Cecil Hurt Article

[DKW 86 7,441]

CECIL HURT: Tide’s season important on many levels

August 21, 2005

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There has been a good deal of discussion in recent weeks about just how “important" the 2005 football season is for the University of Alabama.

You won’t get much disagreement with the proposition that this season is an “important" one, or a “pivotal" one. There are a couple of ways to look at that. The first is that every season is “important" in its own way. If the preceding season (or seasons) were disappointing, then any given season is a chance to “turn things around." If the preceding seasons were successful, then a particular season is important to “keep things going" or “reach the next level."

In Alabama’s case, the “importance" people attach to the 2005 season is generally viewed as “a chance to show improvement." A combination of instability and NCAA sanctions made 2003 a disaster. The following season, 2004, was better, but a number of factors (including injuries) made it something less than an aesthetic success. Thus, the thinking goes, this season is important because it can show that Alabama is “moving in the right direction."

Much of that is euphemism, of course, for talking about Mike Shula. To be blunt, many Alabama fans think this is the year that they’ll be able to tell whether Shula will ultimately be a successful college coach or not. That’s why they think this year is “important." I don’t disagree with that, although some of the problems Shula inherited (or had thrust upon him) are difficult ones, and I think the Alabama administration is going to follow a course of extreme patience. Plus, it’s always risky to assign too much importance to any single season without the benefit of a little distance. Certainly, 1999 was an “important" season for Alabama football. The Crimson Tide won the SEC championship that year. As an indicator of Mike DuBose’s ultimate ability to succeed, it was an anomaly, but no one realized that at the time.

That’s a long and winding introduction to a fairly obvious point: the 2005 season, which begins in two weeks, is important. It’s important for Shula, and the players, and the fans. But it is also important from a larger perspective. As the season rapidly approaches, the tendency of football observers is, increasingly, to take a microscopic look at every tiny atom that makes up a football season. Fans (and writers) tend to worry about the excruciatingly fine details of the year. Alabama fans, in particular, worry about who the second-string right guard will be, or whether the safeties will line up eight yards off the ball. They worry about the quarterback position, and the head coach, and the managers, and all those individual items are important.

But I also think that 2005 is important in an even broader sense.

College football is going to change dramatically in the not-too-distant future. Every year, there are shifts that make themselves felt on the college fan’s Richter scale, like this year’s new, two-division Atlantic Coast Conference. There is no way to predict exactly what the changes will be, just as a geologist can’t tell you exactly when and where an earthquake will hit. But he can tell you where a fault lines lies, and where you need a strong foundation.

The Southeastern Conference, for instance, is a strong foundation. Strong, but not necessarily unshakeable. There are issues in the SEC. There is Vanderbilt’s challenging (not to say precarious) future in Division I football. There is the fact that Arkansas, geographically ad demographically, might be a better fit in the Big 12 than the SEC. That’s nothing against the Razorbacks. It’s just that anyone can look at a map, or ask an Arkansas fan how he feels about Texas, and then understand how the Big 12 might be alluring, even after a decade in the SEC.

And if just one team leaves the SEC, where does the league go? Does it simply reach out and add another member? Which school would that be?

Or, to continue thinking aloud, would one change prompt other changes? For instance -- and this is absolutely conjecture, nothing else -- what if the ACC decides, in a few years, that it wants to be a super-conference, and it wants to include Florida and Georgia in a 16-team mix? That makes more than a little sense, for more reasons than space will allow. It’s also true that in its last two expansions, the ACC has outflanked the SEC substantially.

Again, these are merely what-if scenarios. But the point is, there will be a what-if scenario that will turn into reality some day, and the strong institutions will be the ones that survive. The San Antonio Express did a great series earlier this month on the collapse of the old Southwest Conference (it’s still available on their website) and the lessons were clear. A team better be indispensable, like Texas, or it better be strong enough or shrewd enough politically to maneuver in the winds of change.

Alabama’s dealings with the NCAA over the past 10 years indicate, unfortunately, just how much political clout UA has these days. That doesn’t mean that UA will find itself cast out of the college football elite, begging for a spot in Conference USA. For one thing, progress has been made. The new management -- Dr. Robert Witt -- is an improvement. The finances have been bolstered. The Crimson Tradition fund, with a goal of raising $50 million in five years, has raised $54 million in three years and is still taking pledges.

But nothing breeds success like success. That doesn’t mean that it’s imperative for Alabama to win 11 games, or eight, or any fixed number, this season. But it does mean that 2005 is important, for more reasons than you might think.

Cecil Hurt is Sports Editor of The Tuscaloosa (Ala.) News. Reach him at cecil.hurt@tuscaloosanews or 205-722-0225.)

[rolltoomer 0]

Not a strategic comment, but maybe this is the year Shula can operate on the sidelines without turning the air blue with his immature profanity.

I wonder what his lovely wife thinks of that (and someday his children)?

[tiger88 934]

I hope he cusses up a blue streak including lots of f's and mf's when he's at Jordan Hare. This will, of course, come out of total frustration.

[Points 2]

a few years ago Cecil Hurt said that CTT was a average coach at best then he compared Tub's to Dubose. I wonder if he still feels the same. I personaly have no respect for Cecil Hurt.

[tiger88 934]

I don't care for him either. If I had to choose between listening to him being interviewed on the radio and getting a tooth drilled on it would be a toss up! He is so slow and monotone in his responses it is just painful. I pray for his family that his voice doesn't betray his true persoanlity, lol.