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Saturday, January 3, 2009
Alabama could not overcome the loss of Smith
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I don’t normally do this blog on Saturdays, but I felt compelled to share a few thoughts about Alabama’s 31-17 loss to Utah in the Sugar Bowl last night:
1. Bama could not overcome the loss of Andre Smith: Georgia learned this lesson early in the season. When you lose your starting left tackle on offense it impacts the entire line. Smith, the Outland Trophy winner, was suspended for contact with an agent’s representative that violated school rules. Smith’s replacement, converted guard Mike Johnson, was hurt early in the game and from that point on Alabama was scrambling to put an offensive line together. Utah took complete advantage of that by sacking quarterback John Parker Wilson eight times and hurrying him countless others. Even for really good teams, some personnel losses are bigger than others. To me this loss eliminates the possibility that Smith comes back for this senior season. As I said earlier in the week, Smith is a great, great player. This loss, however, pretty much guarantees that he won’t be embraced by the Crimson Tide Nation. That’s sad.
2. Utah was the aggressor: Give Utah all the credit in the world. They had been hearing for a month how the bigger, stronger Alabama team from the SEC was going to wear them down and knock them out in the second half. Utah came out smoking behind quarterback Brian Johnson to take a 21-0 lead. And when Alabama made its run to close the gap to 21-17, the Utes didn’t panic. They came back with a touchdown drive that was aided by a couple of missed Alabama tackles by Kareem Jackson to get a touchdown and go up by 28-17. That is when I knew that Utah was going to win. They didn’t blink. That is a well-coached football team.
3. Do you think Utah watched the Florida-Alabama tape? Utah seemed to have a good idea of what would work against that Alabama defense. That offense was installed at Utah when Urban Meyer of Florida was the head coach four seasons ago. It stands to reason that Utah spent a lot of time watching the fourth quarter of the SEC championship game when Florida had two impressive touchdown drives against Alabama.
4. So where do you vote Utah now? The Utes, who were No. 6 in the BCS Standings coming into the game, will finish as the only 13-0 team in Division I-A football. They won at Michigan, who wasn’t very good but winning at the Big House is still impressive. They beat Oregon State (31-28), which won nine games and beat Southern Cal. They beat No. 11 TCU (13-10), which finished 11-2 and beat Boise State, which was undefeated and ranked No. 9 at the time. And finally they beat the nation’s No. 4 team, which was ranked No. 1 for five weeks this season, in Alabama’s back yard. The voters in the Associated Press poll are not bound to vote for the winner of the BCS championship game against Oklahoma and Florida. Fifty of the 65 votes were cast for Florida in the final poll. If Oklahoma (12-1) wins, how many of those votes go to Utah? Where would you rank Utah in the final poll?
5. The little guys have made their case for better access: Four times in the past five seasons the non-BCS conferences have earned their way into a BCS game. They have won three of those games:
2004: Utah over Pittsburgh in the Fiesta Bowl.
2006: Boise State over Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl.
2008: Utah over Alabama in the Sugar Bowl.
Under the new BCS contract, which goes into effect for the 2010 regular season, the five non-BCS conferences are going to ask for greater access to the five games. Right now those conferences are limited to one spot for placing a team in the final top 12. They would like to be rewarded with another spot if they have three teams in the Top 12 (No. 6 Utah, No. 9 Boise State, No. 11 TCU) as they did this season. Those are going to be some interesting discussions.
BONUS QUESTION
So what happens to Alabama now? This game confirmed what a lot of people close to the program were saying privately all season: Alabama was a good, but not a great, football team. Nick Saban and his coaching staff got every ounce of production out of the talent they had. Alabama was very good on the offensive and defensive lines, but had clearly liabilities in other areas. So when the offensive line, which was the strength of the team, was damaged Alabama wasn’t good enough at the quarterback position to overcome it. Defensively, Alabama was exposed in the final two games against Florida and Utah.
The truth is that Alabama was at least a year ahead of schedule in 2008. With the way Saban and his staff are recruiting, there are very bright days ahead. Alabama may lose Kevin Steele, one of their best recruiters, in the coming days. Steele is the top choice to become the next defensive coordinator at Clemson.
