Utah Rolls Crimson Color Out of Tide: An Alabama Fan's Perspective

We all saw it coming right? Well we saw Alabama winning this one easily. I mean, I thought the Crimson Tide were going to at least put up 31 points of their own.

But with the loss of the best offensive tackle in the nation in Andre Smith, they looked well...just bad.

It seemed once Utah scored the first time on them, they lost every bit of emotion they had going into the game. And then they scored again and quickly. Once again taking the defense by surprise.

And once again making them wonder "what just happened" I saw that the offensive line didn't block for 'Bama QB John Parker Wilson. The first 11 times they drooped back, he either got hit or sacked 10 of those times.

He had no time early in the game. The guy subing for Smith went out with any injury, forcing 'Bama Coach Nick Saban to put in a freshman, who did well but not nearly good enough to stop the rush Utah was bringing.

I felt they should have stayed in the shotgun more. All of the big plays they had with the exception of running plays were in the shotgun. That gave the offense and Wilson time to get rid of the ball quicker.

But the rush from the D-Line of Utah was horrible for 'Bama. They went in the shotgun, as I wanted, but stayed anemic for many of the times. Julio Jones played his heart out in this game.

But he did drop a few key passes to him that were right in his hand. But he is a freshman, you cannot keep relying on him to keep coming through time in and time out. He gets tired you know.

Wilson, I felt, did his best. He got rid of the ball the best he could, but since the rush was so bad on him, he really could never seem to get going the way he wanted. But it wasn't all on the offense.

The defense seem to be terrible out there. They keep missing tackles, key ones, too. I saw that every time they had a passing score it was on the left side against Jackson. He missed tackles way to much.

He fell down on plays and just could seem to get a ball away from his man. But I have to say it was not all on him. It seemed everyone missed tackles. You could predict half the time what was going to happen when Utah got the ball.

They would get the ball throw it to one of their guys, they would catch it then break a tackle or two. And possibly score a TD. And well that was in the first half.

After a long awaited time to get going, Javier Arenas gave us 'Bama fans a 73-yard punt return, showing real toughness by breaking tackles on his way to the end zone. But that seemed to be it for them.

The offense did finally score with a pass from Wilson to Glen Coffee, but after that, nothing. I do have a new found respect for Utah and the Mountain West after this, though.

They proved they could hang with the big boys from better conferences like the SEC. Alabama was one of the darlings of the SEC this year, and they can say they beat them.

I do feel that the score may have turned out different if the suspension of offensive tackle Andre Smith never happened. He would have been a big help and the 'Bama offensive front would not have changed up three times in the game.

They had the same one all year and switching it up just a week before the game was kind of hard to do. You gel all year with one consistent offensive line and all the sudden it changes?

What do you expect? I have respect for what Utah did and their scoring was on the defense and had nothing to do with the offense. So I guess there is always next year, right?