Bama Football Wrap - Week 3

Saturday night, sometime around 8:15, the Alabama Crimson Tide pulled off the kind of victory not seen in Tuscaloosa in many, many years. Of all the frustrations of the Shula era, perhaps the biggest was its recurring failure to mount fourth-quarter comebacks. Saturday's result wasn't so much about the game itself, about being undefeated or even about beating Arkansas. This game was about an experienced, confident head coach allowing a once-proud program to begin shaking off the demons of its recent past.

Despite a first-quarter Applewhite explosion on offense, the Razorbacks quickly adjusted on defense and limited the Tide to zero points for nearly 2 quarters of play. The youth and lack of depth on the D-line, oft-cited during spring practice, showed up after the half like a swamp donkey. It should be clear to anyone this side of Kirk Herbstreit that the Bama defense was physically overmatched and outplayed. Except, that is, when it counted with 3:30 left in the 4th quarter.

A 4 Million Dollar Decision

Saban's decision to bring in Leigh Tiffin to kick with 4:20 left in the final quarter, down by 7 points, told me about all I needed to know about his focus on building a program for the long term at Alabama. Here's a guy (Tiffin) who missed 4 FG last year in Fayetteville and single-handedly lost that game for the Tide. Coming into the game Saturday, he'd missed half of his attempts on the year. Perhaps his father's name was the only thing keeping him in the lineup over a more reliable Jamie Christensen.

With most of the 92,000 fans awestruck at the call, Tiffin promptly punches one through from 42 yards out.

Rather than issuing a challenge to the offense to convert on fourth down, CNS challenged Tiffin to make the kick, the defense to make the stop and the offense to execute a touchdown with no huddle and no timeouts. The result? All three units come away with more confidence. Sure, a failure to convert by any of these would have resulted in a loss accompanied by second-guessing. Yet it can't be denied that, through this sort of ballsy decision, CNS set a new tone at the Capstone and discovered far more about the mental toughness of this team than he otherwise would have.

The victory was not without a price. Our already shaky defense lost starters Darren Mustin and Keith Saunders to injury, and leading receiver DJ Hall suffered a deep thigh bruise late in the game. But whatever happens with the rest of the schedule, one thing is clear: this is a program finally making its way out of a decade-long struggle in the college football wilderness.


Update: A whole host of recruits just happened to be in town for Bama's SEC opener. Can't say this sort of win dampens our prospects on the recruiting front. At any rate, the days of AU and UcheaT capitalizing on Bama's struggles may be soon coming to a close.