The 2022 Alabama team and 2010 Alabama team similarities

In 2009, Alabama shocked the football world and proved it was returning to the ranks of the elite and would be chasing championships for the foreseeable future. The next season Alabama returned their starting QB, their Heisman trophy winning running back, and much of the team that was the nucleus for that championship team.

But they fell from grace, losing three games that year to South Carolina, LSU and Auburn. What happened?

After the final whistle of the Capital One Bowl game that season, I asked a young AJ McCarron, who was the apparent quarterback of the future, outside the locker room, why a team that just destroyed a good Michigan State team could have lost three games and fallen so far off the mark.

His answer was, they stopped doing the little things they did the year before. They just didn’t have the same attitude in practice and focus on the small things in each game like they had the year before. He said he would make it his mission to get them back to the top, to make sure he and everyone else focused on the little things. And lastly he said he thought after this humiliating season, that maybe they could get that fire back again.

Well what were the “little things” that killed that team? Stupid penalties at stupid times, receivers and the QB not being on the same page, too many sacks and pressures, but mostly just taking it for granted that they were the top team and not giving it 100% in practice.

Sound familiar?

Bryce was not the same QB this year he was last year. You could say this is because Waddle, Metchie and especially Devonta Smith moved on, but that’s not the whole story. He had way too many over / underthrown balls in situations where he shouldn’t have. It didn’t matter who the receiver was if it was uncatchable. They had way too many three and outs in critical times, way too many fumbles, way too many penalties, way too many times where other teams focused on matchups that they weren’t prepared to stop and more. Maybe there was too much rat poison and the team ate it all up. There were a ton of bad moments and bad mistakes.

It was apparent, to any logical sports person, since the early Texas game, that this was a troubled team that was coasting on it’s reputation rather than it’s skill and determination. It had the talent to dominate, but not the discipline to so. Play calling was just as hit and miss as the players themselves.

Forget excuse-makers who will say that for just one play in each of the two losses to date, it could have made all the difference, from being where they are, which is the outside looking in like a kid looking through the window of a candy store with empty pockets, to being number one.

That is the difference between this team and Bama teams that made the playoffs, they couldn’t make those two plays to be number one. They fell short because of their own short comings. In football, you never know which plays those are until the game is over in most cases, that’s why you play each play like it’s the most important one you’ll play all day. You don’t get lazy and hold, you don’t forget that your hand shouldn’t near a facemask. You don’t forget to secure the ball or try to squeeze a pass through the eye of the needle in the red zone to get it picked off costing you the three points that would have won you the game.

For those fans bellyaching for change in players, coaches or schemes, forget it! Every play call is a good one if it works, every play call is a bad one if it doesn’t. Every player is a hero when they do good and could be a chump that cost them the game when they fail.

It’s not the people. It’s the attitude. It’s about being ready to give 100 percent effort and not trying to cheat a little or get lazy a little and cause a penalty or give up a turnover.

AJ McCarron, you correctly nailed what was wrong with that 2010 team that couldn’t repeat its efforts from the year before. You, but better yet, a member of their own team, should talk to this team next year like you did to me that day in Orlando so long ago. Maybe they’re tired of Saban telling them that, maybe it’s just become background noise to them.

You called a team back to the task at hand, you rallied them back to grinding in the process, you made them feel accountable for their actions in every play once you became “The Man” at Alabama. Alabama needs another leader like you to step up.

AJ, you had a passion walking off that field for the last time as a second-stringer, knowing you were about to be the man that would be the focal point of Alabama football in a uniform, and you were not afraid to call everyone, including yourself out for the lack of discipline and accountability. Until Alabama gets that back, it won’t matter how many five-star athletes that are on the field or who is calling the plays.

Until Alabama’s team unites in that passion for the process again, their Elite days may be over. The pieces of the puzzle are all there, now it’s just all in the mind.

_{LARRY BURTON HAS BEEN PUBLISHED IN ALMOST EVERY MEDIA OUTLET FOR COLLEGE SPORTS. HE WRITES THIS ARTICLE IN A COLLOQUIAL AND IRREVERENT STYLE FOR THIS SERIES OF ARTICLES. LARRY’S VIEWS AND SENSE OF HUMOR MAY OFFEND, BUT HE AIMS TO OFFEND EVERYONE EQUALLY. IF HE HASN’T INSULTED YOUR FAVORITE TEAM WITH LARRY’S LOSERS, JUST WAIT. FOLLOW LARRY ON TWITTER FOR INSIDE THOUGHTS AND FUNNY GAME-TIME COMMENTS AT}  HTTPS://TWITTER.COM/LBSPORTSWRITER

Feel free to share this article on your favorite page