Alabama Football Daily Insider: One More Week of Spring To Build The 2017 Tide
By Ronald Evans
Alabama football has two practice sessions and the A-Day scrimmage left in its spring season. Will 2017 team building be complete by the end of the spring season?
There was a time when getting to the Waysider early on a weekday morning was the best way to learn what was really going on with Alabama football.
In the compact dining area, all you had to do was listen. Most conversations included tidbits of information about the University and the football program.
These days there is more to be gleaned by surveying the digital landscape of multitudinous sources. The problem with this wondrous abundance of information is in separating the sense from the nonsense.
That’s where we come in. This column will endeavor to guide that process of discernment.
We’ll peruse message boards, podcasts, tweets, talk radio and numerous digital communication platforms. We’ll ferret out the most worthwhile information and offer our take on what it means.
The Daily Insider: April 16
Alabama football will practice Tuesday and Thursday and finish the spring season April 22 with the A-Day Game.
Will Alabama football accomplish all its spring goals in the final week? Or will there still be more questions than answers?
We Alabama fans have a tendency to demand instant solutions to any Crimson Tide problem. Win 14 games but lose a national championship – we expect any and all deficiencies to be identified and eradicated.
Fire a coach or two, hire others, and reload from the deepest reservoir of player talent in college football. In Tuscaloosa, any season without winning it all is unacceptable. No other college football program carries a burden equal to Alabama’s continuum of expectation.
That continuum defined is to compete for a national championship, not most seasons, but EVERY season. And the annual competing for a title is expected to deliver more national championships than not.
There is one college football coach, proven equal to such extraordinary expectation. Nick Saban is that coach. But even for this era’s greatest college football coach, some seasons bring a greater challenge.
Under the leadership of Nick Saban, there are no Alabama football seasons designated as rebuilding years. For lesser programs, rebuilding is required when a roster is young or inexperienced.
Alabama football is replacing 11 starters on offense and defense in 2017, plus a long snapper and a placekicker. Only three SEC teams, Alabama, LSU and Ole Miss return so few starters.
Alabama Crimson Tide Football
Ranked against all 129 FBS teams, 102 teams return more starters than Alabama. Most experts believe older, more experienced teams have a significant competitive advantage.
The point of today’s conversation is to suggest we Alabama fans may need to exercise some little-used patience. Alabama football may complete its spring season with many unanswered questions. The need for answers may linger well into fall camp.
As Nick Saban would say, 2017 is a new team. It will be built (not rebuilt) at some future date. That date may be late August or sometime in September or maybe early October.
We fans will anticipate and anguish over the team building process. Our patience will be tested. It may help to consider; even a work-in-progress Alabama is likely better than its September opponents.
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Alabama fans, what are your biggest depth chart concerns for the 2017 Tide? Let us hear from you. Check in with us on Facebook or Twitter