CECIL HURT: It's over -- for now
November 30, 2003
HONOLULU | Well, it's over.
Nothing much needs to be said other than that.
A supremely forgettable season ended with a supremely forgettable game,
Alabama's loss to Hawaii followed the same script as the season. Alabama
looked good early, missed some opportunities, encountered some
adversity, missed more opportunities, then faded away down the stretch.
Mathematically, it doesn't matter much. A 4-9 record is worse than 5-8,
but not by much.
Hopefully, Mike Shula will learn from it all.
Shula's vacation, such as it is, will last only one more day, with a
Monday return to Tuscaloosa. His honeymoon, such as it has been, won't
last much longer. Expectations next year may not be at SEC Championship
levels, but they will be higher than a final record of substantially
less than .500 will support. The problems of 2003 will be attributed to
outside causes -- the weird transition, the NCAA -- if Alabama shows
improvement next season.
If not, it will be ascribed increasingly to coaching.
The Hawaii game did nothing to delay that. Alabama had a couple of good
offensive series, then went stagnant. It got back into the game on
special teams, and threw away chances to put Hawaii away. The team that
never learned how to win looked lost at the end.
The bowl ban is over. The shotgun wedding of Mike Shula and staff to
players they didn't recruit and had barely coached has ended. A season
has been wasted.
The recent turn of events at the two SEC schools nearest to Tuscaloosa
will increase the scrutiny on Shula as well. The ongoing soap opera,
"The Travails of Tommy Tuberville", has many ramifications, but one
repercussion of that resounding vote of no-confidence from the Auburn
administration is this: Alabama will be expected to pull even with, or
ahead of, the AU program in short order.
Meanwhile, if Mississippi State is able to follow through on its good
idea to hire Sylvester Croom, there will be constant comparisons between
the former player Alabama did hire, and the former player that it didn't.
In both cases, that will mean added pressure on Shula. That pressure can
only be relieved by one thing -- winning.
That starts with securing players on two fronts -- from the pool of
recruits, and from the current team. At least two important linemen,
Justin Smiley and Antwan Odom, will be looking into NFL possibilities
and Alabama would probably be doing well to retain one of them.
Quarterback Brodie Croyle is scheduled to have surgery on his damaged
left shoulder next week and his availability for spring practice will be
curtailed, at best.
Because of its Hawaii trip, Alabama's staff will lose a couple of
recruiting days next week, with the Tide coaches getting on the road
Wednesday instead of Monday. The Tide will try to make up for that by
having several prospects come in for December official visits rather
than waiting until January.
The image that Alabama will try to project to those visitors will be one
of stability. There has been no word on whether Shula will replace any
assistant coaches, or one, or two, or six. The Tide head coach is
extremely close to the vest with such information. But his attitude in
recent weeks seems to have been one that stresses continuity, and the
importance of strong coach-player relationships in a program that has
been lacking in both recently. That doesn't sound like a man who is
planning to clean house.
On the other hand, Shula does understand the importance of the coming
season. It must be approached with urgency. The 2003 season can be
forgotten, someday. The 2004 season cannot be.
~~~
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