Foots

I think Auburn has the right guy at HC. Turning the program around was always going to take more than one good year working the portal. And Freeze seems to be doing quite well with high school commits, especially compared to Harsin.

I don't know how Bama's offensive line can look so inept for a half and improve so much in the second half. Is it possible that adjustments were made at halftime? I didn't think Bama was allowed to do that.

Imagine that USCw, Texas, FSU, UGA and the B1G champ all go undefeated during the regular season and conference championship games. Who gets left out. Certainly not UGA.... they would be on a 30-game win streak. (The other 4 teams would be screaming that UGA's schedule was too soft.) So who likely gets left out?

Is it possible that the SEC doesn't get into the CFP this year? Asking for a friend...

Congrats to Mizzou. What a way to win. But on the other hand, that delay of game penalty.... sheesh.

Maybe the offensive line's NIL checks were late arriving. To paraphrase Dean Wormer, "Fat, dumb, and slow is no way to play offensive line".

Tennessee 28 Florida 17 I have little faith in Florida's offense.

I think the loss was pretty much a team effort, which includes the coaches.

Bama has issues to seal with, and those pointed out in the article are clearly a problem. But to me, it all goes back to the offensive line. They were talking about "joyless murderball" and making the other guy quit. I hate to tell you guys, but your performance was indeed joyless, and Bama did get murdered in the 4th quarter.

It's not just the SEC West but the SEC in general that's down from previous years. As good as UGA looks, I would say that they have stepped backwards a bit from the last 2 years. Who really looks stronger (in the SEC) this year over last?

I think that part of the problem is that Bama has stacked lots of 5-stars at the same positions. I think they have 5 5-stars at the outside LB position (it may actually be 6), but they only play 2 at a time so 4 of them are non-entities. The other issue is that while Bama has recruited linemen that the recruiting services classify as 5-stars, they have been busts. The Brockermeyer twins come to mind. The last truly disruptive defensive lineman that Bama had was Quinnen Williams (a 3-star at the time he committed to Bama).

On the Bama fan sites, most of the commenters are putting the blame squarely on the shoulders, and arm, of Jalen Milroe. He's not Bryce Young and shouldn't be expected to be him. The way I saw it, Bama lost because Texas completely dominated both LOS. This is hard for me to say, but Texas made Bama look the way that Bama made Notre Dame look in that 2012 Natty... like their lines just were in different leagues.

While I agree that Jalen Milroe likely gets 60+ yards on the ground this week, I think he will have negative yards in the form of 2 or 3 sacks that prevent him from "netting" 50 yards. Hope I'm wrong.

It's just too early in the season for me to have any confidence that I have an understanding of what Alabama has/is. The overall talent is fine but so much of it is true freshmen or redshirt freshmen. Texas should be better in every aspect this year, other than running back. Bama definitely has a huge question mark at QB compared to last year. I think this may be a low scoring game in the range of 23-17. Having said that, if either team gets on a roll, they could win by 20.

Texas is a solid opponent and I particularly do not like the timing of the Texas game. I would much prefer to play them later in the year when to o-line has had time to gel and Milroe has had time to see more "stuff" thrown at him. But the schedule is what it is. This game will answer lots of questions and, no doubt, raise lots more.

Like most of the commenters here, I think that this is a bad move on Coach Kelly's part. But I have no idea what the MLB position would look like if Perkins isn't there. Does LSU have competent replacement(s) if Perkins goes back to Edge? CBK knows what he wants to accomplish, but Perkins looked like the 2nd coming of Will Anderson last year.

I remember some Bama fans complaining that we got Tommy Rees at OC instead of pushing hard for Garrett Riley. I wonder how they feel about that now. Riley's play calling looked "uninspired" and I'm being extremely nice when I describe it that way.

I actually think that LSU will be fine. I'm not predicting that they do or don't win the West, just that FSU looked really good and stands a chance at running the table.

I think most Bama fans who still were wanting Dabo as Saban's replacement, jumped off that train when Dabo stated that he was against using the transfer portal and, in fact, used bunches of scholarships on 0-star coach's sons.

@JayC You have spoken wisely. Next week answers so many questions, and no doubt, will raise a few more.

I noticed lots of comments saying that LSU was overrated. Not so fast, my friends. First of all, it's the 1st game of the season against a legit top 10, maybe top 5, opponent. Second, everything went wrong against LSU in the second half. Sometimes a team just can't get out of their own way. It happened to Alabama as recently as last year at Tennessee. Yes, I know that UT had something to do with that. And finally, LSU did a really good job of circling the wagons after that demoralizing loss last year. I see no reason why they can't do it again. It's probably true that the winners aren't quite as good as they looked, and the losers aren't quite as bad as they looked. If we look at the big picture in 3-4 more weeks, we may see something entirely different.

The scheme is the same one CNS always uses. He allows each new OC to tweak or add things, but the basic scheme doesn't change. New coordinators must learn and use the existing terminology. They don't get to bring in their own. I think the real question will be how much the offense runs vs passing compared to last year. I'm certain they will run at a higher rate, but how much higher is anybody's guess.

I haven't seen the actual numbers, but I suspect that Bama will be the top team for "Blue Chip Talent" along with perhaps UGA and Ohio State. That alone is enough to cause consideration for the playoffs. The key may be whether or not Bama has players in key positions play like their elite rankings suggest that they can.

I am more concerned about Texas than I am about either LSU or Tennessee. That point of view is most definitely subject to change as the season progresses and more accurate info is available on each team.

I feel like Ty Simpson will be the starter by the end of the year (barring an injury) but I expect Milroe to be starting when Bama vs Texas happens in the 2nd game. Bill O'Brien was criticized for not running the dang ball often enough. With last year's Oline, they couldn't successfully do that. This year's RB group is solid but will only perform as well as the Oline allows. I believe the offensive line will be a much more important factor than the starting QB.

If you're hearing that Harvey Updyke is available, you would most assuredly be mistaken.

The top 25 games would mean 50 teams. I know this refers to this season, but projecting the teams to next year's realignment would look like this: SEC 20 teams listed B1G 17 teams ACC + ND 9 games Big 12 3 teams PAC12 (or whatever becomes of the leftovers) 1 (Oregon St) I'm not sure how well this would correlate to 2024 but it might give an indication of impactful teams in each conference. The portal will have a big effect on that.

I think that the biggest factor in DeVonta's Heisman Trophy year was Waddle getting injured. If I recall correctly, Waddle had more yards than Smitty for the season at the time of his injury against Tennessee. That forced Mac to target Smitty much more often from that point forward.

The Miss St game is a rivalry for us older Bama fans, although for most of us, Tennessee is the top rivalry. Next is Auburn and Miss St. LSU and Ole Miss are more recent big games.

@ LSUMC LSU is solid everywhere. Really good in some places. The question is how does that all come together at critical times. I feel as though I could say the exact same thing about Bama and aTm.