well not completely. but bama’s football season is over, ending in a disappointing 2 game losing streak. I have been asked a lot about the Utah game and I usually give pretty short answers b/c there are a lot of factors at play. First of all the obvious: utah definitely played the sugar bowl at a higher level of intensity. they had a lot on the line: undefeated season and beating a big name opponent while alabama had relatively little to play for. But I think leaving it at that really shortchanges utah as well as oversimplifies the game. Alabama was pretty lucky this year in a few ways. First, they only faced one really potent passing attack (Georgia). This masked a year (really years) long problem rushing the passer. Even blitz pacakges have been largely ineffective. Second, by jumping out to large leads, bama has been able to hide a limited passing attack due to mediocre QB play and only one receiver that can consistently create separation. finally, bama had incredible injury luck. Besides Cody for a couple games, the most significant injury was Roy Upchurch, the third down back and sometimes fullback. Upchurch definitely provided the offense with a different element and was missed but that’s a great season from an injury standpoint.

In the Sugar Bowl, all those trends reversed themselves. Utah’s offense is a pass happy spread attack, possibly the scheme bama’s defense was most ill equipped to face. After jumping out to a quick lead, utah’s defense, a stack the box pressure defense, was even more effective. . Then Andre Smith was injured and his backup soon after that. Utah played well and took advantage of its opportunity and deserves credit for winning.

I can’t be too upset b/c bama played way over their head this year, delivering two upset victories away from home against highly ranked opponents as well as beating Auburn and Tennessee in the same year in a very, very long time (possibly the stallings era). What is disappointing is the lack of preparedness in the sugar bowl loss. i always like any team i root for to play well and in playoff time play to their strengths. if those strengths aren’t enough to overcome their weaknesses i am ok with that. But losses are upsetting when they are caused by uncharacteristic mistakes. a couple examples are the poor tackling and losing both lines of scrimmage in the sugar bowl. contrast that to the SECCG against florida when bama played well but ultimately lost b/c they faced a great competitor in tebow and didn’t quite have enough juice on offense.

another sad point is that holidays are over. i had a really nice week off. visited both sisters house’s in mobile and atlanta and saw the parents there as well. to start with, i visited shali in mobile. didn’t do much there (besides guitar hero!), but i needed a break and it’s pretty interesting to see how people you grew up with have settled into their daily routines. after that i visited my older sister who is *very* pregnant with twins! again, interesting to see changes in people’s lives. now, it’s back to work and reality. going to be hard to get used to those 5 day work weeks again…

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