Crimson & White Roundtable; Pre Hotty Toddy

1) What will Alabama have to do in order to regroup after the loss to
South Carolina and prepare for Ole Miss?

It would seem that the team needs to learn form their mistakes and focus on the task at hand. It’s hard to put a finger on one particular thing that needs to be fixed, and thus it falls to the leaders of this team to step forward and push where needed.

There is still tremendous talent on this team. Despite the failures we saw last week, if a few things had gone differently (stopping the first third and long on their opening possession, stopping Garcia on his first down scramble, Darius making to catch for first down over the middle, executing better on second and five, etc.) then the whole game goes differently.

The time for excuses and what-ifs (if there were ever such a time) is gone. This team needs to execute – that’s what they can control – the other things will take care of themselves.

2) How does the Crimson Tide match up against the Rebels going into
Saturday?

It’s hard for me to say, because I just don’t know that much about this Ole Miss team. They have an athletic quarterback and that gave Alabama’s defense trouble last week. But beyond that, I’m just not schooled enough in what they run or have to work with.

Getting back to my first answer though, this game needs to be more about Alabama anyway. Can our guys execute? Can our guys show resiliency? Can our guys dominate play after play?

This Alabama team is deeper and more talented – I do know that much. They have more to play for. They are better coached. To me, this week, that’s the only important match up.

3) What is the biggest area of improvement you’d like Alabama make in
this game?

Focus and intensity. To continue on a theme: execution.

4) What are your thoughts on the Ole Miss mascot debate?

They missed the bus by letting the Admiral Ackbar thing go.

Seriously, and I hate to paint with broad brushes and I know that the following is not true with every single Ole Miss fan, but:

Ole Miss still represents everything that is wrong with the South. And they’re proud of that.

The elitist attitude of maintaining the Southern Aristocracy has got to die out before it makes any difference what their mascot is. Not to cast stones from glass houses – there is still an air of that at Alabama – but Ole Miss is the poster child of the “way it out to be” by their own reckoning and no one else’s. It’s as if they believe that they are the last bastion of all that is or was good with the South. Something tells me that the vast majority of them think it is a travesty that Colonel Reb still isn’t the mascot. Until they get beyond that, what does it really matter?