The last time Alabama faced a team from the ACC things did not end so well. Last January, Clemson ran the Tide clean out of the state of California. Alabama looks to turn the tide (pun intended) this Saturday in the season opener against the Duke Blue Devils. It’s safe to say Duke is not Clemson. It’s safe to say that Alabama is not the same Alabama team they were in January. And that is a good thing (if you are an Alabama fan).
All off-season Nick Saban has spoke on “not wasting a failure” and getting back to the “Bama way”. So what does he mean by all of that? Not wasting a failure is pretty self-explanatory. So let’s talk about the “Bama way” or sometimes called the “Bama factor”. What exactly is the Bama way?
Do you remember when teams feared Alabama? Remember when Alabama could run the ball at will against anyone? Do you remember when Alabama’s defense would step on the proverbial throats of their opponents offense until, in some cases, the other team laid down and quit? That is the Bama way Nick Saban is speaking of. Nick Saban simply wants his team to get back to being the bullies on the block.
The necessary changes were made to weed out the dead weight, or as Saban so eloquently put it, “energy vampires”, whether they were coaches or players. The players seem focused and coach Saban seems to be in mid-season form, delivering a couple rants already.
Duke does not measure of favorably against the Tide to begin with. If Saban has the boys moving back towards the “Bama Way,” things could get ugly in Atlanta pretty quick.
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