A final perspective on Alabama’s loss to Vanderbilt comes in, and it is from the winningest quarterback in school history.
AJ McCarron, a Mobile (Ala.) native, was 36-4 as a starter for the Crimson Tide.
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He was a three-time BCS National Champion, including twice as a starter in 2011 and 2012.
McCarron was a first-team All-American, Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award winner, and Maxwell Award winner in 2013. He is Alabama’s all-time leader for career passing yards (9,019) and is third all-time for touchdown passes (77). McCarron was featured on the McCready and Siskey podcast, showing major disappointment with his Alma mater following the loss to Vanderbilt.
The Commodores earned a 40-35 upset victory over the Crimson Tide last week at FirstBank Stadium in Nashville, Tenn. Alabama entered the matchup as the top-ranked team in college football, but it has dropped to No. 7. McCarron said Vandy ‘should not be on the same field’ as ‘Bama.
@mccreadyandsiskeypodcast AJ was NOT happy after Alabama got upset by Vandy @tylersiskey #cfb #collegefootball #cfbtiktok #collegefootballtiktok #ncaaf #ncaafootball #alabama #alabamacrimsontide #alabamafootball #rolltide #rtr #fyp #foryoupage #foryou ♬ original sound – McCreadyandSiskey
“It was not even close up front,” McCarron said. “That is the thing that pisses me off more than anything, you know, and I am all for giving credit to Vandy. Vandy should not be on the same field as Alabama. Let’s just be real. It’s just athlete by athlete like they should not they should not be able to match up. And that is a bad loss. That’s the one loss you can’t have if you are Alabama on your whole season. They had a converted quarterback that was at New Mexico State with Pavia that all of a sudden swaps to tight end and he is carving them up on man-to-man coverage like that’s named Travis Kelce out there. I’m like, ‘what the hell are we doing?’ We don’t have anybody to guard this guy. I mean that big ass dude, he made some money for himself this weekend.”
McCarron continued his thoughts on how embarrassing the loss to Vanderbilt was by stating how it was 98 percent Alabama fans inside the stadium.
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“They show the wide view and they (Vandy) maybe had one little damn section,” McCarron said. “It was like the band was over here. That’s all they had. You had no crowd noise, you had nothing. It was a home game.”
McCarron does not want to blame Coach DeBoer, but he said there was a different mindset under Nick Saban going into games where Alabama played a team like Vanderbilt.
“You were going into an opposing place, and you were going to take their absolute will,” McCarron said.
“I mean like Ryan Williams. He was catching s*** for having kill everybody on his eye black. That was your mindset that it was going in. We are trying to kill everybody, you lock the gates, we are in there, and everything is getting demolished.”
Pure passion coming from McCarron as another player from the Saban era that hated losing more than he enjoyed winning.
Alabama did not have its best last week, but can it turn it around versus South Carolina?
Saturday’s matchup at 11 a.m. is crucial for DeBoer and the Tide.
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Stephen M. Smith is the senior writer for Touchdown Alabama Magazine. You can “like” him on Facebook or “follow” him on Twitter, via @CoachingMSmith.
