The players for Alabama football want to turn this season around.
Alabama is 5-2 through seven games, but the Crimson Tide has not been dominant. Several athletes in Tuesday’s media availability spoke on the team getting back to doing the ‘little things’ right. Tyler Booker, a junior offensive lineman, is a leader that’s anchoring the turnaround. He is a team captain that wants to see this group make the College Football Playoff and accomplish the standard of winning a national championship. JaMarcus Shephard, the Tide’s receivers coach, spoke highly of Booker on Wednesday.
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“I was most impressed by Booker this week,” Shephard said. “Tyler Booker had a fire in him this week. He is all over every single player on this team’s rear end and every single play. He is getting in their face, pushing the tempo the envelope with each one of them, and telling them that this is the expectation. I’m not going to tell you this over and over again. You are going to do it the right way or get out.”
The Nick Saban mentality is coming out of this team at the right time. It took two losses, but maybe that was exactly what the doctor order to wake the group up. Booker leading the charge is huge and other leaders need to follow what he is doing.
Alabama’s aspirations for the CFP are not over. They are slim, but not over.
The Tide has to win out convincingly, starting with Missouri. If it handles the Tigers and smacks down LSU, Oklahoma, and Auburn, Alabama would show the CFP Committee that it is one of the best 12 programs for the playoff.
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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.
