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Pete Fiutak

Alabama Crimson Tide Preview 2022: Season Prediction, Breakdown, Key Games, Players

Alabama Crimson Tide Preview 2022: Previewing, predicting, and looking ahead to the Alabama season with what you need to know and keys to the season.


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Alabama Crimson Tide Preview
Head Coach: Nick Saban, 178-25, 15th year at Alabama
26th year overall, 269-67-1, 2021 Preview
2021 Record: Overall: 13-2, Conference: 7-1
Offense, Defense Breakdown | Keys To The Season
Season Prediction, What Will Happen
Alabama Top 10 Players | Bama Schedule & Analysis

Alabama Crimson Tide Preview 2022

Don’t hate the player, hate the game … adapt or die … trust the process …

However strong you want to go with your cliché game, it’s really an easy formula for what might be the highest-level dominant era in the long history of college football …

Nick Saban knows what he’s doing.

He’s known for recruiting and coaching up talent to an NFL level, but what he doesn’t get quite enough credit for is his ability to change, tweak, and work with whatever he has at his disposal to keep on winning.

There was a time when Alabama won national championships with defenses that ranked among the greatest ever, and with quarterbacks who – to be nice about it – weren’t exactly Bryce Young or Mac Jones.

It was always an interesting question – what would Alabama do if Saban could get the elite quarterbacks with NFL talent to take over the offense? And then came Jalen, Tua, Mac, and Bryce.

All of a sudden, Alabama went from being the best program thanks to the D and toughness on O, to turning the college football world on its ear by cranking up the offensive side to a whole other level.

And then a funny thing happened along the way – Alabama lost the national championship to a team that essentially seemed like a throwback to the 2009 Crimson Tide.

Oh, he’ll never say it at alumni and donor functions, but you just know he’s seething that it’s a far different game in Indianapolis if Jameson Williams doesn’t get hurt and if John Metchie was able to go.

Just like Texas fans swear the 2010 BCS Championship against that 2009 Bama team would’ve been far more interesting if Colt McCoy doesn’t get injured right away.

Saban pointed to the idea that the next man up had to do the job in the loss to the Bulldogs, but that loss and those receiver injuries signaled a breakdown in the process and that’s very much not okay. Now comes the adjustment.

Bad things happen to the rest of college football when this program gets motivated by a missed opportunity. That starts with working with the system as it is, not as Saban might want it to be.

It’s a control thing. All coaches despise the slightest altering to the routine and the potential loss of anything that might be outside of their authoritarian rule, and Bama deals with that by controlling the change.

Saban might grouse about new things happening in college football, and then he and Bama will steer into the skid, accept the changes, and work them better than anything else.

He wasn’t all that happy about the early recruiting signing period – and Alabama simply moved up the timetable and got their star players sooner than normal.

He’ll shake his fist at the NIL cloud, and in another breath discuss the deal his quarterback received, all while giving a “what are you going to do?” look knowing that Alabama will be one of the places to be for endorsement deals.

He’ll comment about the transfer portal, and yet he just found his wide receivers, starting left tackle, and new star running back through it.

He’ll cause a stir by breaking into Jimbo Fisher’s kitchen to make biscuits, even though Bama will do everything within the system to take advantage of all the rules – like having a loaded coaching staff worth of assistants and parts making around $10 million a year.

All the while, the program will keep on winning.

It’ll be the preseason No. 1 team in all the polls – if it’s not, someone’s trying to be quirky – and for all the questions and concerns about the O line, and No. 1 receiver, and the penalties, and the inexperience at backup quarterback …

Nothing stops no matter how different things are going forward. The Tide keep rolling on.

Offense, Defense Breakdown | Keys To The Season
Season Prediction, What Will Happen
Alabama Top 10 Players | Bama Schedule & Analysis

Alabama Crimson Tide Preview 2022: Offense, Defense

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