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Alabama Football: Is Alabama’s Football Program Experiencing the Fatigue Factor?

Alabama Football: Is Alabama’s Football Program Experiencing the Fatigue Factor?

Larry Burton, Syndicated Writer

Is the rest of the nation getting fatigued with all the success that’s been coming Alabama’s success?

Is the NFL draft just one more straw that could break the camel’s back when it comes the Alabama fatigue factor?

What is the Alabama fatigue factor?

Well if you’re not an owner of Crimson Tide gear, you may not even have noticed that this national fatigue factor is growing with each Alabama and Nick Saban success.

But is does exist and it is growing.

In the BCS era, no team has dominated every aspect of success as Alabama has, not in recruiting, not in putting guys in the NFL in the first round and certainly not in BCS appearances and overall success.

Alabama is quickly approaching the same fatigue factor many felt in NASCAR until this past season… Anybody but Jimmie Johnson please.

It’s not that Johnson wasn’t deserving, was smug or cocky with his success, but it was just tiring.

The same is true for Alabama.

Alabama is far from cocky or smug, they are deserving, Saban simply outworks other coaches much in the same manner that his team is willing to simply outwork their opponents.

But the country with the exception of the Southern states, were already in SEC fatigue when Alabama started their ascent to the top.

Has that fatigue already reared its ugly head and cost members of the Crimson Tide already?

Most think so.

Last season I asked Trent Richardson if the fact that two men from the state of Alabama had just won the Heisman Trophy back to back would hurt him with the voters.

In typical Richardson humbleness, he said it was more important to him to help the team win games than worry about influencing voters. He said, “It is what it is. It’s like Coach Saban tells us, you can only worry about things you have control over and I have no control over what those voters think.”

But for a running back that even detractors would have to admit had at least the kind of year that Mark Ingram had when he won, if not better, one would have to wonder if voter fatigue cost Richardson at least the few votes he needed to perhaps swing things his way.

Then there was the national backlash over not wanting Alabama to get another shot at LSU for the national championship. People across the country including the media were all saying, “They had their shot, I’m ready to see someone else take on the Tigers.”

Even stories that talk about Nick Saban’s recruiting success often mention the over signing debate. Should Saban and men in Crimson continue to ride the rising Tide to top, expect more stories to include the word but.

Yes Alabama is good, BUT…. (and inject your own statement there, like, but they’ve been on probation for what seems like 25 years, or but the way Nick Saban runs off bench riders, they should be. And the list could go on)

The fatigue could eek into every conversation and Alabama’s detractors will likely pounce on every small mistake and magnify every short coming.

Still don’t believe that the rest of the nation is getting sick of Alabama?

Then look at some of the early favorites in the 2012 polls that place USC, a team that hasn’t won their conference since the 2008 season. That means this is a team that still hasn’t tasted a championship in any form for the most part.

Yet they jump Alabama.

Then there’s Oregon, who proved they couldn’t even beat the the most beatable SEC representative in a BCS game in many years when they played Auburn and lost by a field goal.

This is the same “powerhouse” that trips every year playing teams they were supposed to beat. In 2009 they lost three games and gave up 36 points to an absolutely terrible Purdue team in a 38-36 win.

In 2010, they averaged almost 58 points a game until they played teams that knew how to play basic defense. They squeaked by USC 15-13 and lost to Auburn, only scoring 19. But they are supposed to be an SEC killer.

In what lifetime?

And last year, with a trip to the national championship on the line and a top three ranking in the preseason polls they were gut stomped on national television, thoroughly embarrassed by the same LSU team that they claimed they “deserved” to matched with instead of Alabama.

Could anyone outside of Oregon explain how a team that was beaten 40-27 in a game that really wasn’t that close, deserves a rematch over a team that lost by three, but only after missing a ton of field goals?

But they did indeed seem to have shot to get that rematch, at least until they choked at home against a number 18 ranked USC yet again.

And the last bit of proof that perhaps Bama fatigue is this. LSU only crossed the 50 yard line once in their last game with Alabama. The Tide thoroughly and deliberately ripped apart LSU’s dreams in a 21-0 route.

They lose nine starters from that team, yet they are ranked ahead of Alabama.

Right now the voters, the media and the nation are just tired of Alabama.

And the Bama fans are just loving it.

 

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Larry Burton
Business owner and sportswriter. Credentialed for three years by the University of Alabama and others. Interviews coaches and players regularly after games and in the off season.
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