This isn’t your Daddy’s Ole Miss anymore. They aren’t scared to stand eye to eye with anyone. (Photo Touchdown Alabama Magazine)
Alabama’s 2013 Trap Game to Beware
By: Larry Burton
For the casual fan looking at the 2013 schedule, the early season contests against the traditionally good schools of Virginia Tech and Texas A&M might provide a tough game and then there are those who look for the LSU game to determine the SEC West this season. But if you look beyond the games that are supposed to be tough and look for the game that should worry you, look no further than Ole Miss.
Reasons the Ole Miss game could be Alabama’s 2013 trap game:
1. They’re a tough team that hits Alabama at just the right time. Last season Alabama lost to a Texas A&M team after a draining an emotional win over LSU the week before. Though they’ll play a cupcake Colorado State immediately before the Ole Miss game, they could still be in a funk after serving revenge on Texas A&M.
If they dispatch A&M in the manner this writer thinks they will, they may not take the lesser regarded but equally dangerous Rebels as seriously as they should.
2. If you listen to Nick Saban and I always listen to Nick Saban and if you believe what Nick Saban says and I believe about 95% of everything he says, then you should know that Saban said that Ole Miss was the toughest game they played last season.
So if you listened and believed that, then imagine how much tougher it could be this year, when they’re returning all but six of the 22 starters from last year including the nation’s number one recruit who will surely be a difference maker, even as a freshman.
3. Last year’s Alabama team hit on all cylinders and was still behind at one point in the second quarter 7-6 until a 99 yard kickoff return opened the floodgate on a wild second quarter where Bama scored 21 unanswered points before Ole Miss settled down and outscored them in the second half 7-6.
If McCarron would have had an off day like he had against LSU or Texas A&M last season, this was a team that could have shocked the Tide. In other words, if Alabama isn’t hitting on all cylinders and Ole Miss is, this could be a very disturbing game for Alabama fans.
4. Ole Miss is a team that believes! After some early season games getting to know a new coach, new schemes and so forth, they won all the games they were supposed to and only lost the ones that no one gave a big chance for them to win. However, of those late season lost games, they barely lost to LSU 41-35 in a game that many thought they could have easily won and you know how tough LSU was last season. They lost to a very good Vanderbilt team by just one point and ended the year by thrashing Pittsburgh in their bowl game by a score of 38-17.
This team just pulled in what may be the best class of recruits in the school’s history this past winter, they feel like they have the right coach at the right time in their history and they know they can go toe to toe with anyone and be just as physical as any team in the SEC.
They had a winning season and went to a bowl last year when nobody of note picked that to happen. They got so much better as the season went on and they feel to a man that there’s no team on their schedule they can’t beat on a good day.
The Ole Miss Rebels haven’t felt like that in a long time now.
5. And this could be the most dangerous reason, they are Ole Miss and Alabama fans and players have looked upon them no matter what the talent level is in Oxford, Mississippi, as a gimmie game.
Well this isn’t a gimmie game anymore. But don’t take my word for it, listen to Nick Saban.
Larry is an award winning writer whose work has appeared in almost every college football venue. Now he primarily writes for Touchdown Alabama Magazine. Follow Larry on Twitter at https://twitter.com/LBSportswriter
