Tide Tidbits - September 11, 2008

Saban's Sophomore spike
Call it the "Year 2 Bump" or "Bounce" or any other fancy name. No matter how you refer to it, statistics do suggest teams often have major improvements from a coach's first to his second season on the job. Five prime examples work in the SEC. Florida's Urban Meyer, Georgia's Mark Richt, Alabama's Nick Saban, Arkansas' Bobby Petrino and Auburn's Tommy Tuberville all saw substantial jumps in their win totals from their first to second year at either previous or current stops.

College Football Beat
Alabama expects to play most of Saturday's game against Western Kentucky in its nickel or dime defense. The Hilltoppers often feature three- and four-receiver sets, necessitating the scheme for the Crimson Tide. "This is a big challenge for us," Saban said. "They're really similar to West Virginia in how they run the ball, with option and zone reads. And sometimes, it affects the next week in terms of getting back to basics."

Tide's man is a
Trimmed down to 365, NG Terrence Cody still big pain for opponents. He told them so. He called school after school, trying to get someone to Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College to see the incredible sophomore he had on his defensive line. There were reasons, of course, to pass on Terrence Cody. His classroom history was suspect, a reason he played only two years of high school football. Big schools can deal with that, but more alarming was Cody's massive size: 420 pounds, give-or-take. Believe it or not, there is such a thing as too big for the game of football. Cody first experienced it as a youngster when he was deemed too large to play Pop Warner football in his proper age group. Now much older, he was again viewed as too big to play.

Freshmen make an impact
There’s a longstanding belief in the National Football League that every rookie who gets significant playing time translates into one loss during the season. Good thing the same doesn’t hold true at the collegiate level because otherwise the University of Alabama would have been looking at a winless year.

Roll Tide!