Tide gets back to the basics

TUSCALOOSA — Alabama didn’t play a game last week, but several Crimson Tide players feel they’re better positioned for the second half because of it.

“The bye week actually went pretty fast,” defensive end Lorenzo Washington said Monday. “I’ve been sore and aching a little bit. I’m definitely refreshed. My body feels good.”

Alabama (6-0, 3-0 SEC), ranked No. 2, starts the last half of the regular season at home Saturday against Ole Miss (3-3, 1-2).

While the players did have the weekend off, players and coach Nick Saban said they got some good work done before heading home.

“We certainly tried to spend a lot of time on fundamentals,” Saban said Monday. ” In a day in age where a lot of people think it’s what you do and not how you do it that determines whether you’re successful or not, we’re still old-fashioned in terms of how you do it is still pretty important.”

That meant a lot of film review — and it surprised some players.

“You actually don’t see it when you’re out there practicing,” safety Rashad Johnson said. “It’s more when you get on the film and the coach says, ‘See this?’ He went back to some older film and showed where we were doing it ... a lot better than we were later on in the season.

“We’ve been lucky the other team hasn’t noticed because some of the plays, the opportunities they had.”
Tight end Travis McCall said he learned a lesson last week.

“In Game One, I was setting right on pass rushes and this past game I didn’t set right and got a little pressure,” McCall said. “But that’s what we’re working on now, getting back to the basics.”

Javy Arenas wasn’t exempt, either. He called it going back to basics.

“We kind of got away from that,” said the cornerback and return specialist. “It’s Game 6. We were on it in Game 1, Game 2, Game 3, but it starts to go downhill. Not that we totally lost it, but we weren’t as good. My technique from Game One to now hasn’t been exactly what it was.”

Saban said the Tide also spent at least one period each day preparing for things they’ll see down the road that they haven’t seen to this point — like Ole Miss’ wild Rebel offense.

“Obviously, their wildcat stuff, or whatever you want to call it, is something that is uniquely different and we did spend a little time on that,” Saban said.

But the main emphasis was on fundamentals — on “tightening up everything,” as running back Roy Upchurch put it.
Washington said he felt the team used its time productively.

“In the past, prior to Saban, I always felt like — and maybe it’s me getting older — but bye weeks in the past was like, ‘Come on, hurry up, let’s get this over with. We can be playing,’” the junior defensive end from Atlanta said. “We had three really, really good practices.

We really got after it last week. We all went home, enjoyed being at home, but we gotta take care of business this week.”
Saban stressed the need for maturity from his team.

“To have the foresight and understand the things that you need to do, so that you can continue to improve, get better as a team, play better as a team and build on a season is really the key to success,” the coach said.

“The bye-week is over and everybody is healthy, so everybody is ready to go.”

TV timeout: CBS has elected to use a six-day option for the Alabama-Tennessee and Georgia-LSU games on Oct. 25.
Based on this week’s results, CBS will select one of those games for its 2:30 p.m. national broadcast. The other game will be telecast on ESPN at 6:45 p.m.

It will be Alabama’s fifth appearance on national television this season.

This week’s game against Ole Miss is also a 2:30 p.m. kickoff on CBS.

Wild ending: Ole Miss and Alabama games have been close the past three seasons. The Tide has won by three points each year. But little compared to the wild scene at the end of last year’s 27-24 victory.

A replay call correctly nullified a long Rebel completion in the final minute. Fans showered the field with cups, bottles and nearly anything they could get their hands on.

“There were girls’ shoes on the field,” quarterback John Parker Wilson recalled. “It looked like high heels. I couldn’t believe it.”
Accessories aside, Wilson said there’s not reason to expect anything but a close game this Saturday.
“They always play us good, just like everybody else,” Wilson said. “My sophomore year we won in overtime. Last year, the last-second drama. So we’ve got to come out and do what we’ve been doing.”