Alabama is in a strange spot since its loss to LSU last weekend.
For the first time in a long while, there are outside questions from the media surrounding the program’s future which would easily be dismissed in the past. The Crimson Tide’s former quarterback and national champion, Greg McElroy, detailed some of his concerns on his podcast Always College Football.
“This is the first time that I have ever actually been concerned about the future of the program,” McElroy said. “I have seen them lose when people said, ‘The dynasty is over.’ I’ve seen people back in 2014 say this team will never regain their prowess and their strength. I’ve seen coach after coach after coach depart for what they might consider greener pastures. I’ve seen everything this program has endured in the last several years. And I have never been concerned about whether or not they’ve been better tomorrow than they were today.”
McElroy, who began Saban’s run of dominance by winning the national title in 2009, shared that his main concern is that there aren’t enough people in the building anymore who helped build the dynasty alongside Saban.
“Now here’s the problem right now,” McElroy said, “there are a lot of guys on that roster and a lot of coaches, frankly, on that staff that didn’t really have anything to do with the foundation of the program being created. There’s really only one guy that’s on that staff that has been there from the beginning, that has a great understanding of how this program is built and that’s Nick Saban.”
On Wednesday during the SEC coaches’ teleconference, Saban was asked about McElroy’s thoughts on the program and offered his own analysis.
“We work every day to try to get our players to play to a standard,” Saban said. “We’ve had a lot of good teams around here for a long time. We lost two games by a total of four points, both on the last play of the game. Are there a lot of things we could do better? Are we satisfied with where we are as a team? Absolutely not.
“But at the same time, sometimes when the standard is so high, there may be some occasion where you don’t quite meet the standard and the expectation that everybody has for you. I do think that standard and expectation has not been something that has helped this team focus on the right things, stay focused on the process, not get so concerned about the results but what you’ve gotta do to get the results. And that’s something that we’ve been trying to emphasize with them.”
Alabama will have an opportunity to set things back on the winning path this Saturday when it travels to Oxford, MS., to take on Ole Miss.
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Patrick Dowd is a Reporter for Touchdown Alabama Magazine. You can follow him on Twitter, via Pat_Dowd77
