"i'm not even supposed to BE here today"


a full 24 hours have now passed, and perspective casts a long but necessary shadow over any conversation that's to be had about alabama's football season. we'll start with the way i played bama's season out to be, best case scenario, in my head prior to the clemson game. 8-4. that was where i had them, with losses to preseason top-twelve teams clemson, georgia, lsu and auburn. two of those games were on the road, one at a neutral site and one against a rival that no one saw internally combusting three weeks into their season. i felt like alabama had made good strides last year, in spite of a couple bad losses. the promise of tomorrow (and by tomorrow, i mean next year and the next) was bright with the arrival of julio and his five and four star buddies to campus. but, jp wilson was still the quarterback. the team lacked the speed at important positions that i felt would cause concern against established teams not just coming out of probation-era quicksand. i thought they would compete hard. but i didn't think they would be able to "break through". not this year. tennessee was trending down too. i thought "we" could take them on the road. that would be our upset, our big win same as it was last year. we'd close the season in atlanta again in the chick-fil-a bowl against georgia tech or miami and we'd start looking forward to 2009 with division and conference championships being realistic possibilities.

dammit, i am happy i was dead wrong.

the season was different in so many good ways. alabama was just as fast and way tougher than clemson. after the inevitable letdown and struggle with tulane, the team found it's sea legs again and did what good teams are supposed to do and broke both western kentucky and arkansas' will early in both games. by the next monday, alabama had found it's way into the top ten but whispers of "overrated" were still being heard. then came the shot heard round college football that was the first half against a blacked-out number two georgia. everthing clicked. glen coffee and mark ingram continued to do their damage. julio had his coming out. jp made his best pass of the season and the rest of the game was just a blur. i hear georgia poured on some garbage points, but my memory doesn't serve me how. kentucky was much more of a struggle than it should have been. the product of a young team that felt like they had done enough for a team like kentucky to roll over coming into bryant-denny. they didn't, but alabama escaped. instead of "overrated", you started hearing things like "good teams find ways to win." and other media cliches usually reserved for good teams having bad weeks. was alabama really a good team? or was the conference down? maybe a little of both, but the second half of the season would suggest more of the former. alabama quieted the critics again with a sound and sure victory over tennessee. homecoming was homecoming. then came the lsu game, the one game out of my four predicted losses that i was sure alabama did not have a chance in. i felt better about it the saturday of, but my worries proved themselves true when alabama couldn't get out of their own way offensively and could not capitalize on the dreadfulness that was jarret lee. if bama had escaped out of the kentucky game, they would leave baton rouge with one pound less flesh than they arrived. but they won. the final two games of the season were coronations on one hand, executions on the other. the team methodically ran two teams off of the field and two coaches out of town, bringing their indirect effect on the unemployment line tally to three for the season. and they were 12-0. holy. hell. they still weren't the fastest team in the country, nor the deepest. but the injury bugs of the sec graciously remained in auburn and athens all season and no bama player of consequence missed any more than two games. andre smith proved the prophets correct and earned his first team all-american spot. the offensive line had developed into a top five in the country unit. arenas grew into a threat, no longer satisfied to only be a jitterbug. mt. cody, too, was all-sec. so was rolando mclain. rashad johnson. antoine caldwell. glen coffee. julio jones was freshman all-american. hightower, freshman all-sec. role players emerged to a level of consistency i would have never expected out of bobby greenwood or nick walker or roy upchurch. the defense, on the whole, was the third stiffest in the country. the offense just efficient enough on some nights, explosive on others. the 2008 season wasn't destined to be a stepping stone, like so many, including myself, thought. it was an announcement. and it was loud.

tim tebow was the difference last night. yes, arenas had his worst night of the season on the biggest stage. yes, the play-calling on alabama's first drive of the fourth quarter was reprehensible at best. but make no mistake, the difference last night was that alabama started jp wilson at quarterback. florida started a heisman trophy winner and a young man that may eventually be remembered as the best college football player of all time. jp wilson did not win a game for alabama all year. he also did not lose one. for a senior managing a squad around him that constantly reflected a team whose sum was greater than it's individual parts, perhaps no greater praise could be offered. tim tebow on the other hand? without his best player (think of what bama would have been last night without julio.) and weapon, it felt like tebow, alone, decided he was going to win anyway. that's not to say he didn't have other weapons, but it was tebow that will get the deserved credit for the win and for leading his team to what i hope will be an ass-kicking of biblical proportions over oklahoma for the national championship.

what a season this was! how unexpected and satisfying to see a team unite under the direction of a very driven coach with a very concentrated goal of seeing his players become the best that their potential will allow them to be. how wonderful it will be to see another recruiting class add even more depth to a team that will come back loaded next year and the next.

alabama is going to the sugar bowl against a less-talented version of florida. should be interesting to see if the collective focus is lost against a team that alabama will likely be more than a touchdown favorite against. i hope not. 13 wins sounds quite sweet. a top five finish in this year's polls leading to a preseason top ten next year. the season went by painfully fast this year. then again, time does fly when you are having fun.

a "roll tide" and a "good show" to a very understated but no longer undervalued football team. thanks for the memories.