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As I sit here and read practice reports and interviews with the coaches
and players, I find myself trying to shed the creeping pessimism that
started almost immediately after the 2002 Auburn game. It
was the following week that the rumors concerning Franchione's flight
to Texas A&M first started to have validity. By the time the team
got back from Hawaii, there was serious smoke. From that point forward,
everything that has happened in Tuscaloosa has been reactionary rather
than progressive. The Mike Price hire would have been okay had
Price not been so devoid of character. I kept up with his teams while
he was at WSU -- I'm a writer, I have to -- and I don't see anything
wrong with his on-field style. It could have won in the SEC. But it
wasn't going to win as long as Price was chasing skirts, chasing
thrills and chasing it all down with Maker's Mark. The Shula hire
wasn't my first pick. I would have taken Croom. For that matter, I
wanted Croom when we hired Price. I just had a feeling about him. Had
he not hired retreads like Ellis Johnson and Woody McCorvey, I'd still
say he was headed for greatness. Now he'll have to succeed in spite of
his staff rather than because of it, at least on defense. Going
into the 2003 season, practice reports centered on how fast the players
were picking up the offense, and whether they were going to be
emotional basket cases. Turns out the answer was not what we wanted.
Injuries, an offensive line ill-suited to such a landmark shift in
blocking strategy, and numbers thinned by probation were a bad
combination. After the Ole Miss game, the players just seemed to lose a
little bit of drive. And having a head coach who was still learning on
the job and having trouble winning the hearts and minds of his team was
just the cherry on top of the sundae. This spring was a little
better. We had some leaders developing, and a lot of people -- most
notably in my mind Cornelius Wortham, Ramzee Robinson and Matt Miller
-- were out to prove something. Over the summer, the majority got
serious about conditioning and stayed serious about it. More
importantly, Shula grew a shell -- a shell with spikes on it. From
listening to his press conferences over the last two days, I don't
think he's going to have second thoughts about making tough decisions
anymore. Most importantly, however, there is optimism and
determination. A part of me still worries that Ole Miss could come to
Tuscaloosa in week two, get lucky and hang 40 points on us, and
obliterate the team's spirit. Our guys seem so geeked up right now
about the season, that they could either ride that bubble to greatness
or have it popped from under them. But I think it's going to go in a
different direction. I think they're determined. And, they're
deeper. Everyone made noise about who did and didn't make it into
school, but the only one that we lost that would definitely have played
somewhere was Travis McCall. Hamilton and Holifield were never expected
to make it. Fanney wasn't expected to make it. Washington was expected
to make it, but he really needed a redshirt season anyway. Everyone had
a cow regardless. Alabama still got a freshman class that might produce
three rookie starters from day one (a WR, Castille, Turner) and if the
worst thing that happened to UA was that Jake Wingo came instead of
Travis McCall, we made out like bandits. The kids are looking up
instead of looking down. That's huge. Of the first five teams we play,
Utah State isn't in our atmosphere, Ole Miss is breaking in a new QB
and just had to dismiss two of its top five players, Western Carolina
is a mediocre Div-IAA team, Arkansas is being led by a QB that isn't
exactly the king of his own locker room, and South Carolina has an
equal shot at having a strong season or completely imploding from the
get-go as Holtz clings to his job by his fingernails. For the
first time in two years, Alabama has the look of a team that is finding
itself in a better situation than many or most of its peers. Please,
Lord, let 'em stay healthy, because if they do, this could be where the
turnaround starts. Jess
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