulk of the yardage was gained by a true freshman running back.  Given that you can bet the grocery money that every other coach in the conference, maybe the country, is telling recruits not to go to Alabama because there are too many great players ahead of them and they'll not see the field for years at Alabama, but if they come to their team, they'll get on the field early and be stars (without regard to whether that is, you know, the truth).  We'll leave that discussion for another day, except to point out that Najee Harris could have bought that line and gone elsewhere, reasonably intimidated by a running back list in front of him of including Jacobs, Harris, Scarborough, Emmons....  Instead, in only the second game of his career, Najee got his chance and all he did was gain more yardage than any other running back on the team. 

Even though we had an unsettling sense of déjà vu, this game turned out pretty well.  A win, no major injuries, plenty happened that was good (low number of penalties/no turnovers) and enough happened not so good (poor performance on third down and occasional lapse in concentration/effort)  to keep the team from getting the big head and giving the coaches images to show over and over in film study.

We will take it.  On to Colorado State.  When we scheduled that game, Colorado State was coming off one of the best seasons in its history and was coached by a former Alabama coordinator.   Stop us if you've heard this one before.

Roll Tide.  Beat Colorado State.

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