Boy where do I start with this one? I guess I may as well start at the beginning.
Under the previous regime, the players walked all over previous coach Mike Shula. Shula had totally lost control of the team, and the inmates were running the asylum. Under Shula, Bama was 0 & 22 in games in which they trailed entering the 4th quarter.
Enter Nick Saban. One of the first things Saban did was institute the “4th quarter conditioning program.” I won’t get into the specifics of the program, but take my word for it, it’s absolutely brutal. Those of you who think we are torturing Iraqi prisoners, you haven’t seen anything yet.
As you can imagine, this didn’t go over very well with guys who weren’t recruited by Saban, and who had been coasting under the Shula regime for 3, 4 & 5 years. Guys like wide receiver D.J Hall just wanted to go through the season on cruise control, and then sign a million dollar contract in the NFL. Well, it didn’t quite work out like they planned. Guys like Hall, Simeon Castille, Keith Brown & Wallace Gilberry who were sure the NFL would come knocking got a rude awakening. As I’m sure most of you know, for the first time since 1970, not a single
Appalachian State, Bentley, Coastal Carolina, Delaware, Eastern Kentucky, Furman, Gardner-Webb,
The upshot of all this is that Bama was a divided team last year. There was the group that who wanted to win and bought what Saban was selling, and those who didn’t give a shit about Saban or the team. Some of this trouble manifested itself through numerous arrests culminating with the arrest of Jimmy Johns for slinging coke on campus.
Year two of the Saban era is completely different. Gone is the pugnacious senior class and others who permeated the roster. Think Bear Bryant and the Junction Boys. Despite drastic over-signing by Saban in last year’s #1 recruiting class, and the media hounding Saban about how he would make the numbers work, Bama only ended up with 81 scholarship players on the roster (4 short of the maximum allowable 85). They are now at 84 because Saban has since awarded 3 scholarships to non-scholarship players.
I lay this foundation for you because it is critical to understanding this Bama team, and because you won’t hear it from the media. This year’s team is extremely tight and singularly focused. They are young (only 9 scholarship seniors on the roster), strong, fast, mean, hungry, pissed and probably the fittest group in the country.
Continued