(OK, here goes my "just about over now, one last roll-of-the-dice", here-comes-NEXT-season analysis/epitaph to 2015. Just so I've warned y'all:
WON'T likely happen, but what I'd LIKE to see is for Mac and Nuss to throw something wild at 'em.
Be the anti-Muschamp: Some sort of "beyond Wildcat" offense, Treon+ANY/ALL-available-ATHLETE in backfield on any given offensive play, run/throw/fake/handoff/lateral/flee-flik among options, or apparent ones, on every play. With D so depleted, BOTH lines in disarray, ONLY chance is for us to out-SCORE our next 2 opponents...THAT won't happen without a drastic change (tactical and strategic) in the use of our available personnel.
This game, in this way, then becomes also a dry-run "proving ground" for what would amount to our Doomsday/End-of-Line/End-of-Season "desperation offense", further refined in the SEC Championship Game against an even stronger opponent--and would give Saban and Co. a lot more to consider and prepare for too.
If we get a little healthier on the D-line as days and weeks go by, well, it all might help give us a chance--at least to ultimately make a game of it against the Tide. As things stand, we might even beat Girl's School on guts and defense alone, but without drasyic change we look right now to be headed ultimately for annilation against Alabama no matter what happens tomorrow.
So lets see about going out and WINNING this one outright, and in so doing maybe setting ourselves to follow it up strongly in that "next one": Throw Jimbo and his squad a real curve (not to mention the "smart money", Alabama strategists and the whole college football world) and BLOW EM UP with a new, aggressive offense.
Treon DOES have strengths, real athletic skills, even if (for whatever reasons) he doesn't seem to learn or grow with experience. Need to use what he and ALL the guys around him DO have, use it all in some new and inventive ways. I think he, and they, can do that much, at least for a game or two.
Now, I'm NOT so hopeful or enthusiatic about all this in the long run, even going into next season. With no QB "new guy" in sight so far, we look to be "out of the picture" as far as anything but a "late run at respectability" NEXT season by the time Grier gets back. Would LIKE to think Mac and Co. not only see that (certain they do) and can pull something hopeful OUT of that mess, but we can't in any way count on being in the kind of position we are STILL in this season even now: In spite of everything--without reliable QB, kicker, O- or D-lines, for crying out loud!--no matter what EVERYONE at large and in the media thinks and or says, no matter what every one of even US knows is "likely", it hasn't actually HAPPENED yet, Sooooo...
Can we change a future we appear to be careening inevitably towards? Only with a bold move, a wild bet on, well, not just one throw of the dice, but a "let it ride!" STRING of such throws.
I say, "Why NOT?!!" It'll probably be at LEAST TWO seasons, two YEARS from now before we're in a position anything like this one again, able to WIN our way to a place in the Football Final Four by our own hand. However "technical" that supposed "control over our own destiny" may now seem, seems we should give ourselves a shot at it. If that requires a "LONG SHOT", well so be it. In a weird way, it kind of frees us, allows us the room to take the kind of chance that "little to lose, everything to gain" sometimes produces history.
Of course, I don't expect anything but the slow-death, hopeless stuff I cover above to be what actually happens. But I will cheer rabidly, happily go down in flames and love our Head Coach for ever more if he were to say to hell with the odds, with how "things are supposed to be done", just go for it, let it FLY. Make it fun again, for his guys, and all of us.
