Shane Beamer has to be dyspeptic.
Rejoice, for this is the day that we Gump, and now we have polls! I say this every day it seems, but there really is a lot to cover this morning. Dig in.
Earlier this morning, we posted all three of the coaching staff press conferences. If you missed that, it’s at the link below. If you don’t have time or patience to watch them, we’ll revisit the highlights briefly for you.
We begin with a disappointed and disgusted Kane Wommack, prattling on about eye discipline and communication, and not addressing one of the Tide’s worst problems on Saturday: Mistackles. Don’t get me wrong; the other things were issues. Duce Robinson absolutely abused Dijon Lee all game, with 9 catches on 9 targets for 79 yards and a score. And Keon Sabb was clueless on his rotational assignments, giving up chunk play after chunk play…but let’s not pretend 17 missed tackles didn’t play their part either. It was so bad he basically had to apologize to the offense for keeping ‘Bama in the ball game.
I think (it was) the worst that I’ve seen since we have been here,” Wommack said Monday, Sept. 21. “Really proud and appreciative of our offense keeping us in that game. I thought they did a fantastic job of continuing to gain the momentum even when we gave it back. And that obviously is something that our guys—that’s not characteristic of who we are in the secondary. I think our guys have a lot of great pride in the way they play.
I don’t care if “they’re pissed.” I care about fundamental Pop Warner-levl execution, wrapping up, and putting your man on the ground.
Alabama doesn’t practice on Sunday, so Monday was the first time hitting the Thomas-Drew Practice Fields. Wommack shared that the secondary is “pissed” about last Saturday’s performance and that “they did not do their job at a high enough level.” Alabama Wolf linebacker Yhonzae Pierre said after the game that captain and safety Bray Hubbard was “not satisfied” in the postgame locker room.
I genuinely can’t believe this: Another 11:00 game for Alabama, in what is sure to be one of the bigger contests in Starkville the past few seasons. This is where I would point out that by this date, October 3rd, LSU will have play its fifth night game of the season — every single one has come after dark.
I suppose though I’m of two minds on the early kick. It will suck for fans, to be sure. But at the same time, it will greatly diminish the cowbell hell that begins with the sun goes down and the stadium lights turn on. That place is miserable after dark, and the Bulldogs feed off it. Still, since the point is to win games, this may be a better time for the Crimson Tide (notwithstanding the fact that they historically don’t play great in the 11:00 slot). That is Breakfast with the Barn, not a fitting kickoff for Alabama.
Put this on a t-shirt, and you will mint money, not just from Ole Miss faithful, but from every fanbase that plays LSU this season.
Back to the presser, where Ryan Grubb put his foot into his mouth and had a few nibbles:
Calling out the boo birds doesn’t bother me. What does bother me is calling Alabama fans “your fans.” It speaks to a man hardly invested in the program. But that shouldn’t be a surprise. He declined this job before, has always spoke lovingly of the PNW, and Seattle especially, and has scarce done much to integrate himself into the larger Alabama community. That’s fine, I suppose. But “your fans” pay your salary too, doofus. May want to keep that notoriously prickly attitude under wraps when at the podium. We know you don’t want to be here, Ryan. Do your job and someone will come calling to give you your own program. Promise.
Grubb walked the remarks back, of course, but you’ll notice he didn’t correct or apologize for othering Alabama either, and continued to pretend the boos were directed at players rather than him (and I assure you, they were meant for him).
It has also created and/or exposed a rift between KDB’s majordomo and the Alabama fanbase.
Welp. I think we finally know why the Big 10 doesn’t schedule actual games — they lose.
The Big Ten nearly took the weekend off, concocting a nonconference slate consisting of 11 buy games and three matchups with commensurate competition (Colorado-Northwestern, Virginia Tech–Maryland and Michigan State–Notre Dame). The league won all the games it was supposed to while going 1–2 in the other ones.
DeBoer’s comments were odd too, in that they didn’t address ‘Bama’s cromulent defense, rather he pointed out where the offense fell short, and things the protection and Keelon could do to be better. My brother in Saban, Alabama dropped a 50-burger on the ‘Noles en route to posting over 600 yards of offense. Offense ain’t the problem: It is ranked 3rd in efficiency, 8nd in per-play efficiency, 2nd in drive efficiency, and 12th in per-play efficiency. Elite by any and every standard. Get in Wommack’s ear, and particularly get in the ear of the secondary.
Here was everything he said, and it’s honestly very shallow, even for a KDB presser.
Speaking of offense: As if Alabama’s firepower could not get any more dangerous, along comes AK Dear and Noah Rogers, who will be available and playing this week against Sakerlina. But, Alabama did lose one player to injury for the season, and it sounds like another got kicked off the squad (for now).
Rogers was one the Tide’s prizes out of the portal, and even on a team with elite speed, Rogers is a burner up there with Rico and RCW1. Expect to see him play the slot, though he can play every position on the outside, where his emergence will likely coincide with a more vertical ‘Bama offense — and you saw some of that come out already against the Seminoles.
Meanwhile AK Dear was having himself quite the fall, and had played well enough to earn a co-starter designation…then he got injured in a scrimmage. Dear had tightrope surgery, and he’s going to be a little gimpy and stiff for a few weeks, so expect a limited contribution, but so many good things happen when he has the ball. From AK’s explosiveness to his blocking and his abilities in open space, he’s going to provide Keelon Russell an extra dimension that the freshmen duo just don’t quite have yet, and which Daniel Hill isn’t quite suited for.
Just an absolute embarrassment of riches.
Meanwhile, the Tide’s Commie Kickball program is positioning itself very nicely to host an NCAA regional. It’s not my sport; I can’t speak on it, and so I won’t. But some of you are perhaps interested in tanned, toned legs in tight shorts playing keep-away. So I present it as a public service.
And, finally, your moment of levity…and for once I’m speechless. I genuinely can’t believe she went there.
That’s likely it for today. We’re going to get our data cranked for Giving Away Money, and begin the USC-Alabama preview. But you’ve got plenty to amuse yourselves with for now. So, have a great day, thanks for dropping by, and take care.
Roll Tide
Someone needs to join with the screen name “Poll Assassin”
Time for the players to start calling each other out. That worked well under Nick Saban and can/will work under new management. Correct the mental errors and go into next game ready to #MTAQ.
I am going to assume this is when CNS wanted him and he turned him down. If not, then you are referring to when homeboy said, “I will be the next OC of the Crismon Tide” and then turned around and went to Seattle Seahawks when they came a calling.
@But the B1G is the best conference in the universe and we just all need to take them at their word.@
Forgot to comment on this one. I believe that is AI. Still a hilarious joke.
Forgot to comment on this one. I believe that is AI. Still a hilarious joke.
Damn. I got slopped.
@Boomer@
If AI drew up that woman, hot damn I’m in trouble.
Pretty soon you won’t be able to reality from fiction. Just 2 or 3 years ago you could easily tell the difference. Now, not so much.
Is this a Jasands?
Or do we need to develop a new terminology here?
No, not in this case. I went to post the comment and then it gave me a 429 error(?). When I refreshed it had posted the comment twice.
It gave me that error too, but when I came back I noticed my comment posted so I didn’t retype it.
Perhaps we call it a Trollroll
I’m all for it haha.
Thumbs up
I’m actually feeling good about how things went against FSU (excluding the 1st quarter.. yeesh). On offense: the running game is working, we have multiple dynamic receivers, and Keelon grew up before our eyes. Defense: They did a pretty good job keeping a legit back in Kromah at bay, and I’m thinking the secondary got embarrassed at the right time in the season – the talent and experience is there, maybe now the fire will be as well. If Grubb can stop getting cute on situations like 3rd and short, I’m excited about what this time can do.
I concur. The defense did a hell of a job stopping the run on Saturday. It was the YOLO passes that torched the secondary. I hope that was a fluke and isn’t the trend. We will find out Saturday against USCe.
Very reminiscent of past games where we just could not get off the field on third down.
Yep. All too familiar. Ghosts of 3rd and Kirby.
People underestimate how much firepower FSU has. Kromah and Duce are excellent.
Our best defenses had bad games. 2011 had the Georgia Southern game, 2016 gave up 511 yards to Clemson, even 1992 struggled with Florida.
As long as they continue to improve I still think the ceiling is incredibly high for this defense.
I agree. Those are execution errors, you clean those up in practice.
And I’m willing to cut them some slack on the miscommunication, since Alabama is adding a whole lot of man defense and match coverages to the already complicated scheme.
they don’t have long to correct it though. We won’t play another Duce in the regular season. But guys like Nick Harbor can still fuck you up.
I was promised meltdown threads!! I want meltdown threads….nay….I NEED Meltdown threads!!
Gif post fail! 🙁
I am all to familiar with those.
I would love to give you meltdown Threads, and I’m going to try and do somewhat of one on Sundays, just hold on for next week.
But honestly, I need some help. I’m doing this by myself, and that was not the anticipation.
But, bless his heart, Isaac is doing all of the backend stuff and that is makin life infinitely easier — and making your experience far better. there’s a reason he’s on the masthead.
anyway, if someone wants to crank out some #content and write with us, do meltdowns etc, shoot me an email to any of the three addresses below.
erik@trlfootball.com
erikevans.trl@gmail.com
rbr.erik@gmail.com
Mate – I’d love to help but just when you think you have life figured out and the “Easy” Button within reach….it has a habit of going screwy on you. I am currently in the screwy phase. Let’s just say that I’ve managed to accumulate a lot of frequent flyer miles over the last 3 months…..and that’s not a good thing.
Grubb is an interesting dude… I don’t think he’ll last much longer as it sounds like a short timer. Like Eric said, he’ll get the head coaching call sooner rather than later, because this offense is starting to really put things together, but I’m not sure he’ll be missed.
I will be interesting to see who CKD brings in after him. The Sheridan thing didn’t work well… but maybe he’s got someone on staff in training.
Some days he looks like a genius. And some days he looks like a toddler playing Madden. All OCs have some clown in him, but he has more than most.
his QB development is outstanding tho, he and Sheridan both.
Ain’t that the truth. A someone put it; Grubb is freestyling with the play calling.
FSU Meltdown (thanks to Tomahawk Nation)
It is not Texas level meltdown but something to satiate yall’s appetite.
So, we do have a “Fanpost style” thing here called User Blogs.
Go to the Membership Page, hit your login, and then “My Profile”
one of the tabs there has Blog. You can write whatever you like, with even better fancy formatting, and then share the link with us.
Give it a shot when you have a moment, and let me know if you have any issues.
I will give it a shot later on. I was wanting to find fAU melting down but their SB Nation blog has been off the air for some time. I guess low engagement will do that.
Last I checked, less than half of the FBS schools have a site at Vox.
and a handful of basketball-only sites for Georgetown, St Johns, Gonzaga and Marquette.
