CECIL HURT: Time's up

Nick Saban spoke Saturday night about what he calls the “24-hour rule.” It’s a team policy that dictates you either celebrate or grieve, depending on the outcome of a game, for no more than a full day.

“After that,” Saban said, “you move on.”

In the case of Alabama’s 52-6 drubbing of Western Carolina, it might not even have taken the full 24 hours to celebrate. It was a nice win for the Crimson Tide, a good way to usher in the Saban Era and a golden opportunity for lots of players to see action. But reality now lies dead ahead in the shape of … the Vanderbilt Commodores.

There is potential irony in the previous sentence. It’s kind of like a scriptwriter’s direction that reads “Indiana Jones hacks his way out of the thick jungle underbrush, only to find himself confronted by … a Teletubby.” It just doesn’t resonate with ferocity.

There seem to be two schools of thought about this year’s Vanderbilt team. One holds that, by definition, a Vanderbilt team is a Vanderbilt team and that it will act as Vanderbilt teams inevitably do, playing a tough game against Alabama before losing for no reason other than, well, that’s what Vanderbilt teams do.

The other holds that this year’s Vanderbilt team is different. Followers of this line of thinking acknowledge that Bobby Johnson is a good coach, and Earl Bennett is an All-America receiver and that the Commodores, while not necessarily championship caliber this season, are more than capable of knocking off a team like Georgia (as in 2006) or Tennessee (2005) or Alabama, even if that particular upset hasn’t happened since 1984.

Currently, I lean to the second school of thought. That’s not saying Vanderbilt — a mere five-point underdog at the moment — will win, just that they are capable of it.

I never imagined last Friday afternoon that my next two columns would contain Appalachian State references, but I made one Sunday and will make another one here.

In this day and age of college football, there is potential danger in any team that can combine decent coaching and an offense that has good wide receivers, an elusive quarterback and a reasonably solid running back.

That was what Appalachian State put on the field at Michigan last Saturday and the Wolverines contributed just enough to their own demise to make the upset happen.

Perhaps Alabama won’t be as self-destructive as Michigan was. The Crimson Tide showed no signs of being that sort of team against Western Carolina.

But Vanderbilt will put better athletes on the field than the Catamounts did. No, we aren’t talking a defense on the LSU or Auburn level but we are talking about a lot of guys with SEC experience.

They will speed up the decision-making process for John Parker Wilson when Alabama has the ball, and create match-up problems for the Crimson Tide defense when the roles are reversed.

Bennett is a problem for anyone. Richmond, Vanderbilt’s opening opponent, tried to stop him with single coverage most of the time and he set a school record with 223 yards receiving.

Now, Richmond’s cornerbacks are probably going to make fine accountants some day. Alabama will put much better defenders on the field than the Spiders. But Bennett is the real deal, the other Commodore receivers are solid and quarterback Chris Nickson is maneuverable.

Not one bit of that comes as a surprise to the Alabama coaches. They probably didn’t invoke the full 24-hour rule, or even the 24-minute rule, before turning their attention from Western Carolina to Vandy.

In fact, over the course of August, the staff might have looked ahead a little, even if it was only a peek.

The temptation on many Monday mornings during the college season is to look back, especially on a 46-point win. But this Alabama football team is already looking in the other direction — and that’s wise.

Cecil Hurt is sports editor of The Tuscaloosa News. Reach him at cecil.hurt@tuscaloosanews.com or at 205-722-0225.