CECIL HURT: Relax, we knew this would be a bumpy ride

The University of Alabama football team is only a couple of plays away from being 5-0 on the first day of October.

On the flip side of the same coin, the Crimson Tide is a play away from being 2-3. Alabama could have lost to Arkansas without Matt Caddell’s last-second touchdown catch, just as it might have beaten Georgia or forced overtime against Florida State with one more defensive stop.

Great teams don’t dance on the edge of disaster in that way, but there aren’t a half-dozen great teams in college football these days. Even if there are more than just USC and LSU, no one expected Alabama to be one of them. In fact, most astute observers expected Alabama to be about what they are — a team that fights hard, but has little margin for error.

If the early analysis was off in any way, it’s that the defense is probably a bit better than expected, given the talent level (that’s not surprising for a Nick Saban-coached team).

The offense, meanwhile, is struggling, not just struggling to score points but struggling to control the tempo of games, something that has been pretty evident over the last 10 quarters of Crimson Tide football. (If anything, that makes the job done by the defense even more remarkable.)

The special teams, which helped matters in the first three games, have not had many sparkling moments (except for Leigh Tiffin’s field-goal kicking against Georgia ) in the two losses.

Historically speaking, that’s no surprise. Every coach in Alabama’s moden history, from the great to the near-great to the competent to the woefully overmatched, has had to endure a transition period in his first season.

It’s been said here before, but it deserves additional emphasis here. It has happened this way for 50 years. Paul “Bear” Bryant had a transition year in 1958. Ray Perkins (who actually fared the best of them all in his first year) had one that lasted into his second year. Bill Curry had one. Gene Stallings had one.

Mike DuBose had one, and Dennis Franchione had one, and Mike Shula had one, and not one of the coaches listed above came out of his initial year at Alabama with less than four losses. I don’t know whether Saban will end up with that many losses or not, though logic suggests that he will, looking at the schedule. But even if that is the case, it hardly makes him unique.

One look at UA history and another look at the roster Saban inherited, and it didn’t take a genius to know that 2007 would be a bumpy ride.

Most fans understand this. There is a vocal minority that doesn’t comprehend it, or doesn’t want to admit that they comprehend it.

That doesn’t mean that there aren’t valid criticisms that can be made. Saban makes many of them himself, takes responsibility for fixing them onto himself and, one has to suspect, he will do so or make everyone around him very uncomfortable while he tries.

That’s what good coaches do. They figure out what needs to be corrected and fix it to the best of their ability.

Their teams have a tendency to get better over the course of the season. It happened for Bryant in 1958 and Stallings in 1990 and (although his name doesn’t currently carry much cachet in coaching circles) it happened for Dennis Franchione in 2001.

That does mean some tweaking, and Alabama will do some. I couldn’t divine whether Saban’s post-game words in Jacksonville about “looking at” the quarterback position were veiled code for an imminent Greg McElroy appearance, or whether they just meant that they would try to focus on the things that John Parker Wilson does well as a starting point. The next two weeks will probably tell that story.

But “tweaking” doesn’t mean abandoning time-tested methods because of a couple of losses. Alabama fans don’t have to look far for an example. After two early season losses, gloom and despair was palpable in discussions about Auburn football. But their coaching staff simply took a deep breath, stayed with what they do best (yes, with some quarterback shuffling that may or may not have helped Brandon Cox) and things now look a lot better for the Tigers.

Alabama is in an interesting stretch of its schedule. The next three teams it plays — Houston, Ole Miss and Tennessee — will not be as good defensively as Georgia and FSU. Alabama will probably be favored in all three games. But all three opponents do have firepower. Alabama can’t expect to shut any of them out, so the offense needs to find itself or more harrowing finishes will be on the way.

By the time the off-week comes, Alabama could be 6-2 and feeling pretty good about itself. But even if it does happen, it probably won’t happen without a few bumps — and a little tweaking.

(Cecil Hurt is sports editor of TheTuscaloosa News. Reach him at

cecil.hurt@tuscaloosanews.com or 205-722-0225.)