New Mexico State Aftermath

Thanks for your efforts in the unpleasant heat of early September, Commissioner.  An interesting report of a game where the imperatives beyond winning the game, of course, did not include things like “revenge” or “conference standings” and instead focused on things like “don’t let anyone get hurt”.

New Mexico State was clearly physically overmatched, but not intimidated.  The offensive line continued to struggle, though those struggles were mostly in the run game and in part can be attributed to shifting roles on the line.  We also note that D. Brown is still out serving a suspension related to (we read in the papers) a PED.  Six games seems like a lot for that, but four games of that suspension are now served.  Whether he works his way back to the starting line up is a question, but if he is as effective at run blocking on his return as he was last year, we’d expect him to be in the game(s).

The first defensive unit played a solid game and the youngsters there seem to be learning quickly on the job.  We will see about that as the quality of competition goes up.  The 2s and 3s on defense, well, we expect film review was noisy and unpleasant.

We are still cheering every time a kick off goes through the end zone. Even more encouraging were two field goals of nearly 50 yards each which got up quickly, sailed high, had several yards to spare, and split the uprights like an A+ answer on a geometry problem. We are still at 50% on field goals for the season, but they have all been longish and we are hoping the trend continues in the positive direction.  All of our PATs (and there have been plenty) have been true enough that we may go back to watching them instead of sitting with our eyes shut. 

Otherwise we don’t know that there is much else to say about this game.  Credit to the training staff that despite the triple digit temperatures on the field, we only noticed one player coming out for treatment of cramps.  That was probably pretty amazing by itself.

Speaking of, we are inclined to weigh in a little bit on the Athletic Director’s very public complaint to the SEC about Alabama’s repeated day time scheduling in September. 

We won’t try to repeat all the particulars, but you can look them up.  The bottom line is that over the last several years, Alabama and its fans have been subjected to more day time starts in September than any other SEC team.  And it continues.  Alabama will have the 11 a.m. start against Southern Mississippi a week from Saturday.  And no, it is not the “quality of the competition”.  Stretching well back into last century all of the SEC teams played at least two and maybe three “tune up” games at the beginning of the season.  That really only changed somewhat when Coach Saban started trying to organize a marquee opening game at a neutral site every year to open up the season.  Saying "Alabama should play harder games and it will get better timing" is just reinforcing how unfair things are. 

Part of the issue is television ratings.  If you’ve never done it, take a gander at the ratings when Alabama is on television.  Those are routinely highly-rated broadcasts; in fact, is not unusual for the Alabama game to be the highest rated game of the weekend.  ABC/ESPN/SECN, in particular, knows that the 11 a.m. start is a stinker. It reassures advertisers that Alabama fans will be tuning in to see those ads, I mean the game.  Also, in this particular case, they also know that Alabama fans tend to be football fans in general.  They were NOT, under any circumstances, going to schedule Alabama’s game opposite Notre Dame vs. Georgia.  To some extent, we are victims of our own enthusiasm.  This reminds us of when everyone in the conference managed to schedule the week before Alabama against OPEN.  The difference here is that CBS and ESPN were willing to report on that issue and embarrassed the conference into doing something.  That will not be the case here.

Speaking of victims, however, we have lost track of how many people were treated for heat-related issues at the stadium last Saturday.  We understand that many fans retreated to the shade of the concourses to try to beat the heat.  This is to say nothing of the players on the field who are enduring even higher temperatures in full gear.   Without a lucky rainstorm, this weekend’s contest in South Carolina will not be better.  Kickoff forecast is for 93 degrees.  

Tuscaloosa merchants are also victims here.  Tourism related to Alabama football is a driver of the Tuscaloosa city and county economies.  If a game begins at 11 a.m. few people arrive before dinner time on Friday night if they are traveling from out of town.  In fact, we’d bet most people get up way too early and fight the traffic to get to town.  They skip tailgating entirely and head straight to the stadium, because they basically have no other choice.  What food and drink they buy is in the stadium.  Leaving, they do not return to their cars, fetch their gear, and set up on the Quad before spending the night in Tuscaloosa, of course.  They trudge back to their cars, often before the game ends, and head back home because: 1. They are broiling in the sun; and 2. The issue has long since been decided.  I wonder if anyone has done the economic comparison of the difference in an 11 a.m. kickoff and a 6 p.m. kickoff in Tuscaloosa.

Recruiting suffers because recruits are also experiencing what they will be subjected to as an Alabama player.  People arrive late because of traffic and leave early because of the same reason plus the heat.  A half empty wok-like stadium is not a good look for recruits.  The head coach gets testy about this.  However, we expect he’s pretty realistic about what this experience is like for, say, a family who has had to jump through this many hoops to please the TV and Conference Overlords.

The primary beneficiary of this has been LSU, which claims a “tradition” of playing at night and therefore gets their wish.  For example, LSU started the season with Georgia Southern, kick off at 6:30.  This Saturday LSU plays Northwestern State, kick off at 6:30.  I guess scheduling that sort of superior competition lands you evening kickoffs in Baton Rouge.  (At least we can name Southern Mississippi's mascot.)  Reminds us of the Mississippi State “tradition” of ringing those stupid cowbells but if any of their opponents show up with artificial noise makers, they can be ejected.  The standard is apparently: “If you can describe it as a tradition, the SEC will give you an unfair advantage against other teams.”

Most worrisome for us, is that the Athletic Director decided to go public with his complaint.  This indicates a few things, we think.  First, it indicates that people are complaining and he’s hearing it.  That’s probably fans, players, the head coach, etc. and more than a few of them.  People are going to start staying home for a lot of very valid reasons.  Second, it means he has approached the conference privately and he’s either been ignored or politely told to “shut up.” Third, it means nothing is changing any time soon.  Our guess is maybe Mr. Sankey will manage to arrange for one Alabama game next September to be at night.  He’ll claim the conference cares about Alabama and its fans, and we’ll promptly go back to business as usual after that.

I guess we can just pray that it’ll pour down rain on Saturdays in September; that’s a better option.  Right?

Roll Tide.  Beat the Gamecocks.

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