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Fresh, hot nuggets!!!!

Oct 1, 2012
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Here's what I got from my source. Wasn't as forthcoming on the players, wanted to wait till fall practice before he started making judgments. Did offer some takeaways:

Staff is very high on Jeremy Johnson as a pocket passer. He progresses through his reads nicely, and has great touch on the deep balls. The knock on Johnson is that when he's under pressure, he tends to make bad decisions. When a LB or DB blitzes, he often panics and the RBs have trouble picking it up (another issue). My source described him as a slightly better version of former Bama QB Phillip Sims. Sims had the same issues. The source added that if the OL gives Johnson good pass pro, that he can scorch the defense, but aubarn's OL is 'a work in progress'.

RBs are a mixed bag. Wayward Son has been impressive, but Jovon isn't dominating like staff had hoped he would. And Roc has nagging ball security issues. Source felt confident that running game would at least be serviceable. Could be very good.

The defense as a whole is playing much harder, but isn't grasping the schemes from Muschamp and Robinson as quickly as they would like. He added that expectations are too high for the immediate impact the defense would make. Said improvement would be there, but may only be marginal till players get on the same page with the staff.

He said that overall, those around program are expecting aubarn to contend in the West this year. If there's another 8-4 season, Harry will have some hard questions to answer in the offseason. Source said he thinks aubarn goes 9-3, but he might up that based on how fall practice goes.

I thought his most fascinating comments were about recruiting. I asked about why Harry seems to be struggling to land stud QBs and WRs. He said the general feeling from recruits now is that aubarn can't get them to the NFL. He said aubarn's track record in sending kids to the draft since Tubby speaks for itself, and teams are starting to use that against aubarn. He added that it had cautiously been floated to Harry that he might want to make his offense more 'NFL friendly' and that Harry did NOT take that very well at all.

But he added something about Saban that I hadn't heard before. He said 'Saban could really crush aubarn's recruiting if he wanted to'. He said that Saban has often times passed on in-state kids that he could have gotten with little effort, just because he would have rather had an out of state kid. Not a big deal for Bama, as they will get good kids anyway, but huge for aubarn. By letting aubarn get a few 4-star in-state kids, he not only lets aubarn get talent it needs, but helps them keep a foothold in some state high schools that they otherwise could be shut out of it Saban would slam his foot down. Saban doesn't 'hate' aubarn. When he first arrived, he placed a priority on putting a fence around Alabama, and that's a big reason why aubarn's recruiting in 2008 and 2009 was so bad. But as Bama won the NC in 2009 and started to get attention from recruits nationally, Saban started stretching out into Louisiana, Georgia and Texas, and stopped focusing as much on locking down Alabama. This opened the door for aubarn to get a few kids they desperately needed. The source said Saban could all but lock aubarn out of the state if he wanted to, but he doesn't cause Saban would rather get the best players for Alabama than kill aubarn. He added Marlon Davidson, said aubarn will get him, but if Bama made him a priority, they could probably get him. But Bama's staff has other DTs higher on their board than Davidson, so they aren't pushing for him, even though getting him would crush aubarn.

I'll circle back with him before the season starts and see how the players are progressing.
 
Great info. I'm sure the aubs will appreciate it, although I seriously doubt sidewalk sanctions follows recruiting at all.
 
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