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Don’t forget about Arenas

November 21, 2009

Alabama has so many good players, and it’s easy to get caught up in what Mark Ingram has done this season on offense and what Rolando McClain and Terrence Cody have done on defense.

But the unsung hero on this team is without a doubt senior cornerback Javier Arenas, who played his final home game Saturday at Bryant-Denny Stadium and went out in style in Alabama’s 45-0 rout of Chattanooga.

Arenas returned his seventh career punt for a touchdown, an SEC record, and has been one of the Tide’s best all-around defenders all season.

You could make a case for his being the the most valuable player on Alabama’s team this season with all the different things he does for this team.

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Tags: bryant denny stadium, chattanooga, cornerback, denny, different things, home game, mark ingram, Punt, rolando mcclain, rout, sec record, Tide, touchdown, Tweets, unsung hero

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Midseason review: Alabama

October 20, 2009

It can’t get much better for Alabama at this point. The Crimson Tide (7-0, 4-0) were No. 2 this week in the BCS standings and have already beaten three nationally ranked teams. Their

CrimsonTide

CrimsonTide

defense might be even better than a year ago, and that’s despite losing star linebacker Dont’a Hightower for the season in the Arkansas game with a knee injury. The passing game has hit a snag these last two games, as quarterback Greg McElroy hasn’t dealt with pressure as well. The other concern has been the Crimson Tide’s kickoff coverage. All in all, though, this looks to be Nick Saban’s most complete team yet at Alabama and maybe one of the most complete teams in the country.

Offensive MVP: RB Mark Ingram. If Ingram doesn’t watch out, he’s going to run his way into Heisman Trophy contention. In fact, he may already have. He’s coming off a spectacular 246-yard performance against South Carolina and leads the SEC with 905 rushing yards and 11 touchdowns. He’s the best runner after contact in the league and is extremely dependable. He hasn’t lost a fumble in 304 career touches at Alabama.

Defensive MVP: LB Rolando McClain. The 6-4, 258-pound McClain just looks like an NFL linebacker. He plays like one, too, and is the heart and soul of an Alabama defense ranked No. 1 nationally this week in total defense. McClain leads the Crimson Tide with 49 total tackles, including 6.5 for loss, but his value goes much deeper than sheer numbers. He’s essentially an extension of Nick Saban on the field and anticipates the game so well. McClain is always around the ball and one of those guys who has a knack for changing the complexion of a game with a big hit or key takeaway.

Alabama Crimson Tide, Rolando McClain, Nick Saban, Mark Ingram, Dont\’a Hightower, SEC team overview 102009

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Tags: alabama crimson tide, arkansas game, bcs standings, Crimson Tide, defensive mvp, greg mcelroy, heart and soul, hightower, Insider, mark ingram, nfl linebacker, nick saban, offensive mvp, one of those guys, passing game, rolando mcclain, rushing yards, sec team, sheer numbers, team overview, yard performance

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Saban says Alabama on its way, not there yet

October 20, 2009

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — If you think Nick Saban is going to stop for a nanosecond to enjoy Alabama’s football resurgence, think again.

He’s not wired that way.
There’s always another meeting, something else to plan for, a defensive breakdown to correct or a key recruit to call.
Spend a little time in Alabama these days, and you’ll hear it often.
“We’re back!”

Nick Saban and the Crimson Tide have won 20 of their last 23 games.

Nick Saban and the Crimson Tide have won 20 of their last 23 games.

Saban, who wrote the book on living in the present, cringes at such talk.

Sure, the Crimson Tide might be No. 2 in the BCS standings this week and working on their second consecutive unbeaten regular season — which hasn’t happened at Alabama since 1973 and 1974 — but they’re far from being a finished product in Saban’s mind.

But, then, in his mind, there’s no such thing as a finished product.

“I only think there are three or four of what I’d call dominant programs in the country, and I don’t think we’re there yet,” Saban said during a wide-ranging interview with ESPN.com. “Florida is probably there. Texas is probably there. Oklahoma is probably close to being there. I know they’ve had issues this year, but who could afford to lose two top-5 picks, one of them being your quarterback, and not have it affect you in some kind of way? USC is certainly there.

“You get there when your players just go play because they want to be as good as they can be, and they’re going to do it every time they play. There doesn’t need to be some external factor that’s going to motivate them.”

How close are the Crimson Tide to being there?

“I’ll tell you at the end of this year,” Saban said.

Even the most zealous Alabama fan probably wouldn’t have predicted this much success this soon for the Crimson Tide. After all, they went 7-6 and lost to Louisiana-Monroe in Saban’s first season there.

But since that embarrassing loss, Alabama has won 20 of its last 23 games and put together back-to-back recruiting classes that were ranked among the top two in the country.

While it might be human nature to enjoy some of that success, it’s not Saban’s nature.

“Probably to a fault, what happens to you when you’re like that is that you don’t enjoy what you accomplish because you live in a constant state of anxiety with small moments of relief,” Saban said. “And that’s something that just doesn’t change.”

In each of the last two weeks, Alabama has beaten nationally ranked foes.

“But by the time I’m showered and walking out of the building, I’m thinking about the next game,” Saban said.

Not even his wife, Terry, has been successful in getting him to soak at least some of it in.

“She’s done trying … quit trying a long time ago,” Saban said with a guilty smile.

But that doesn’t mean he’s a complete football droid, which he’s been accused of being in certain circles.

“I enjoy it in a different way,” Saban said. “My positive self-gratification comes from knowing that you’re getting the right people in your organization and the organization is functioning at the top end.

“It’s not about me and my ego and how many games we win. It’s about having everybody in the organization playing and doing what they need to do, not just as football players, but doing what they need to do to be successful as people.”

And believe it or not, Saban can live with losing.

He’s still peeved about the loss to Utah in the Sugar Bowl last season. But the loss to Florida a month earlier in the SEC championship game, a contest that carried much bigger stakes, doesn’t haunt him nearly as much.

Marvin Gentry/US Presswire

Nick Saban says he enjoys working with college kids and having an impact on other aspects of their lives.

Nick Saban says he enjoys working with college kids and having an impact on other aspects of their lives.

“A lot of times, the winning and losing part of it gets blurred for me,” Saban said. “Even though I hate to lose, we played a damn good game last year against Florida and they played a damn good game and it was a hell of a game. We had a chance to win it, but they made the plays at the end of the game they needed to make to win the game. I’m not happy about it, but I don’t feel like our team was ill-prepared and didn’t play well or whatever.

“Now, the Utah game, I felt horrible as a coach. For whatever reasons, I don’t feel like we put our players in a position where they were going on that field to be as good as they can be and play their best. I think there was an arrogance about us in terms of how we approached the game, and I don’t care what anybody says. Utah was a very good team.”

While the talent on Alabama’s team is obvious, Saban still isn’t ready to say it’s on a par with what he left LSU after taking the Miami Dolphins job following the 2004 season.

“No, we don’t have as many good players as we did there,” Saban said. “We still don’t have the depth we need.”

LSU had a record 47 players on NFL opening-day rosters this season, and 33 of those players were signed by Saban.

One of the things that’s happened this season is that Alabama has been able to evolve both offensively and defensively. They’re much more diverse on offense and have been able to do even more on defense.

“Each year, the guys who run your [defensive] system can do a little more, especially when you’ve got an experienced group like we have and then you’ve got a guy like Ro [linebacker Rolando McClain], who’s really smart at getting it implemented on the field and called right,” said Saban, who likes to joke that he’s defensive coordinator Kirby Smart’s graduate assistant.

“We always have a lot on defense. We practice a lot. We don’t do it all in the game, but we’ll take something we haven’t done and do it in the next game. But it’s not the first time we ever did it.

Offensively, Saban said the Crimson Tide probably relied too much on their offensive line a year ago.

“Last year, we kind of fell into a little bit of a trap,” Saban said. “We had such a good offensive line. It got easy to play to that strength and not develop it and do enough other things. When you play really good teams, you need to do that. It’s hard to just dominate really good teams up front.”

Saban balks at the notion that he somehow had the reins on offensive coordinator Jim McElwain last season, but what he does say is that Alabama has branched out of its bunker mentality.

“My feeling on it is that you can’t win the war unless you get out of the bunker,” Saban said. “There’s not a lot of battles won if you stay in the bunker.”

His reputation as a demanding boss is legendary, but Saban says he’s probably not as hard to work for as he once was.

“I still don’t think I’m hard to work for,” Saban said.

What he is anal about is the details. He’s unwavering when it comes to doing things the way he wants them done.

Doug Murray/WireImage.com

Nick Saban says he has no plans to return to the NFL.

Nick Saban says he has no plans to return to the NFL.

“I think what happens to most guys, and this is what people tell me, is that most guys have an issue with all the attention to detail we pay in everything that we do — recruiting, academics, how we get ready for the season, how we do quality control, how we research, how we work, how we do things,” Saban said. “It’s a little tough on them because they’re not used to it, especially guys who’ve been college coaches. But that’s really how pro coaches work, because that’s all there is.”

Saban is as comfortable as he’s ever been with his staff, although he has at least two guys — McElwain and Smart — who will undoubtedly be commodities in the head coaching market sooner rather than later.

“I want our guys to get those opportunities,” Saban said. “They deserve those opportunities.”

The only opportunities Saban is thinking about are right there at Alabama. His contract was just recently extended and will approach an average of $5 million per year toward the back end of the deal.

He doesn’t have a buyout, but says he doesn’t need one.

He’s exactly where he wants to be for the rest of his coaching career and agrees that it would be foolish to want to go anywhere else after investing everything he has into getting Alabama’s program back to where it is.

“I don’t want to go anyplace else,” Saban said. “I never would have left LSU if it weren’t for the NFL. I never would have gone to another college, and I’ll never go back to the NFL. I’ll never have another opportunity to go back, but I’d never go.

“It wasn’t fun for me. I enjoy so much more the kids at this age, this level and the impact you can have on them in other areas of their life. This is where I belong, and this is where I’m going to be.”

SEC, Nick Saban, Alabama Crimson Tide

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Alabama-Mississippi Preview

October 11, 2009

Despite its preseason hype, Mississippi wasn’t able to turn Saturday’s anticipated matchup with Alabama into a battle of unbeatens.

Whatever respect the 20th-ranked Rebels lost following their early stumble, however, they could quickly regain by beating the Crimson Tide this weekend in Oxford.

No. 3 Alabama, meanwhile, will look to extend a dominating start and a five-game winning streak against Ole Miss as its defense tries to bounce back from arguably its worst performance of the season.

This game was circled on both teams’ calendars after each was ranked in the top 10 before the season, and the Rebels jumped as high as No. 4 before their major slip-up.

Quarterback Jevan Snead was 7 of 21 for 107 yards in a 16-10 loss at South Carolina on Sept. 24, and while Mississippi bounced back with a 23-7 win at Vanderbilt last Saturday, Snead’s problems continued as he threw three interceptions along with his three touchdowns.

“I think he would be the first to tell you that we can’t have some of those mistakes that he made in the second half,” Ole Miss coach Houston Nutt said. “We were executing the offense very well to start, then we started forcing things and he needs to either drop it off to the back or throw it away.”

The Rebels (3-1, 1-1 SEC) still have high hopes in the crowded SEC West, but any chances of reaching the conference title game would almost certainly require a win over Alabama.

That hasn’t looked like an easy task based on the Tide’s first five games. Alabama’s 38-20 win at Kentucky on Saturday was perhaps the team’s least impressive victory even though it had a 25-point lead through three quarters on the road.

“Even though it’s a win and we’ll take the win, we’re not really satisfied with it,” star linebacker Rolando McClain said. “We know we could have played a lot better.”

McClain was the national defensive player of the week after he had 12 tackles, an interception and a forced fumble, but the unit as a whole allowed 133 rushing yards — more than double its previous season high.

Overall, Alabama (5-0, 2-0) still ranks second to top-ranked Florida nationally in total defense, allowing 222.2 yards per game.

The Tide’s offense averages more than that on the ground alone (228.2), led by running back Mark Ingram. The sophomore has 290 rushing yards and four total touchdowns in Alabama’s two road games.

“A lot of teams come out and play on emotion,” Ingram said. “The more we hit them in the mouth, it wears them down.”

The team may look heavily to the ground game again as highly touted wide receiver Julio Jones continues to struggle. Jones nearly racked up 1,000 receiving yards as a freshman last season, but he has 133 in four games this fall, including just two catches for 13 yards against Kentucky.

Alabama has still managed a productive passing attack with junior Greg McElroy in his first season as starting quarterback. McElroy has thrown 89 passes without an interception in the last four games, with eight touchdown passes mixed in over that span.

McElroy may have to be sharp against Mississippi’s defense, a strong unit led by standout defensive end Greg Hardy. The Rebels have allowed a total of 43 points in the team’s four games — the sixth-best scoring defense in the nation.

“(Mississippi) is probably the best team we have played to this point, all the way around,” said Alabama coach Nick Saban, whose team has already beaten then-No. 7 Virginia Tech.

“Their defensive team is very highly ranked,” Saban added. “They’ve got a very good front, a couple of dominant up front guys and couple of good pass rushers and play well in the secondary.”

They also have a growing track record of challenging top teams under Nutt. In the coach’s first season in Oxford last year, Mississippi went 1-1 against top-five opponents, beating eventual national champion Florida 31-30 before losing to then-No. 2 Alabama 24-20 on Oct. 18, with both games coming on the road.

“I think it is about preparation, your attitude and how you approach it,” said Nutt, who also had two wins over top-five teams in his last two years at Arkansas in 2006-07. “It has always been a kind of winning formula — the way you approach things. You get your guys to believe.”

The Tide led Ole Miss 24-3 at halftime during last year’s meeting, but the Rebels launched a furious rally before falling short. Mississippi still hasn’t beaten Alabama since 2003, when Eli Manning threw for three touchdowns in a 43-28 win.

Nutt, however, already has experience beating Saban. Nutt’s Arkansas teams won two of five meetings with LSU while Saban was in Baton Rouge from 2000-04.

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Tags: Crimson Tide, defensive player, five games, fumble, game winning streak, high hopes, houston nutt, impressive victory, jevan snead, last saturday, linebacker, rebels, rolando mcclain, rushing yards, sec west, tackles, three quarters, title game, Tweets, vanderbilt

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