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On attitude: Is Alabama displaying the proper mindset this time around?
By Will Heath
Published:
“Attitude” can often be used as an excuse for a poor performance on a stage as grand as the College Football Playoff. As Alabama prepares for its New Year’s Eve playoff matchup with Michigan State, that word “attitude” is floating around again.
And should it?
To hear Alabama’s players and coaches tell it, the lack of a proper attitude is near the top of the list of reasons the Tide has failed to finish the last two seasons properly. It wasn’t about X’s and O’s, wasn’t about talent, wasn’t about preparation. It was more about not having the mental edge they usually use to crush opponents.
In Alabama’s case, of course, “finishing the season properly” means wearing those godawful hats they give players on the field while they’re celebrating a national championship. Last season’s national semifinal against Ohio State turned into a nightmare for Bama fans, because the Buckeyes looked sharper and hungrier in a 42-35 upset victory. Auburn did the same a year earlier, costing the Tide a title shot.
The Buckeyes, as you certainly know, went on to win the national title by blasting Oregon in the national championship game. Auburn played the national title, but lost to Florida State. Both titles were ones that the Tide players were certainly thinking was going to be theres.
Alabama LB Reggie Ragland promised that Alabama would approach this year’s matchup with Michigan State with “a different mindset.”
“We’ve got to,” he said.
A team’s mindset is something no one can properly assess until after the fact, usually because the final result inevitably affects the assessment in one way or another. In a recent ESPN “30 for 30” film about the Buffalo Bills’ Super Bowl travails, it is noted that the Bills’ coaches turned the players loose with no curfew during Super Bowl week in 1990, their first of four straight trips to the Super Bowl.
They were out until all hours the first few nights of Super Bowl week and appeared “too loose” at Media Day. And had Scott Norwood’s final field goal attempt sailed through the uprights in the closing seconds of the game, the move would have probably been praised for taking the pressure off the Bills. It didn’t happen – the kick sailed wide right and the Giants won 20-19 in Super Bowl XXV in Tampa – so the narrative became that the Bills weren’t serious enough, and their loose attitude cost them a ring.
In Alabama’s case, the hallmark of Nick Saban’s program since 2008 has been its icy professionalism. The Tide shows up, squeezes the life out of its opponent, then leaves town without much fanfare. They’ve won three national titles that way under Saban. His charges typically fulfill their own assignments so well that they’re almost impossible to out-scheme.
Which is precisely where last year’s game against Ohio State went sideways. The Buckeyes didn’t beat Alabama’s defense because of some previously unseen tactical advantage; they won because QB Cardale Jones — a living, breathing agent of spread option chaos — simply broke the Tide’s matrix. With Jones scrambling around, extending plays, refusing to be tackled, throwing passes into a bucket, Alabama couldn’t maintain its assignments with the typical rigidity. That also opened things for Ohio State RB Ezekiel Elliott, who didn’t need much help.
In fact, recent history suggests that the best way to beat Alabama is with a QB who can do many of the same things Jones did in the Sugar Bowl. For further reference, just go back and watch how Auburn’s Nick Marshall and Texas A&M’s Johnny Manziel found ways to move the ball against Alabama.
Quarterbacks that frustrate the Tide’s ability to follow the game plan and do their jobs — QBs who are agents of chaos — are the passers who usually cause them the biggest problems.
This time around, Michigan State presents a different challenge. The Spartans are certainly very good, but they play a style that mirrors Alabama’s and they try to do many of the things Alabama typically swallows whole.
These things, naturally, don’t have much to do with attitude. But, for the sake of this premise, we’ll assume Alabama’s mindset will be in the proper place when the ball is kicked on New Year’s Eve.
Will Heath is a contributing writer for Saturday Down South. He covers SEC football.
