Alabama (Noah Clowney) started out on FIRE going up 12-4 on Clowney's 4-4 start from 3. You could tell he was feeling better as he was bouncing around and felt very confident in his shot. When he is scoring 10+ points, Alabama is really tough to stop. Don't expect Clowney to attempt 12 threes per game, but when he was caring Alabama early, you could live with it. He did cool down going 1 of his last 8 from 3, but he did finish with a game high 22 and 9 rebounds.

It was a big game of runs. Alabama led by as many as 20 in the first 10 minutes, but they went ice cold from the field and Alex Arians +Charlie Easley went to work hitting 5 of 7 threes to end the half only down 5. While Alabama went cold, SDSU did hit some really tough shots and everything they threw up was going in. Alabama's defense wasn't terrible, but you could tell the intensity left for a moment. Alabama hasn't played since last Sunday and SDSU played last night, so you knew that depth and fatigue would play a factor down the stretch. SDSU took the lead half way through the second half briefly, but Alabama's defensive intensity picked up and held them scoreless for a 5 minute stretch where Alabama went up by 9 and put it away.

Brandon Miller finished with an efficient 16 points on 5/11 shooting and Sears finished with 19 on 6/11. Outside of those 2 and Clowney, the rest of the team finished 8/29. It looked like a game where Alabama would run away with it early on, but it seemed like they started settling once they got hot from 3. SDSU did go into a matchup zone and prevented the drives so they took what the defense gave them, but took a lot of ill advised shots. Look for them to clean that up before thy play a solid Houston team next Saturday.

I read an article that said he could be in the portal since Texas is a run first offense. If this is true, do you think BAMA can get him to T-Town??? He is the missing ingredient from the WR core.

Read what Nick Saban said after Alabama missed the College Football Playoff for the second time in four seasons.

l have really been pleasantly surprised with this young mans play off the bench. He does not play scared. Also as stated in another thread Bradley has also played well off the bench.

Lookin forward to tonights game and ROLL TIDE.

P.S. Did l correctly see where South Dakota State played Kent State last night and lost. lf so that is very unusual?

In case Ty is not ready to take over the reigns next year. It would seem they would need someone to act as a bridge until Ty is ready.

Scott updates his recruiting process with quotes on Alabama, Auburn, Texas, and USC.

Old guys know. 11:00 AM kickoff.
Lot of headwinds for gettin up For this one. Especially for a team that had some problems getting up for BIG games

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Speaking with Hill, he’s very ready to get to Tuscaloosa and get to work. His focus is being as impactful as possible his first year.

Does playing in a bowl game count as one of the four game limit? Thanks
ROLL TIDE ROLL!

Story here: https://alabama.rivals.com/news/nick-saban-s-pitch-to-cfp-committee-let-s-get-the-best-teams-in-


Nick Saban's playoff pitch for Alabama on The College Football Show with AJ McCarron.

“I think there’s some arguments for this team. I think that during the middle of the season – we started out really strong – Bryce got hurt at Arkansas, so you’ve gotta kind of look at how teams are playing at present. We finished 3-0, played some pretty good teams, played Ole Miss on the road when they were No. 9 in the country. But Bryce really missed the A&M game, we overcame that, won that game, and came back and couldn’t really practice for the next month. He was on a very low pitch count, couldn’t throw the ball much in practice. So I think that affected how we sort of developed on offense.

“We lost two games on the road to one top-five team, one top-10 team on the last play of the game. But now that he’s healthier and he’s able to practice, I think we’re a different team, and I think you should look at the circumstances around a 2-loss team versus a 1-loss team and how are they playing at the end of the season? How are they playing at the present? And I think our team played well down the stretch and we’re playing well at the present. I mean, we’re fifth in the nation in scoring offense, 10th in scoring defense.

“We had some vulnerabilities in the middle of the season in a tough part of the year when we had some tough games on the road and got beat on the last play of the game twice, which hopefully, we can do better, we can learn from that. But our team showed a lot of resiliency to stick with it, finish the year the right way, continue to improve and we ended up winning our last three games.”

Saban's question to the committee

“I guess I would ask the question if we played these teams in question, would we be underdogs in the game or not? And that should answer everybody’s questions relative to who the best teams are at present. That’s how this should sort of play out.”

How did Bama lose to this team?

That Georgia has always been the most underachieving team in the SEC and in American College football. CNS trained the coach who was finally capable of capitalizing on their opportunity. It’s going to be tough to climb back up that mountain but it can be done. The next couple of years will be critical to how well we do in the future.

Herbie can lobby all he wants but TCU just lost a home game against a 3 loss teams sans their starting QB. They are out, Bama is in.

1. Michigan
2. UGA
3. OSU
4. Alabama

and here is why....

Alabama strength of schedule​

At least one clear advantage Alabama has over USC and TCU is its strength of schedule. The Crimson Tide have the eighth-ranked schedule in the country, significantly ahead of TCU (35th) and USC (57th).
Alabama's SOS metric also compares favorably to Ohio State (34th), but the committee has already made its decision to favor the Buckeyes by placing them fifth in the penultimate CFP rankings. Ultimately, Alabama's chances hinge on TCU and BYU losing.
MORE: College football bowl projections for championship week: Michigan in, Ohio State first team out of CFP

Alabama strength of record​

Alabama also has an impressive strength of record, ranking fifth overall nationally (behind TCU, Michigan, Georgia and Ohio State, respectively). The Crimson Tide's SOR metric is the highest among two-loss teams and ahead of USC (sixth).
Where Alabama has potentially its biggest hurdle is its SOR comparison to TCU, which ranks as the strongest in the nation. Even if the Horned Frogs lose, it would give them only one loss. Though that may be enough to drop them out of the top four, it remains to be seen whether that would be enough to vault Alabama in.



Join the conversation
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Maybe a little homer but hear me out.

Tennessee lost - done
Michigan/Ohio State will lose - maybe a 1 loss of these still gets in?
USC can very well lose to Notre Dame next week or pac 12 championship
No shot LSU beats Georgia
TCU could still easily lose

?? Maybe too much whooskie but it can happen.

Alabama would almost certainly be favored if it played TCU. After watching Ohio State’s blowout loss to Michigan last weekend, it would be hard to pick the Buckeyes over the Crimson Tide as well.

However, that’s not how any of this works.

12/31
8 p.m. UGA -6½
4 p.m. Michigan -9½

today with 6-4 shooting guard elijah moore from new york. he is ranked 68 in the 2024 class.

Per several reports Alex Golesh who was the playcaller for Josh Heupel at Tenn and UCF has been hired at USF. Something to keep an eye on in the future with the Vols. Golesh is considered a real up and coming coach. Worked for Matt Campbell at Iowa State as well.

Obviously USF is on the schedule next year.

At Oregon with Dan Lanning.

Highly unlikely but with UGA and Michigan being in regardless of the outcome today, if they both lose and TCU, all for teams in will have failed to win their conference.
1. UGA
2. Michigan
3. OSU
4. TCU/Bama

Alabama was ranked No. 5 in this week's AP poll and USA Today/AFCA coaches poll. It's the highest ranking since Oct. 9.

Proved last night that he is one of, if not the, top coaches in CF...the guy looks like a coach, sounds like a coach, and performs like a coach...he's what us Old Farts call a "throwback"...he could coach in any era IMO...can you see him against Woody, Bo, The Bear et al...somehow Lincoln Riley with his little hoodie on doesn't cut it for me...now at least Kyle cut the sleeves off his to show off his guns...

I would trade our entire defense for theirs, player for player right now...they fly to the ball, play with great passion and leverage, and other than the busts in the secondary, they are outstanding...if I were him I'd go hire the best secondary coach out there, give him a ton of money and watch the results...they had OSU last year in the Rose Bowl until the DB's went on strike in the 2nd half...

Not sure how they lost to Florida, but you have to give him credit for coming to SEC country game #1 to test his team...this guy would be an outstanding choice to succeed Saban, and he has a hot wife to boot