I just don’t know if that old maxim still holds true anymore. Oklahoma, Oregon and Boise State are offensive teams. None of them may win it all, but they’re in good shape as of today. Look at Auburn.  Fourth in the BCS. They’re all about offense. Cam Newton is the reason Auburn is 7-0. I’m not convinced this is true, but this year has been about offense for the most part. Alabama had a pretty outstanding defense last year along with a great running back and a stellar offensive line among other things. But can defenses stop the offensive explosiveness and trickeration that the Gus Malzahns of the coaching world throw at them today? I just don’t know any more.
The Saints were the Super Bowl champions last year and they won it because of offense for the most part though they made some key plays on defense to beat Minnesota in the NFC Championship game and the Colts in the Super Bowl. The Saints wouldn’t have made the playoffs had it not been for Drew Brees. Maybe it’s a great quarterback and a solid defense that wins it. That’s always been the case. A lot of people clamor for the running game and it’s important, but it’s not a blueprint for success. You win any way you can whether it’s ball control, play action or just throwing the ball down the field. A great coach figures out the best way for his team to win the football game. There’s no blanket way to do it.

Auburn’s defense has not shown itself to be very good so far. They have athletes and they have gotten key turnovers that have won games i.e. South Carolina and Arkansas, but I’m struggling with this. I still want to believe defense still wins championships, but I don’t know now.

The AU- LSU game will test the defense wins championships theory. LSU has the third best defense in the country in total defense. They have an outstanding dt in Drake Nevis who has five sacks and  11.5 tackles for loss. Ryan Baker has four sacks and 7.5 tackles for loss. Linebacker Kelvin Sheppard has 66 tackles, second in the conference and 33rd in the country. He’s all over the field. Morris Claiborne has four ints and Patrick Peterson, the more heralded of the two, has two. It looks on paper like LSU should win. But can anybody stop Cam? It doesn’t look that way right now. I think in reality defensive and offensive dominance runs in cycles with defense trumping offense when it matters. We’re in an offensive cycle right now, but defenses still make big plays that win games for their teams, Auburn has done it against Clemson, South Carolina and Arkansas creating turnovers late in those games to win them. Defense will have the upper hand in the next few years maybe even next year. Everything seems to be cyclical. Business, politics and sports. Pitching is dominant in the playoffs this year. Cliff Lee may establish himself as the greatest postseason pitcher of all time though I still think he’s got a little ways to go before he reaches Bob Gibson status.

I think Auburn-LSU will tell us if defense still wins championships. I think it does when all is said and done, but this year seems to be an aberration to that theory so far. If LSU beats Auburn it’ll be because of their defense. If Auburn beats LSU it’ll probably be because of Newton and the offense. But with the way things are going this season, the Auburn defense may just step up and shut down LSU offensively and do enough on offense to win the game. This season is just so wide open in the national race and in the SEC that you just don’t know what to expect. My first instinct last week was to maybe go with Miss State but I went with the tried and true thinking that Florida wasn’t going to lose in the Swamp again. They did. It’s tough figuring this stuff out sometimes. The home field is usually a tried and true measurement of which team will win if they’re about equal in talent.  I’m leaning towards AU right now due mainly to the home field. Will have my picks on Friday.

(Kelvin Sheppard and the LSU defense will try to contain Cam and AU offense.)

Reilly:

I think it’s time colleges and the NCAA look at that. Do you really think Julio Jones, Cam Newton and others are at college for the education? They’re not. They’re in college to play football. They spend countless hours working on football and while Nick Saban and it seems like Gene Chizik have done a good job getting their players to be productive people in the classroom, about 95 % of the players on both teams want to play in the NFL. That’s not going to happen, but quite a few of them will. During the school year, these players don’t have time to get a job and many of their parents can’t afford to give  them cash for living expenses that are not covered by their scholarships. They need financial help just to live like other college students who have parents with the financial wherewithal to provide their children with additional spending money to have a little fun.
With the agent issue now becoming a major distraction to the play on the field, let’s just give the guys $1,000 a month for the year to spend on dates, dinner, movies, ect. In a perfect world these guys would be serious about their school work, but they’re just trying to get by in school so they can make it at the next level. Let’s make it fair for them because they are putting out maximum effort for their universities. There are some exceptions like Greg McElroy and Barrett Jones at Alabama and probably some guys at Auburn, too, who are taking advantage of a college education, but they’re a small minority.

Maybe this would clean up the mess with boosters paying players and the agent issues. It may not, but it’s worth a shot. There needs to be some sort of compensation so the players, coaches and fans can focus on the fun part of the game; the actual games themselves. The players can be compensated for all they do. With coaches making these big salaries–and a lot of them earn every penny of it–it’s time for the players to have a reasonable compensation, too.

These guys want to play football and if they have to go to class, they should be compensated in some way. That’s just my opinion. There are, of course, the Stanfords (though they’re getting pretty big time now but still may keep up their standards),  the Northwesterns, the Vandys and the Dukes which still value a college education, and I’m not saying the rest of the SEC besides Vandy doesn’t. I think Nick Saban particularly does a good job with it. But the reality is 95% of the players at big time schools are there to play football, and spend countless hours doing it. Maybe to avoid the problems that come with agents and overzealous boosters, just be up front and pay these guys.

By the way, Alabama is really struggling with injuries. Fluker, Julio, Richardson all banged up. That seems to always happen to a defending champion, too: the onslaught of injuries the next year. Alabama needs to take care of business against UT and then heal up for the home stretch.

(Nick Saban does a great job of getting his players to go to class and study, but is it realistic to think that these kids care about school?)

Alabama and Auburn have had different challenges this season.
For Alabama it’s been  all about winning another national championship. Nick Saban said before the season that the Tide wasn’t defending anything, that this was a new team and a new year. You could see in the summer programs on ESPN he looked just as focused as ever on this team, this season.

But is there some complacency at Alabama this year? Saban did a lot of media appearances (commercials), had a couple of programs on ESPN dedicated to his program and him in particular and even had a documentary made about him titled, Gamechanger. He’d done what he had set out to do and that was win a national championship. It’s human nature that once you satisfy your ultimate goal you kind of relax. It’s hard to have the same enthusiasm as you had the year before when you’ve achieved the goal for yourself and your program.

And the players may be looking at their respective professional careers. Mark Ingram, Julio Jones, Dont’a Hightower, Mark Barron and Marcell Dareus may be looking ahead to their futures. That’s pretty understandable. Not acceptable to the fans of the team, but these guys would like to be paid well for busting their tails seven days a week on football.

We’ll get a more clear picture of the Tide this weekend when they play Tennessee. We’ll see if they still have the passion to win the SEC West and win it all again. I’m not sure they’re good enough this year, but if they have a strong effort against Tn, they could get their momentum back and carry it into the rest of the season. Just wondering if they’re hungry enough this year. They didn’t look like it last Saturday against Ole Miss. They looked like a tired, average team to me. I’m sure they were worn out from Arkansas, Florida and particularly South Carolina, but now not sure they have enough left in the tank this year to get it done. We’ll get a good idea of what this team wants to do with their season this Saturday. If they play well against Tennessee, they might be back in business. If not, I don’t think they’re going to win it all and might lose another in the SEC.

For Auburn, it’s all about keeping the momentum. Can Cam Newton keep putting up these amazing numbers? That’s the question in my mind. He’s got a top three defense nationally coming to Auburn and he’s going to have to do it again. LSU is going to try their best to make Cam beat them with his arm. Cam can throw pretty well, but if he has to 25 times a game that could be interesting. But Cam seems to find a way with his wheels. I don’t know if LSU can contain him as good as their defense is. You think every week the opposing team is going to stop him and nobody can. I’m a big Cam Newton fan. I think he’s the best player in the country right now. He’s got to do it once again this weekend. Another question is: Can the Auburn defense play well enough to win? The LSU offense is not Arkansas with Ryan Mallett that’s for sure, but Jarrett Lee has gotten better passing the ball and Stevan Ridley is a quality tailback and Terrence Toliver is an outstanding receiver. They’ve also got a couple of other wrs who are good.

So this will be a classic. Strength against strength. Cam vs the LSU defense. AU defense against a pretty decent LSU offense with some weapons. Will be fun.

(Do Mark Barron and Tide have enough left in the tank to make a run  the rest of the way?)