EMBARRASSED IN KNOXVILLE: Just an Abject Failure of a Game Plan and Performance Leaves Bama Reeling

This is the Locked On Podcast Network, celebrating 10 years of your team every day. Hey, sports fans, it's JD, the host of Locked On Cardinals. And did you know with the Discover Cashback Card, it's payback time when you earn cash back on everyday purchases. Activate and earn 5 percent cash back at different categories each quarter on up to $1,500 in purchases. That's 5 percent cash back at different places each quarter, like grocery stores, on gas, and at restaurants. It pays to Discover. Terms apply. See discover.com/five for details. The phrase utter and complete failure across the board is used all too often these days, but it fits today. You are Locked On Bama, your daily podcast on the Alabama Crimson Tide, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team, every day. I'm Luke Robinson. That's Alabama Internet legend, Jimmy Stein. This is Locked On Bama. Thanks for making it locked on the number one sports podcast network there is. This episode is brought to you by FanDuel, and I'm already seeing in the chat, people are saying, no sunshine pump. There is no sunshine to pump. There's none. There is not one good thing to take from today. Not one. It was a complete, utter, abject failure. There's no other way to put it across the board from execution. But even if the execution were good, the game plan seemed to be so dead gum stupid that I don't know what to say. I'm in favor of execution. I'm in favor. It was absolutely disgusting from start to finish. There's no other way to say it. I'm really, really sorry. I am so sorry to everybody that I said, I thought Keelan Russell was going to go off. I thought this team was going to come out with its hair on fire because I bought in. I bought in. And you should buy in when you're a fan. You should, right? But I'm embarrassed for myself. I'm embarrassed for the team. I'm embarrassed for all fans that were there. There was a good Bama contingent there today. And I was in the middle of it. I'm back in my hotel room. I was right in the middle of it. And it was absolutely, completely disastrous. Jimmy, what did you see on TV that I didn't see on the field? Well, you know, Josh calls his guy Producer Jesse. But I don't understand what all this SEC media day is in Mountain Brook. What is Bama's outlook? What about the rest of the SEC? I don't know what that means. But I do know, you see what I'm talking about? Like, well, that's producer. I'm not laughing right now. That's producer Jesse. I know. No. No. Okay. Now, first of all, let's give a shout out. There is a shout out. I thought Kane Womack's defense until the very, very end, when they were out of gas, was really good because the offense all day long put them in an impossible spot. The defense did not give up much yards or frankly, or points considering how much many points Tennessee left on the field. I'm going to pull that up right now, but defensively, Alabama was pretty good. So I don't want to hear about how the team wasn't ready to play or the team this or the team that. The defense was fine. As a matter of fact, the defense continually bailed out the Alabama offense by forcing field goals, forcing a couple of turnovers. They did get a little gasp late. And one question I have about getting gas late is, you play so many guys. How do you get gassed at all? Because you're playing the second team guys on the first and second drive of the game. How do you ever get gassed? But they did get gassed late. That's the only problem I have with the defense. I thought overall the defense was really good and the defense played plenty good enough to win today. The offense was just abysmally terrible. Abysmally, historically bad. Gene Stallings' offenses at their worst weren't that bad. Well, they had an identity. They had an identity. Gene Stallings had an identity. This one doesn't. Just offenses. Let me say this, Jimmy. I'm sorry. I'll give it back to you. No, feel free. I don't. I'm not going to. I'm going to tell you right off the bat. I'm not going to do this. Okay. And I don't want to hear anybody else, anybody say, well, if we had had Rayson Delgatti, well, if we had Ryan Coleman Williams, well, that wasn't the problem. That wasn't the problem. I mean, yeah, the offensive line got manhandled. But I feel quite certain that Rayson Delgatti had been there. It wasn't going to make a Hill of Beans difference based on what I saw. So Rayson Delgatti's injury, I mean, I want him back. Of course I do. That was so bad that there's nothing you can pin it on except for a terrible game plan. Once again, we come out and go, what? Well, we go three and out, I guess, because we fumbled. Did we fumble on our first position? I think we did, right? Yeah, we did. There was the, I can't even remember. We passed it three consecutive times to start the game. I know that. We went pass, pass, pass. My huge rant that I'm going to do is solely about how we handle the first quarter or first possession poop storm. Once again, I complained about this after Kentucky. We won the game. And if you guys remember, I was complaining about it after Kentucky. It's like Ryan Grubb. And yeah, I will rip on Grubb here because this is really bad. It's like Grubb doesn't understand the SEC or playing on the road in this league. There is a poop storm to start the game. When you start the game in an emotional stadium, the crowd is impossibly loud. The defense is playing crazy aggressive. It's a poop storm. What you want to do is run the ball and if necessary, punt. Don't lose the game in the first quarter. I said it five times this week on shows. Don't lose the game in the first quarter. They did because they come out pass, pass, pass. Hey, I don't care if you run, run, run, punt. If we had kneeled on the ball the entire first quarter, we would have been in a hole. But they come out trying to prove that they're the Houston Cougars in 1989 and it's a run and shoot. We're going to throw the ball all over the place. The exact wrong thing to do on the road in an incredibly loud place with the center making us, there has to be some level of conservatism to start the game. I'm not saying play the whole 60 minutes like that, but to start the game where you're going to get in a hole. And you did. I complained about it before Kentucky. They did. And it's like, gosh, I mean, give your guys a chance. We almost threw it through another interception like we did against Kentucky where he batted it down and caught it. We almost did that. And you're absolute, and here's the other thing. You're exactly right. And especially after we just gave up a drive all the way down the field, they kicked the field goal, our defensive finally settled in a little bit, and we go three and out to put them right back out there. I mean, what is going on? This isn't the Pac-12. I know it is, whatever. But it's in the, I was about to say there's not a Pac-12, but I guess there is. This isn't the Pac-12. This is SEC football. And when you go into another person's stadium, it ain't like Palo Alto where there's nobody in there and the ones who are there are drinking wine with their pinkies out. This isn't the way it was. This was rowdy. This was crazy. And we put this quarterback that's essentially a freshman. I know he's played some tough games, and I'm still super high on him. Don't get me wrong. But we put him in another crap position. We mean, why? We did. And by the way, I'm not going to cut. Keelan was bad. Keelan looked like a freshman today. And that's not an insult. It's not an insult to say that a redshirt freshman played like a freshman. Of course he did. I don't think the coaches helped him out. The offensive line certainly didn't. I saw Adrian Clem blowing up on the sidelines a couple of times. The offensive line was terrible. I know Tennessee's good up front. And by the way, here's one slight shout in the fan base who did not take Tennessee seriously despite the stats they put up. Because all I read all week was, well, they haven't played anybody. Well, if the Kansas City Chiefs played in the SEC, they wouldn't be playing anybody. But you know what? The numbers they would put up would be good. It doesn't matter that you haven't played anybody. If the numbers you're putting up would be the same numbers you expect of a really good team. And that's exactly what Tennessee is defensively. They're very, very good up front. Jim Knowles is one of the best in the business. And he absolutely ran circles around Ron Grubb today. That's a fact. 100%. That's a fact. But I do think once again, Alabama was ill prepared offensively to play on the road in a noisy environment when the aggressiveness on defense was going to be overwhelming, especially early. And we played right into their hands. Now Keelan, not good. Nobody needs to make excuses for him either. It was bad. Everybody on offense was bad. From DeBoer to Grub to the players, it was an offensive F-minus. Now defensively, again, I don't want to hear that the team wasn't ready, hangover against Georgia. No, the defense showed up to win. That defensive performance should have won the game, but they got no help from the offensive side of the ball. It is a loss, and now Alabama's season, in terms of making the college football playoff, is on life support. Sure, you can still make it, and you would earn it, but now you have to win out, including the game in Baton Rouge. We're already in the playoffs. Including the game in Baton Rouge. You gotta now win in Baton Rouge. To say nothing about other games, which are, I mean, obviously, Auburn just got better today. Auburn just got better today. A&M is gonna show up trying to rescue their season. The game in Baton Rouge is gonna be extraordinarily difficult because they are good. And now you've got to win out to make the playoff. And if they don't make the playoffs, it's gonna be a noisy off season for Alabama. On this podcast. But now, SOASnakeye says, this ain't on Keelan. Look, I'm not saying this on Keelan. Let me say this, though. Keelan played like crap. He played like hot crap. He was not good. It's not on Keelan. Jimmy and I both believe they put him in bad positions. Not only that, the receivers didn't seem to help him out. Rico had some nice catches, but he also dropped a few. He dropped a few big ones. I mean, where were the targets for Lottie? Let me go to Braith. That's on Keelan. That's on Keelan for sure. That's also on the game app, but let me go to Braith, and then we'll talk about some of these statistics, which are just abysmal. I think we've all been in this predicament before. You go to make dinner, you open your refrigerator, you look in there for five to ten minutes, then close the doors and think, I've got nothing to work with. 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I mean, the buddies I was sitting with, we were so convinced. Keelan and Ladi specifically were going to have big days. Also, I thought Treshawn Brown had six carries. But Ladi Brooks had three catches. I can't believe he had three catches. It was for 12 yards. For 26 yards. No, what I'm saying is Treshawn Brown, six carries, 12 yards. It's just insane. And Daniel Hill had seven carries for 34 yards, and it felt like he got a lot more than that. He was our best back today, and I felt like we didn't use him enough. A hundred percent. Especially early. I want to run the ball early, not because we would have been ripping off chunk yards, but to calm the crowd. I mean, we played right into their hands, right out of the start. And that was the most frustrating part for me. I would have told you exactly how that first quarter would have gone with that plan. You know, McIntyre, yes, he out-dueled Keelan. I'll say this. I think if Keelan had been on Tennessee today and had that game plan, Keelan would probably throw for a lot more yardage. I mean, but give Tennessee credit. They, we were kind of giving them stuff and they took it. And I think you're right about the defense. There's some people killing the defense, whatever, and I understand they shouldn't, though, because the offense put them in such bad position over and over and over again, and they stopped them a lot of times to get field goals. But then, and then when we catch a break, look, I was in the stands, I could barely see what happened when Tennessee touched that punt for some stupid reason. I still don't understand. And we got the ball and we got the ball and then we get nothing. Listen, I was all for going for it on 4th down. I really was. But we get nothing. We get nothing. I mean, I get the defense a solid B, if not a B plus, while the offense gets an F minus. I mean, I don't understand any at all criticism of the defense other than they did play poorly late and they didn't tackle great. I'm wondering if Bray Hubbard's hurt. Bray had a really poor day tackling, which is not a Bray thing. So I'm wondering if he's playing banged up, because that was a bad day for him. But defensively, again, I can't say it any louder than this. The defense played good enough to win the game. The defense was fine. The offense just continually put the defense on short fields in a terrible situation. The offense was just a flat out no show. And I realize no Ryan, no Delgatti, Josh Ford was playing ill. Josh has been ill. He was playing ill. That's not an excuse for how bad that was. I mean, Arkansas was better than that. Arkansas was better than that. That's the embarrassment. It's on one side of the ball. Now, for those that say, OK, well, that's it. We're going to, you can't make giant emotional decisions on one game and one side of the ball. But today, the offense was absolutely an F minus. The plan, the execution, it just gave Alabama no chance to win. And now the season, the season itself is a little bit of life support. You've got to win out to make the postseason. And look, I'm not going to say it's impossible. I'm just going to say, I mean, two and a half weeks ago, or actually, I guess a week and a half ago, I mean, we're sitting here going, hey, all we got to do is go two and two in this last stretch. But we thought we'd win one of the first two. And I would say this about this because I did predict, by the way, this summer, if Alabama lost to Georgia, they'd beat Tennessee. I did predict that this summer and I was wrong. So I'll own up to that because I'm wrong all the time. I'm no, hey Coach Grubb, I'm wrong too. But here's the thing. Alabama did play well enough to beat Georgia. They did. I mean, I know they didn't and that's all that matters. But you did play well enough to beat Georgia. Just some things didn't go our way. They were a little bit out of our control. But if the pass interference gets called right, if this gets called right, if this gets called right, this gets called right, you win that game. So, Alabama played well enough to beat Georgia. You didn't come close to playing well enough to win today. You weren't within a mile of that offensively. Defensively, sure. Special teams, okay. If there's an MVP today, it's Alex Asparuhoff, who I thought punted the ball extremely well. I'm surprised he didn't get Charlie Horse with how many times he had to punt. Can you get tennis knee? I know tennis elbow. Can you get tennis knee? Asparuhoff was pretty good, got lucky on a couple of bounces. But hey, that's what happens when you're puntin it really well. I thought Asparuhoff was good. Conor Talty, of course, made it because Conor Talty and Will Reichard may be the best two kickers in the world today. But offensively, F-, terrible plan. And the players that were given that plan, bad. Keelan, bad. Offensive line, terrible. Tight end group, which have formerly been dependable, terrible. Roger Seamers, get open. You didn't. Rico was OK. But still drop balls, as Luke pointed out. Offense across the board, F-, F-, and it's just, I'm not being harsh. I'm just, that's what happened. JN Chobbs, or maybe it's JND Chobbs, I don't know, 5157 says, y'all need a call-in show. No, we don't. If we had one, I'd call into bitch. To myself and then complaining enough. Let me tell you, here's some excuses. Patrick Ginnley says, excuse, excuse, excuse, over what we can't say we played worse. The game plan, the execution of a crappy game plan and then the atmosphere on the sideline was abysmal. I was on the Alabama side. It all sucked. I'm not giving anybody an excuse for anything. I'm the moron for saying I thought we'd come out with our hair on fire. I don't know what to think the rest of the way. That was disappointing too. And you know what? And again, now this, I'm not really holding this against DeBoer, but I think this is a fact. I think players take on the personality of their coach. And under Saban, and I don't want to just spend the rest of our time here making comparisons. That's not fair or even logical. But under Saban, we were very business. Saban was business, we're fiery. It was very business. Under DeBoer, DeBoer's a nice guy. He's a good coach. That's true. I don't care what we saw today. DeBoer's a good coach. But I thought we would show up in Knoxville pissed off. We weren't. We weren't. I don't think he gets pissed off. I obviously do. Most of y'all think I don't. I obviously am. So, I don't know that, I thought we would show up angry. There's like four more comments, Locked On Excuses. We sucked. Everything sucked. It all sucked. Jimmy's given the defense a B. I give him a C-. I give the offense what's worse than a F? Is there a G? I don't know. But it was awful. The coaching staff was awful. The enthusiasm was awful. The game plan was awful. There is no excuse. And this guy's this nice hoodie. But Luke quit making excuses. I don't know what else to say. Well, now they're just kind of, you know. Now they're just pulling my string. And they know they can pull it because I'm so pissed. And I kind of don't blame them. Here's another thing, Jimmy. Let me tell you this. Actually, let me go to the next break. And then let me collect myself for a minute. We'll go to this next break. And then we're going to talk about what I saw here in the stands. I want to tell everybody about FanDuel. Go check out FanDuel. It's awesome. It really is. Welcome to your most rewarding NFL season ever. Dang, sure ain't your most rewarding college season ever. Only on FanDuel. How rewarding are we talking? More rewarding than a touchdown with time expiring. More rewarding than an 18-point comeback, which we didn't have. Maybe more rewarding than an old lineman catching a touchdown, which would have been something nice if anybody had caught one. But nobody did. A touchdown with time expiring is tough to beat. An 18-point comeback is even better. But an offensive lineman catching the touchdown, that's pretty awesome. And you know what? It's awesome to be on FanDuel. The NFL gives you something new to watch every week. And now FanDuel is giving fans something new to check for every week. Too, the Rewards Club has exclusive offers and surprises, so it's worth opening the app to see what's waiting. Make this your most rewarding season ever with FanDuel. Visit fanduel.com to get started and to take your mind off this abomination today. So today, I'm in the stands, right? And I mean, I was shocked how non-combative Tennessee fans were. Maybe they thought we were going to rumble them. I certainly did and I was stupid. I'm sorry. It's my fault. Somebody actually on Twitter said, Luke, this is on you and your stupid rat poison. I'm sorry that I made the team get embarrassed. I'm sorry that that's my fault. I'm a sack full of nobody and they shouldn't be listening to me. So, but I was shocked how non-combative Tennessee fans were on my way out of the stadium. And yes, I left a little early because I came back to do this, because I'm going to take my medicine. What it tells me is the cache about beating Alabama is just gone and it should be gone. I mean, it's people just do it now. And I know Georgia lost today to Auburn and I know that like, but that's so rare. Georgia had owned Auburn for so long, they still own. They'll probably beat Auburn badly next year or whatever. But, and the big win for Alex Cooke, I'm just saying that like Kirby doesn't have losses like that. And he did today and it's going to be embarrassing and they'll probably get a million people watching their podcast too. But, you can forgive Kirby. You should. You should be like, okay, this sucked, but Kirby's Kirby. Every time I want to fall for DeBoer and every time I think I'm all in, like we do something like this. And this week even Paul Feinbaum was like, hey, I think DeBoer finally won the fans over. I think he finally did it. You know, Feinbaum was doing that. And I promise you, Paul Feinbaum is going to eviscerate this entire staff and he should. We've got to stop this. I had a text from a buddy and, you know, eight days ago, not even eight, seven days ago after the Georgia is like, we've got to stop criticizing DeBoer. He's clearly the guy. And then seven days later, it's, why is he still our coach? We've got to stop that. It can't be that from week to week. That said, Kailin DeBoer does, how many times we said on this show, Luke? Kailin DeBoer gives a lot of red meat to the supporters and the critics. He does it and he did it again. And I would love to be rid of the critics. I would love to like not talk about this. But he does hand the critics this. And it's not the loss. Have we lost 27 to 26? I wouldn't be saying, well, that's okay. It's no big deal. We came close. I wouldn't be saying that at all. We did lose 27. We got our butts kicked. Butt kicking. To a team that was 17-17 with Arkansas with two minutes left, to a team that played Auburn to a dead heat, to a team that doesn't have any real answer at quarterback or no real offense other than DeShon Bishop, who is fantastic. That's a great player. There's no question about that. But Kaylen DeBoer, for as much as you guys might want to say, I want to defend him, I don't. I'm just pointing out this. Sometimes Kaylen is great and it appears we're in great hands, and sometimes it's pretty bad. I don't know what to do with that. I would say to the loudest critics, what is your solution? I don't want to hear that it's hiring Vince Lombardi. But that said, today was just abysmal and we need to accept that it was abysmal and figure out what we need to do to win five games in a row, including at LSU. But guess what? Last year's team won like nine games in a row, so I ain't ruling out Kaylen DeBoer regrouping and winning a bunch of games in a row because he literally did it last year. So for those that say it's impossible, how do you forget what happened literally within the past year? But today, things look really dark. I think Jeff Walton says, it's not the loss, it's the way we lost. That is partially true. I mean, the loss would have stung anyway. I have no problem saying this, and somebody can say it. I still think Alabama is the better football team. They just played like total, when you give any team that kind of game plan, and then they don't execute the crappy game plan you gave them, you have no shot. I still think Alabama is better, and look, Vegas agreed with me at least. I mean, I still think George is better than Auburn, but Auburn beat him today because it's football and things happen. But man, that was so fricking bad. I don't know, it is partially the way we lost, but it's also the loss itself because we had no urgency. We had no, this was this was huge. We could have, if we win this one, then we can lose in Baton Rouge, and just win out, and we're still in the playoffs. Now we've got to win the rest of them, and all of a sudden, going to Baton Rouge doesn't look so much fun. All of a sudden, playing Auburn at home doesn't look so much fun. I mean, it's a problem, and- You play this bad offensively, play this bad offensively, Vanderbilt's in this. You play that bad, you play that bad on offense? Any other than Chattanooga, everyone is in this if you play that bad offensively. But again, I think some of it was the plan, but most of it was the execution. When Ryan Grubbs gonna say on Monday in the press conference, and I'm sure he is, and he's not wrong. He's gonna talk about the execution. That was poor. He's correct. He's also responsible for that, you know. But it was just really bad. Now, Tennessee is good, and I don't want people to overlook that. That is a fact. It's not- It's better than I thought. They're very good. Jim Knowles is as good as it gets, just like Kirby and Schumann. Jim Knowles is as good as it gets. They got dudes. Gilliam, by the way. I thought one of the biggest plays of the game was Gilliam knocking Michael Carroll back repeatedly. Not Mal. Michael Carroll. Gilliam is a handful now, and they're outside. Jackson Lloyd. I have to watch the tape again. So Jackson, I apologize if this is wrong. Felt like Jackson Lloyd gave up three of those four sacks, and y'all are like, oh, Jackson Lloyd is better than Caden Proctor. Proctor, I don't know, gave up three sacks all of last year. But I might be wrong in that, so I'm not going to be adamant about it. But the point is, terrible effort up front, terrible effort from the tight end group, which have been so good all year. It was an offensive failure as a whole, but that's Ryan Grubb's ship, and he should go down with it. Now, let's win five games in a row. As crazy as it sounds, I think we're highly capable of doing it, so let's go do it. I mean, I love your optimism. I'm not sharing it at the moment. My goal is, hey, let's try and find a way to beat a bad Texas A&M team. And they are bad, and I thought Tennessee was bad. I think Tennessee is better than I thought. George McIntyre played within himself. You know, you and I always talk about people making fun of game managers. George McIntyre was a great game manager today. And he managed the game. We didn't manage nothing. He didn't lose the game. You know who said that? Let's give credit to General Neyland. His name's on the stadium. General Neyland was the one who said, college football games aren't won, they're lost. I'm paraphrasing, but that's what he said. And that's so correct. McIntyre didn't lose the game. Keelan helped lose the game. Too many mistakes, too many bad plays. Now, what are they going to do from today forward? A&M is eminently beatable. Let's not talk about the playoff. Let's talk about beating A&M. I love this now. Now I'm getting a comment. Luke is always negative. Earlier, I was nothing but excuses. Now I'm always negative. But let me say this about that. How can you be anything but negative right now? If you're positive right now, you're Mary Poppins on cocaine. I don't know what else to tell you, because there was nothing positive about. I was there. I was in the stadium. It was complete bunk. It was God awful. Talty and Aspar Rudolph were good. Talty was good, but I mean, how do first of all, Talty was good, but how do we really mean? He made a field goal. They should have, by the way, used Talty more. DeBoer in his fourth downs. You know, I'm an optimistic guy. I get grilled for being an optimistic guy. I'm not as optimistic as Kaelin DeBoer. I know when it's fourth and one, we're not going to make it. I know we're not. He doesn't. Well, but no, fourth and one, the bosses tell us we're not supposed to go past 30 minutes. I can't help it. I'm ticked. This is helping me. If it's not helping you all, it's helping me. And if it's helping you all by laughing at me, God bless you. I hope you are. But that fourth downplay, the first one where we tried and I was all for going for it. And again, I wasn't at the game. I mean, I was at the game. I didn't get to see it on TV, so I didn't get to see a replay. It felt like it was some kind of weird anti-counter. Like we turned the hand at one way and then quickly handed it the other way or something. And I'm like, why? It was a bust. It was a bust. Coming out of a timeout, coming out of it, I mean, that was a turnover that's going to be given to Daniel Hill. And I'm not saying Daniel Hill has no, you know, blame for that. How do you have a bust coming out of a timeout when it should have been extremely clear what you were doing? And again, it just gets back to offense today. Just clear, F minus. And give me an F minus, Jacob1986UA. I said 38-14. I'm an idiot. I'm not going to predict nothing anymore without clarifying. This is stupid. Don't listen to me. Don't give me credit. I said 20-13, Alabama win. Don't give me credit. I thought I was telling people privately that I wish I was, I wish I was able to tell all you guys, I thought we were winning by two or three touchdowns because I thought we would. Boy, I was just, so I was as wrong as Luke. My official prediction was closer to that. Y'all was wrong. I was wrong. I was much wronger. But I really personally felt like I wanted to say 40-17. I'm a bigger idiot than anyone involved in any of it. Because I really felt Alabama would do that. But I thought they would show up angry. No, I thought they would show up ready to play offensively. No, I thought they understood what playing in the first quarter means on the road. By the way, how can I scream this any louder? At Baton Rouge, the same thing's going to happen. In the first quarter, when you're first possession, the stadium is going to be insanely loud. Brad Baker is going to send everything on defense. They're going to do everything to win the game right off the bat. Run the ball, punt. You'll win if you do that. But Jacob Gilmarin says, Jimmy is my biological father. I think just based on history, I have a better chance of being your biological father. I have four kids and maybe more. How old is that guy? Man, Jimmy, I don't know what to tell everybody. We will be back tomorrow. I can't say it again. I am so sorry that I predicted. I'm sorry to Tennessee. I insulted Tennessee and I'm sorry. I apologize. Hey, credit to Tennessee. I mean, I'm not above doing that. Credit to Tennessee, credit to Hypo, credit to them. They whipped our butts. They're a good team. Freakin Gillian is crazy. Deshaun Bishop's awesome. Mike Matthews, a wide receiver, heck of a football player. Credit to Tennessee. I don't want to make it all about Alabama sucks. You know, Tennessee tries to. They've got million dollar players too. But they tried to give it to us too. I mean, honestly, I mean, the dumbest play all day may have been when the guy touched that punt for no reason at all. That was the dumbest play of the day. How do we not take advantage of the gift? Couldn't take advantage of the gift. And how do we get, and by the way, I will say this one thing about the defense, why I'm not giving them an A despite maybe they deserved an A. How do we get gassed late when we play 30 players? We were playing backup players in the first and second draft. How are we gassed late? But we look gassed. That's the only thing I'll say about the defense. And I'm going to disagree one more time. Somebody says, James Galbraith says, McElroy was spinning on Monday. I don't agree with that. If anybody spins this, you should stop listening to them. I don't care who they are. If anybody spins this in a positive way, take my advice. I know it's kind of hard to take my advice. I said 30 at 14, Alabama. But take my, I'm serious this time. If anybody spins this in any positive light, never listen to them again. I don't care if it's your dad, if it's your mama, if it's your cousin, if it's Greg McElroy. This was Florida State last year, not because they're five and seven, not that, not that, but how bad they played. Alabama played better against Florida State. I mean, I'm dead serious. That is dangerous. Alabama played bad. What I'm saying is, Alabama came out of the gate. They had an eight or nine minute touchdown drive. It was really defensively. Alabama scored a lot of points. Every year, there's been one of these games where it's just been non-competitive. How is this non-competitive? How is this non-competitive? Don't say that we're spinning it. Of course, we're not. It's outrageously frustrating. Now, can they win five straight? I'm sitting here telling you they can. Of course, they can. They're good enough to do that. We got players to do that. We got players and coaches good enough to do that. I am hoping to be impressed. And they might. They might pull it off. I mean, obviously, you're favorites, you're favorites in four of these five games. The game of Baton Rouge is going to be extremely difficult. Can they do this? Of course, they can do this. I've seen them do this. So, of course, they can do this. I do not for one second think we'll win five in a row. I'm scared to death of Vandy. I mean, and I understand, I do appreciate, I do, Jim, for those who don't know, Jimmy is the nicest person on the planet. He really is. I can be, I'm 70% jackass, I'm 10% nice, and then 20% undecided. But, Luke's right a lot. Luke's right a lot. That is a fact also on the show. He's correct a lot. But I am, somebody says refs cheated Luke. I ain't going to say nothing about it because we did get owned all the way. They did use a face mask that was so bad. And then we got called for a penalty. That was kind of bad. That was out, hey, Greg Sankey. By the way, this is my big takeaway this week. I hate saying this because I never even won our own coaches, but I'm done with Sankey. And I am done. Between 2014 playoff, between the nine games and agreeing to all that, and the way he's handled officiating. And by the way, by not commenting on officiating or do anything about officiating, we get the no face mask and the block in the back that didn't happen on the same. That guy I'm done with. And see, that's the problem is we can't even bring it up because somebody said we all are blaming the officials. No, they could have called the face mask all the way down the field and we'd fumble it to one. So it doesn't matter. Had me and Luke officiated this game, we would have lost by more points. And I would have cheated my ass off for us. You can guarantee that. I would have cheated. And we still would have lost. So no, we did not lose due to the officiating. But was the officiating still bad? Well, yeah. Now, and one other thing that's interesting, I guess two other things. First of all, the other thing that's so abysmal is we miss a golden opportunity because Georgia lost a, Texas lost today. We just miss a golden opportunity to move way up. And then the other thing that went through my mind is, hey, okay, if Jimmy's right in a perfect world and we win five games in a row, so be it. This Alabama team that I saw tonight has no business in a playoff. And right now, it's going to be in a playoff. And Tennessee would too. And God bless Tennessee. Y'all kicked our ass up and down the field. I'm not saying that. That Tennessee team doesn't look like a playoff team to me. I'm not a playoff team. Today's Alabama team wasn't a playoff team. Win five in a row, and I'm right back on board. Heck, beat LSU and Baton Rouge. I'm right back on board with this is a playoff team. But boy, they got a long way to go on offense. And you got to get some guys back and Del Gotti back and Ryan back and all that stuff will help. And Josh Ford was sick. And Ryan had surgery today or yesterday or something. Yeah, a few days ago. And Terrence Green, I think also. But I'm more concerned about the guys on offense because the guys on offense, they were missed. They were missed. But today was not about that. If you think, well, Alabama was missing Ryan and Racin, true. That should have dinged us, but not like that, not like that, not to the point of making you noncompetitive, because I really think offensively noncompetitive is how I would phrase it. And I'm not saying lack of effort. Of course, it wasn't lack of effort. But noncompetitive against a really good SEC defense didn't give us a chance today. And yeah, they were missing a couple of guys, but not a good enough quote excuse like we're accused of giving here, which is crazy. There's no excuse. If we had been fully healthy, we would have gotten our butts kicked today. It was just going to be an ass whooping from smart defense. Yes, it wouldn't have made a difference. Based on what I saw today, it wouldn't have made much of a difference. It would have made a little difference, not much of a difference. And gosh, got to get a lot better. But guess what? Football gives you more opportunities than that. And we'll be right back discussing A&M tomorrow and how to dig out of this. And this is how you dig out of it. You beat A&M next week. I'm not ready to discuss A&M tomorrow. I've got... No, tomorrow we'll still be. I'm still going to be free. I'm still going to get a case of the red ass that's going to last until tomorrow. We'll bitch tomorrow. I mean, it's a 24-hour thing, right? 24-hour rule. We record the show Sunday morning, so we're free to continue to bitch about this, and we will. It's so funny that everybody... Tune back in tomorrow for more bitching. Locked on bitching. All right, I appreciate everybody tuning in. I do. I mean, if you were up to me, we'd keep going, but my body is telling me to stop. I stayed out till 2 in the morning last night. I shouldn't have. I'm an idiot for that. Raging? Did you dance at the club? I did. I was raging. I was at a place called the Wagon Wheel, if that tells you anything. Really? That's pretty cool. Did you dance? I did not dance, but I did run in. I'll say this. Shout out to Chris Stewart's daughter, who I ran into, and it's funny. I didn't know it was her, and she came... We were just talking, and she was like, do you know Brian Passing? I was like, he's a great friend of mine. I go, who are you? She goes, well, do you know Chris Stewart? I was like, yeah, I know Chris Stewart, too. She goes, well, I'm his daughter. I said, well, God Almighty. And so then, there we go. But anywho. Chris Stewart's one of the great Americans. Brian Passing's a good American, too. Not me to say he's not. And Chris Stewart loves him some time. There ain't no way he'd spin this. Ain't no way. I know Chris Stewart ain't that way. He works for Alabama. I mean, those two, that's the difference between me. We don't work for Alabama. Chris and Brian do. At this rate, I never will. We're not. All right. That's going to do it for today's pod. We'll be back tomorrow with more. Until then, I guess, roll tide, everybody. I don't know. Roll tide. Find a way to beat A&M. I believe in you. I actually do. Beat A&M. The Locked On Podcast Network is brought to you by FanDuel. 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