We are in Week 5 of
college football and today the University of Louisiana-Lafayette Ragin’ Cajuns
travel to T-Town to play my beloved Crimson Tide.
ULL last played Bama on
October 6, 1990 on their home turf and lost.
Neither Billy Napier nor Nick Saban were the head coaches. These two schools have played each other 8
times beginning in 1941. The Tide has
won each time.
I’d be a fool if I said
ULL can’t beat Bama, after all, in 1996 the Cajuns knocked off the Texas A&M
Aggies 29-22. That was then, and this is
now.
Louisiana-Lafayette brings its No. 126
rushing defense in the nation to Tuscaloosa to play Saban Murderball. Coach Napier, who
worked at Alabama under Saban on two different occasions, will see his former
mentor dial it down rather than first downing the Cajuns to death.
Against the Bulldogs of Mississippi
State, the Cajuns were pummeled 56-10 with QB Nick Fitzgerald tossing the
pigskin for 243 yards. That tells me Tua
leaves the game early on and Jalen Hurts takes over the offense at the half.
ULL is being paid a guaranteed $1.25
million for this beatdown.
The Cajuns’ mascot “Cayenne” better keep
his head on a swivel lest he find his way into the pot of chili Bama will be
cookin’ up today.
The Tide’s home opener
against the Wolfies of A-State promises to be a lot like a soap opera episode.
Everybody got their
panties in a wad last week when Coach Saban “snapped” at ESPN’s Maria Taylor
during her post-game interview.
She asked Saban what he
learned about each of his quarterbacks after watching them play. "Well,
I still like both guys," he said of Tagovailoa and Jalen Hurts. "Both
guys are good players. I think both guys can help our team, alright? So, why do
you continually try to get me to say something that doesn't respect one of
them? I'm not going to, so quit asking."
All the Bama haters condemned
Saban but Taylor, appearing
on the “Paul Finebaum Show” said, “I
understand that at times coaches get heated and there are things they don't
really want to talk about. As a sideline reporter, you're in the line of fire
and I just got lit up once. And that's fine. And I received a call from Saban
even before I got to the highway leaving the stadium. That's how passionate he
was about getting the apology out. It wasn't after he heard a backlash about it
or negative talk, it was how he felt immediately in that moment. And I'm so
thankful, and I respect him for making that call.”
"It's all good.
I'm going to see him again. We're going to be fine. Things happen and I know
that we both put it behind us and hopefully everyone else can as well. I know
how great Alabama is. I know how great Coach Nick Saban is and I enjoy being
around his program. I will continue to enjoy being around his program."
According to Aaron
Suttles of The Athletic, QB Jalen
Hurts is expected to redshirt the 2018 season sitting out the balance of the
year and then transfer.
If true, it would confirm gossip from people and players around
the program. The word on the street has been that Jalen’s father, Averion
Hurts, has been the issue for the past nine months. Averion does not
recognize his son’s limitations.
Today’s game will be
the first meeting between Arkansas State and the Crimson Tide since 2008 in
which the Red Wolves were shellacked 35-0.
Head Coach Blake Anderson told KAIT-TV
he’s seeking a “signature victory”. He
said his team is going into Bryant-Denny Stadium with a plan to win. “We’re going to be outmatched in a lot of
areas and we’ll have to maximize every ounce of talent that we have but, uh, we
just have to be better than them for one day and really, just for 60 minutes.”
Senior QB Justice
Hansen completed a school record six touchdown passes and recorded 454 yards
total offense to help lead Arkansas State to a 48-21 victory over Southeast
Missouri State. Not only did Hansen’s six passing touchdowns break the A-State
record, they also tied the second most in Sun Belt Conference history and tied
the most this season by any player in the nation.
Former Bama Head Coach
Gene Stallings once said, “If you think there’s such a thing as an unimportant
game, just try losing one.”
To that end, the Red
Wolves have one of the nation’s most prolific offenses and QB Hansen could
start at just about any SEC school. They
run plays at breakneck speed and possess a wide array of looks and
options. They are anything but a cupcake
team.
A-State is 2-57-3 against
teams currently in the SEC and the ESPN Matchup Predictor gives the boys from
Tuscaloosa a 98.2% chance of victory.
Will the Red Wolves be kryptonite to Bama’s Hawaiian Superman? I say no. Not even.
The stage has been set.
Tonight at Camping World Stadium in Orlando, FL the Tide will face off
against Bobby Petrino’s Louisville Cardinals.
The game will air on ABC at 8:00 PM Eastern.
Louisville has battled the boys from Tuscaloosa exactly three
times. The series record is 2-1 favoring
Bama. Cards fan will tout their victory
over the Tide in the 1991 Fiesta Bowl, but that was when Howard Schnellenberger
was their coach. Coach Saban came to
Bama in 2007.
You’ve undoubtedly seen the Snickers™ candy bar commercials
like the 2010 version
featuring actors Betty White and Abe Vigoda getting throttled on the gridiron
and then being given a Snickers™ to transform them into their true selves after
being told, “You’re not you when you’re hungry.”
Somebody needs to give Petrino a Snickers™ because he was
obviously delusional when he said at the team’s kickoff luncheon, “I believe we’re going
to go beat ’em, so I need everybody else to believe that. And we will go beat
’em.”
The Cards no longer have Lamar Jackson under center. The Tide, according to Bleacher
Report, will play both Jalen Hurts and
Tua Tagovailoa at QB tonight. Tua
appeared in 8 games last season completing 63.6% of his throws for 636 yards,
eleven TDs and two INTs and who can forget the heart-stopping Hail Mary pass to
DeVonta Smith giving Alabama its fifth national championship in nine years
against a feisty Jawja Bulldawg team?
ESPN’s Matchup Predictor gives Alabama an 86.5% chance of
victory. That’s pretty bold.
Outmanned and
outgunned, the Cards will have a hard time with Bama. Their personnel losses
are substantial this season and it will be hard for them to replace the players
that have moved on. Only one of their top five tacklers is returning and only
four of the top 10 are back. That means that there will be a lot of
inexperience for the UL defense this year and while, in time, those guys may
learn the ropes, asking them to jump into the fray against the likes of Alabama
is sketchy at best.
There’s simply no
comparing the defensive talent fielded by Alabama with the roster for
Louisville. Since 2016, the Cardinals have finished 38th, 34th, an 32nd nationally
in recruiting, a far cry from the perennial top-ranked recruiting classes
customary in Tuscaloosa.
