This is from a message board. I actually found it over at tidesports.com. Very good read, and oughta give us all a little bit to think about.
Reading over various sources for Alabama Football news and talk it appears that there are more than a few people who just don't understand what is going on with Alabama right now. Over the past few years, some of the more level headed fans have tried and tried to explain it to the "microwave football" fans out there in a way such that they understand the magnitude of what we are going through as a program during the past 5 years.
No matter how we break it down, it all comes back to the difference between being a "microwave" fan versus being a "gourmet" fan.
A microwave fans wants instant answers. They want results now. They want to rip the top off and start eating as soon as possible. One step recipes. These fans get really hot really fast and are usually the loudest complainers when they get burned.
Gourmet fans have a more seasoned approach. They understand the importance of selecting the highest quality ingredients...of taking the time to follow each step in a high quaility recipe to the fullest extent, even if it means waiting a little longer for the results.
They understand that patience in the beginning will make for a truly wonderful experience in the end.
Gourmets also understand that it is impossible to judge a meal based on how it looks and tastes before it is finished cooking. If you judge a chef based off of how a meal tastes at step 5 of a 10 step recipe, you have a very small chance of finding the results satisfactory.
Building a sustainable, perennial championship contender is not a process that can be done overnight. It can't be popped into a microwave for 2 minutes on high. It can't be built in one offseason. Don't get me wrong...it can be faked after one offseason. But a truly sustainable championship contender can only be measured over the course of several seasons.
The process is much, much harder if you are trying to build a global empire but you have to start with a third world country. Make that a highly unstable third world country with several quick regime changes in rapid succession.
When I say that we haven't been as talented as teams like Mississippi State, Ole Miss, etc. I am not making idle observations. I have several recruiting rankings to back up that point.
I have taken a little time to put together a true recruiting analysis to illustrate my point as clearly as possible. ( Recruiting Analysis ) At the top is the timeline of the NCAA sanctions. The bars extend over each year of recruiting that we were affected by the NCAA's punishments. I have included the rankings of the 12 SEC teams along with their overall ranking. I have also provided a breakdown of where we are based on those rankings.
If you breakdown the team recruiting rankings for the players that Shula inherited, Alabama was 10th out of 12 in the SEC in both 2002 and 2003. Only Vanderbilt and Kentucky had worse recruiting classes.
Franchione recruited the 2001 class under the constant threat of an impending NCAA investigation and signed the 2002 recruiting class in the face of devastating NCAA sanctions. Sanctions, I might add, that were announced the exact same week as national signing day (February 1, 2002).
The 2002 recruiting class was ranked 10th in the SEC, 37th overall, and was severely limited due to scholarship reductions imposed by the NCAA with a bowl ban on top of that. These players represent the only redshirt seniors on the entire team. Of the 19 we signed, only 6 are still at Alabama with four of them currently starting (K Darby, Bino, J Simpson, J Clark).
The 2003 recruiting class was also ranked 10th in the SEC, 45th overall, and was also limited by scholarship reductions and the final year of a bowl ban. On top of that, the coach that signed those players wasn't signed until December, so he had no time to save a dismal recruiting class. These players represent the only true seniors and redshirt juniors on the team. Of the 17 we signed in that very margianally talented group, we currently have 5 starters (L McClain, T Jones, C Capps, D Lee). Wallace Gilberry was signed as part of the 2003 class in late June as Coach Shula's first recruit.
Putting those last two thoughts into proper perspective, all of our redshirt juniors and seniors were part of the worst recruiting classes during the height of NCAA sanctions. We had a few gems, but the overall level of talent is as expected considering the circumstances.
When Shula arrived in mid-2003, he came in at the tail end of our scholarship reductions. His first recruiting class was limited due to the lingering effects of NCAA sanctions. With one hand tied behind his back, and a 4-9 record to boot, he went out and put together Alabama's best recruiting class since Dubose and his cheaters left.
More importantly, Shula redshirted most of that class. Instead of going for the quick fix and throwing these underclassmen into the fire to save himself, he allowed these high school kids to come into the Capstone and be coached up before they played a down. This is one of the subtleties of gourmet coaching versus going for the microwave face-saving quick fix.
From the 2004 class...which included DJ Hall, Keith Brown, Antoine Caldwell, Simeon Castille, BJ Stabler, John Parker Wilson, Marcus Carter, and Jeffrey Dukes...we currently have 10 starters and 3 backups.
That's 13 players on the two deep from 2004 compared to 14 from the 2002 and 2003 classes combined.
When we hear talk about a lack of senior leadership, a lack of identity, and a lack of consistency...the primary reason for those three problems is the same: we are a very young team.
How, specifically, can we legitimately be characterized as a young team?
While the other SEC teams are currently playing with redshirt juniors and seniors that were a part of the Top 20 recruiting classes in the entire country, we're using redshirt sophomores and true juniors just so our talent is comparable to what we're facing week in and week out. The other side of that double edged youth-movement sword is that the players Alabama is facing are much more experienced.
On the field, Alabama's inexperience and relative lack of overall talent plays itself out based on the opponent and Alabama's mindset going into the game.
Alabama is not talented enough to show up and win by 30 against lower-tier Division I-A teams. With each successive recruiting class we are starting to become much more talented than these teams. However we still have a ways to go. And we have to get that talent experience to overcome things like mental let downs for lower opponents, dropped passes, missed tackles, etc, etc.
If Alabama shows up highly motivated, we can destroy the lower level teams. But the very nature of these sandwich games combined with our general lack of maturity on the roster cause the fans to endure closer wins against these "inferior" teams than we would like.
It is at these moments that microwave fans start calling for coach's heads. It is also at these times that gourmet fans understand our juniors and seniors aren't necessarily as talented as their juniors and seniors. Consider this: we were ranked at least 10 spots lower than even Ole Miss and Mississippi State back then in the team recruiting rankings.
Also consider that whenever Alabama plays these teams and wins, we aren't winning based purely off of superior talent. When teams are evenly matched talentwise, it comes down to coaching. Yet Shula keeps winning these games.
Now, with our talent level and experience in perspective, consider exactly how badly our outgunned and outmanned team scared the holy hell out of the LSU's, Auburn's, Tennessee's, Florida's, and Oklahoma's at the very top of the college football landscape.
How in the world can a team with lower 30's/40's talent compete with, much less actually beat, teams with several Top 20 recruiting rankings over the years?
If it ain't talent, it must be old fashioned coaching .
When you take time to think about exactly how far Alabama has come under Shula's leadership in such a short time, you have to ask yourself how impressive Shula is now?
Coach Mike Shula has been taking the blame for every loss in his entire tenure at the Capstone. Not once has he said anything about NCAA sanctions or coaching changes when he was asked about his team's performance. Not even in his first year when he only had a month to learn his player's names before the season began with Oklahoma coming to campus the second week.
If you find yourself melting down after each loss and thinking about a coaching change, you might want to be careful when you spout this stuff off that you don't get the roof of your mouth burned.
Better yet, take the time to put all of this into perspective and join the rest of us in the gourmet section. Patience, understanding, and true dedication are the only membership requirements.
Coach Shula, the Alabama administration, and the silent majority of the Alabama Nation will all welcome you with a true understanding of how good it's been and how good it's going to be.
Alabama is supposed crippled by some of the worst ncaa sanctions ever handed down short of SMU's death penalty. Alabama is supposed to be suffering for the wrong doings of the past. Alabama is supposed to be hurting from the punishment we received.
That is the sole intent and entire purpose of the sanctions that the NCAA unloaded on us while we were "staring down the barrel of a gun".
Alabama is not supposed to be competing for championships. Alabama is not supposed to beat teams that are much more talented and experienced across the board.
Alabama is not supposed to be as good as we are.
And I blame that on coaching.
Maybe that's why the American Football Coaches Association selected Alabama head coach Mike Shula as their Regional Coach of the Year last year ( 2005 Regional Coaches of the Year )?
(Did the media say anything about this? I don't remember ever seeing this in print anywere.)
Let the microwave fans keep burning themselves. Let them believe the media's writing on the outside of the frozen prepackaged dinners they're being sold.
We gourmets are going to take our time, savor what's coming, and truly enjoy the high caliber results much deeper than the rest.
We are one.
We are the Crimson Tide.
And the tide is rolling in much higher than it's been in many, many years
¶ 10:59 AM
