Tide Tidbits – April 21, 2009

Ranking the nation’s top coaches
It’s Urban Meyer’s world. Everyone else is just coaching in it. Meyer has enjoyed a meteoric rise to the top of this chart. When this decade dawned, Meyer was the wide receivers coach at Notre Dame under Bob Davie. When will Meyer get bored by all of this and scamper off to the NFL? Or perhaps he’ll be lured to Notre Dame, his “dream job,” and restore the Irish to national prominence. Whatever is in his future, know this: It’s good being Urban Meyer, college football’s coaching king. Here are the top 30 coaches: (Saban #3)

Melick: Sounds like Saban has joined Tide’s “cultural problem”
Remember how this spring started, with Nick Saban going off on one of his rants about how Alabama fans need to get their unrealistic expectations in line? Remember the whole “cultural problem here in terms of expectations and all that stuff” speech? Saturday, in the quiet of the team locker room after the madness that has become A-Day in Tuscaloosa, Saban threw gasoline on the fire. “We can be an outstanding team,” he said. He said that, even though he was not happy with the way his first defensive unit played in Saturday’s scrimmage. But by now you know that when Saban is hard on somebody, it’s because he believes they can give him more than he’s getting. And there is every reason to believe Alabama’s defense this fall will be very, very good.

Brian Motley finishes Crimson Tide spring practice on high note
Brian Motley didn’t know his assignment for Alabama’s A-Day game until hours before the kickoff. “I didn’t know until (Friday) I was going to be with the starting ‘O,’” the Autaugaville native said. Motley was somewhat of a surprise starter at right guard, lining up with the first-team offensive line on the Crimson squad and helping his team to a 14-7 win over the White team on Saturday.

Alabama’s spring practice is over… what did you learn?
Before Alabama began spring practice — on March 13 to be exact — we asked five questions regarding the Crimson Tide’s tasks for the ensuing 15 workouts. And as you remember, we asked you guys what position battles were the most important. Now that it’s all over, we took another look at those five points of focus to see how UA did answering them. Not bad, actually. From my article in today’s Birmingham News… Here are the questions and answers:

Game Recap: How Alabama Fared In Its Spring Game
The game that so many fans anticipated started out with some rain drops, but is that going to stop Alabama fans from coming to the spring game? I think not. The 84,500 fans that were there all saw something special from the get go. They got to see former players in a flag football game before the game started, and one of those players was Tyrone Prothro. I was very impressed with Prothro’s speed after recovering from a badly broken ankle. Besides seeing Tyrone Prothro in action again, I saw some things I liked and didn’t like at the A-Day game.

Five answers to recap Alabama spring football …
“The biggest thing that we have to overcome here right now is, OK, nobody is pushing you off the cliff,” Saban said. “Your back’s not up against the wall. You’ve proven that you can be a pretty decent football team. What’s your inspiration and motivation moving forward to continue to want to be successful and be as good as you can be?” So what was learned during the spring’s 15 practices? We asked five key questions heading in.
1. Who is the next starting quarterback?
2. Which players go where on the offensive line?
3. Is the featured running back on campus yet?
4. Who is the next Rashad Johnson?
5. What is this team’s identity?

Roll Tide!

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