Stadium filling gradually an hour before kickoff

September 06, 2008

By Ken Rogers

TUSCALOOSA—An hour before game time and Bono is singing “Beautiful Day” on the stadium speakers.
Hard to argue. The stands are filling, the early groups are warming up and the cloud formation over the east side of the stadium is eerily similar to the cloud scene on the intro to The Simpsons.
Breeze is actually cooling things off a bit, too.
With a new No. 13 national ranking, Alabama’s home opener should be pretty raucous.
The Tide played nine true freshmen last week against Clemson—starters wide receiver Julio Jones and inside linebacker Dont’a Hightower. Others included running back Mark Ingram, receivers B.J. Scott and Chris Jackson, linebacker Chris Jordan, defensive backs Mark Barron and Robby Green and defensive lineman Macel Dareus. Redshirt freshmen Marquis Maze and Chris Underwood also saw the field for the first time, as did junior college transfer nose tackle Terrence Cody.
The nine true freshmen tied Alabama for sixth nationally in participation numbers last week with Houston. Air Force, Central Michigan and Florida each played 10 true freshmen. Iowa State fielded 11. And SMU played 13 true freshmen last week.

Mal Moore encourages Tide fans to be classy

September 03, 2008

By Ken Rogers

Alabama athletics director has sent an e-mail to fans through the ticket office to show class toward Tulane when Alabama plays its home opener against the Green Wave Saturday night at Bryant-Denny Stadium.
Moore’s letter reads:

Dear Crimson Tide Fan:
For the second time in three years, the members of the Tulane football team - players, coaches, athletic department staff and their families - have been displaced from their community by a devastating hurricane.
The people of the State of Alabama have consistently opened their homes and their hearts to their fellow citizens from the city of New Orleans. As a continued show of support and respect for their plight - and as an example of the class and dignity with which the citizens of Alabama, particularly Crimson Tide football fans, have always shown - I urge all of you to welcome the Tulane football team to Bryant-Denny Stadium with an enthusiastic, warm round of applause when they take the field Saturday night.
Since it will be our first home game, I encourage you to arrive in Tuscaloosa and on campus early. Parking, as you know, will be at a premium, so if you can double or triple up with friends coming to the game, it might alleviate some of the traffic and parking congestion.
While there will be a number of people honored Saturday night, I do want to alert you that we will have a video feature on the video boards at halftime honoring John Mark Stallings. Our honorary captains will be Bobby Smith and Dave Sington, who were the permanent captains on Coach Paul Bryant’s first team, fifty years ago in 1958.
We look forward to hosting all of you this week.
Roll Tide!
Mal Moore
Director of Athletics

Saban tried to calm freshman nerves before opener

September 02, 2008

By Ken Rogers

Alabama certainly looked cool, calm and collected while whipping Clemson 34-10 Saturday night in the season opener.
But minutes before his team — including the touted newcomers — executed almost flawlessly, Nick Saban wasn’t sure how his freshmen would perform.
“We really emphasized the fact that who you’re playing really doesn’t matter — not to disrespect the other team, that’s not the point — but it’s all about them and who they are and what they need to focus on to play their best football,” Saban said Monday. “And they need to get all the other stuff out of their mind, the crowd, I even said it before the game to some of them because we were dropping balls in pre-game warmups and our guys were catching it like I’ve never seen them trying to catch it before.
“I said, ‘Look guys, you need to re-center here. What do you want to do and what do you need to do to do it? That’s the thing you should be thinking about. Not the crowd, not the environment here, not the fact that we’re playing on the road, on the turf, in Atlanta. None of its matters. And it really doesn’t matter who we’re playing relative to what you need to do to be an effective player. And that’s what you guys need to center on and that’s what you need to focus on.’
“I’m sure some of them were still nervous but that’s what we tried to emphasize with them so that they didn’t feel like they had to go out and accomplish something because of expectations or anything else.”