Tide Tidbits – October 10, 2009

Tide meets media darling Ole Miss
No sooner had Alabama ended its football season a year ago, Crimson Tide fans circled the game of Oct. 10 against Ole Miss on the 2009 schedule. After all, the Ole Miss Rebels reeled off six straight wins to close the 2008 campaign, including a 47-34 pasting of eighth-ranked Texas Tech in the Cotton Bowl. The darlings of the national media, the Rebels were projected by some to win the SEC West. Some even gave the Rebs an outside shot at playing for a national championship. Ole Miss was enjoying attention on a national scale not seen in Oxford in nearly 50 years. Despite the Rebels’ early-season stumble at South Carolina, things really haven’t changed much. Though heralded quarterback Jevan Snead has fallen out of Heisman Trophy talk of late, he remains a threat. The Ole Miss defense is as stingy as ever. And the Rebels have not forgotten the five-game losing streak to Alabama – the last four were decided by a total of 13 points. No, things really haven’t changed. The circled date has arrived.

Nutt, No. 20 Rebels brace for full-court press from Saban, No. 3 Tide
If this big Alabama coaching gig doesn’t work out for Nick Saban – and, heh, heh, rival Southeastern Conference coaches can only hope and pray – then Houston Nutt has a suggestion. “He’d be a really good basketball coach,” the Ole Miss coach said. “He knows how to match things up.” Saban will coach football, particularly defense, at 2:30 p.m. today when his third-ranked Crimson Tide (5-0, 2-0 in the Southeastern Conference) visits 20th-ranked Ole Miss (3-1, 1-1) in a nationally televised game that will be all about schemes. “I don’t know if I could take it in basketball,” Saban said. “You run up and down the court and they score 90-some points in a game.”

Bama faces its ‘best’ opponent
Yeah, Nick Saban said it. Then he didn’t back away from it. In Saban’s mind, the best opponent No. 3 Alabama has faced this season will be occupying the other sideline today. “That’s no disrespect to Virginia Tech,” Saban said. “I think they have a really good team, and I’m not trying to make comparisons. I just think that (Ole Miss is) the best team we’ve played to this point. I think they can beat you in more ways than anybody that we’ve played.” Pundits pointed all summer to today’s matchup in Oxford. Miss., as a key showdown atop the SEC West Division. But now that it’s here, Ole Miss (3-1, 1-1) has its back against the wall after dropping its SEC opener at South Carolina. The defeat dropped the hyped Rebels from fourth nationally to outside the top 20.

ALABAMA at MISSISSIPPI
Houston Nutt and Nick Saban know each other from 10 years of battling in the Southeastern Conference and frequently refer to the other as the best coach they’ll face all season. Perhaps that’s because of the closely contested battles they’ve had over the years. When Saban was at LSU, he lost to Nutt’s Arkansas teams 14-3 in 2000 and 21-20 in 2002 before thumping the Hogs 55-24 in 2003 and 43-14 in 2004. Saban edged Nutt in a wild shootout by identical 41-38 scores in 2001 at LSU and 2007 at Alabama, then was fortunate to pull out a 24-20 win over Nutt in his first year at Ole Miss last October. Saban has a 5-2 edge after four straight wins over Nutt, but if you throw out the 2003-04 games, the average margin of victory is 4.4 points.

Alabama remembers last trip to Ole Miss
The whisky bottles were whizzing towards the field and Kareem Jackson wasn’t sticking around to watch them land. Alabama was finishing off Ole Miss 27-24 in front of a rowdy Oxford crowd in 2007 when the projectiles landed on the playing surface. “Coach told us it was going to be a crazy atmosphere,” said Jackson, now a junior cornerback. “But I didn’t expect anything like that. But once that happened, I was ready to get in the locker room.” Considering how the past two meetings ended, another tense contest can be expected. The showering bottles of 2007 followed a late-game interception the preserved an Alabama victory. Then last fall, a last-minute Rebel drive fell short of the end zone in a 24-20 Alabama win in Bryant-Denny Stadium.

Roll Tide!

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