Legends have nothing but praise for Alabama

There’s a reason Alabama is No. 1 in the Scripps Legends Poll.

Great coaching. Suffocating defense. Efficient offense.

On Monday’s teleconference, former Tide head coach Gene Stallings broke down exactly why Alabama is so tough to beat.

“I was narrating that game to a group of people trying to get some tourism down in Gulf Shores,” Stallings said. “And as strange as that may sound, I told the group when Florida scored that first touchdown, I don’t know how the other coaches feel, but I never did like to do that offensively.”

Florida quarterback John Brantley hooked up with Andre Debose on the Gators’ first play from scrimmage for a score. Florida’s offense never found the end zone again.

“You know, all of a sudden you think the easy game’s not the easy game,” Stallings said. “I’d have rather kept the ball for six or seven minutes – even if I just got a field goal.  So, I didn’t think that first long touchdown was really going to make any difference.  Obviously, Florida lost their quarterback.  They couldn’t run the ball at all and Alabama defensively just pressured the quarterback when they wanted to, they trapped them, one of the linebackers made a great interception.  Really, they just threw the ball in his hands and he was just sort of rushing the quarterback and stopped and it resulted in a touchdown.”

Stallings said he never expected the game to be a blowout, proving just how difficult it will be to get past the top-ranked Tide this year.

“Prior to the game, I thought maybe it would be a 10-point game, I thought Alabama would win by 10,” he said. “You know Alabama can run the football.  And not only do they have one good running back, but they’ve got two good running backs.

“And when you can do that and their quarterback is basically a young quarterback but he’s not getting them hurt.  He’s throwing short passes and if he sees somebody’s covered, he’s throwing out of bounds.  They’re well-schooled.  And I’ve voted them No. 1 for the past couple of weeks.  I just don’t see anybody on their schedule beating them.”

Stallings also said that to beat Alabama, teams are going to have to win the battle in the trenches — a task easier said than done.

“The thing about it, if you really study Alabama, their offensive line is playing extremely well,” Stallings said. “If you’ll just pick up a left tackle, a left guard and just sort of watch their personnel on the line, they do an excellent job.  And another thing that Alabama does defensively that most schools are not doing is containing the end run.  You know, so many of the times, people get outside and nearly everybody’s running laterally anyway and trying to get outside.  You just don’t do that against Alabama.  They contain it on the strong side and they contain it on the weak side.”

Do you think Alabama will run the table? Let us know in the comments.

(Image courtesy of Flickr, Dhoag)

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