The Seven Dirty Little Secrets That Hurt Alabama Football in 2008

Alabama finished the 2008 season higher than any season in the past 16 years.  Truly Alabama is back, but there are dirty little secrets that were hidden by that success.

Dirty little secret number one:  Bama was just plain lucky in 2008.  Injuries decimate teams every year, but Alabama managed to dodge that bullet this year.  You saw how the Tide struggled without Andre Smith.  Can you imagine Bama’s season without two offensive linemen?

Because dirty little secret number two is that Alabama is razor thin at most positions with any kind of quality depth.  Everyone knew how thin we were at linebacker when Saban was forced to start his first freshman linebacker ever. 

That is a position you just don’t start a freshman at, but there was no choice at the Capstone this fall.  If there was any position Alabama excelled at it was running backs and perhaps nose tackle.  Almost every other position had very little talent behind the front line.

Mount Cody is coming back because he needs to more than he wants to.  Because dirty little secret number three is, Cody was not in great physical shape this year and though he got lots of publicity, all the scouts knew he couldn’t handle the NFL for a whole game.

Fortunately, Josh Chapman proved to be able to play a whole game if he had to and helped extend Terrance’s playing time by giving him breaks.  Cody just burned up too fast.  Another good off season conditioning will make him NFL worthy.

Dirty little secret number four is not such a big secret.  John Parker Wilson is just a nice guy and a decent quarterback.  He’s more of a caretaker than winning QB.  When you have to have great play from the QB to win a game, you don’t want JPW. 

He was very good this year in not losing games, but not very good at winning them.  There were just too many blown chance to hit open men and his early season Jeckle – Hyde persona re-appeared at the season’s end.

Bama’s defense was not as good as the stats would show.  That’s dirty little secret number five.  They never had a consistent pass rusher they could count on and not being able to pressure Tebow and Johnson sure did cause problems in their last two games which were losses.

Bama was able to stop the run for much of the season, but were lucky to hit Ole Miss before their freshman phenom hit his stride and caught LSU amid quarterback turmoil.  Without getting a pass rusher or two in the upcoming crop, Alabama could have problems next year as well.

Winning hides a lot of problems, but it was hard to hide dirty little secret number six.  Alabama can’t kick very well.  Kickoffs land around the ten and get run back well to start an opposing team in good position.  The punting game was not much better and Tiffin missed his share of make able attempts.

Why a team with the resources of Alabama can’t find a man who can boot a kick off into the end zone is a crying shame.

And lastly, dirty little secret number seven.  Nick Saban does make mistakes.  Clearly Major Applewhite was one of them he fixed, but Saban simply dropped the ball at getting this team in the right frame of mind for this bowl game.

Saban excels at forming a team from great recruiting.  He is a master at getting them conditioned in physical shape and this year got everyone to buy in to his “system”.  Unfortunately, he rewarded them with time off and too much freedom once they hit New Orleans. 

All season long, this was a team on a mission.  This was a team that prepared and prepared and showed up for work with a business like attitude for most of the season. 

The first quarter of the Sugar Bowl showed a team that was unprepared, unready and unfocused.  Only pride got them going after it got out hand to keep it from being embarrassing. 

The good news is that there was also seven dirty little secrets that helped Alabama football in 2008.  You can read that article at http://bleacherreport.com/articles/108112-seven-little-secrets-that-will-make-alabama-better-in-2009