The Problem at Hand

Gentelmen. It's going to be a tough row to hoe. Just pray no one gets hurt.............and we win of course. lol

DawgSpeare wrote:

So, do we win the “battle in the trenches”? Or, do we fight to a virtual draw in the trenches (perhaps even lose that battle), and compensate for it by winning other battles?

I'll take a draw on both sides of the trenches right now.

Do we win the air attack battles, the special teams battles, the turnover battles, the coaching battles, the big play battles, the injury and conditioning battles, the red zone battles, etc., etc.

I think we'll need just about all of those.

We can't get outcoached in this game and win, IMHO. So, I hope we have a great plan to keep their Defense off-balance and a typically great Martinez plan.

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One thing to remember that should give us an advantage, especially if it's close, is that we've faced adversity in a hostile environment (SC), and the team did what they had to do to win. 'Bama has not been tested this year, so it remains to be seen how they will handle the pressure if we get ahead late.

Good point, sadler. They haven't had to come from behind and I hope Sanford Stadium is rocking.

sadlerdawg wrote:

One thing to remember that should give us an advantage, especially if it's close, is that we've faced adversity in a hostile environment (SC), and the team did what they had to do to win. 'Bama has not been tested this year, so it remains to be seen how they will handle the pressure if we get ahead late.

Yeah, we've got that going.

I like our chances, because of the intangibles, and because of Stafford if we can just hold our own against their OLine, even if Bama wins that battle say, 55-45. I think they will be able to run the ball with at least some success. So special teams are important.

I'll be happy with the performance our OLine had at ASU, where Matt had time for many of the quicker throws and we were able to run some. FWIW, I went back and graded the OLine for the first half of that game just to see and came out depressed. The OLine was actually much worse than it looked just watching the game, which is why I'm so concerned. And everybody had breakdowns and times when they were overpowered, even Boling.

I hope we've discovered some kind of clue for kickoff and kick return teams this week. We're at the point now in the season where we can no longer afford to spot the other team good field position.

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