The Crimson and White Roundtable: Post A-Day Edition

if you follow the C&W Roundtable twitter feed it is updated when other blogs post their responses to the questions.

1. @ home… too hungover busy to make it out to the Half moon in PHX.

2. AJ @ QB, Kelly and Gibson @ WR, all of em @ RB… Fluker @ RT for the wrong reasons…

3.Marcel is a beast. i thought Fulton had good coverage on the down feild routes. maybe i was wrong?

4. yes.

5. Playstation 3 and playin fools online in NCAA football. cant wait til 2011 comes out, www.rollbamaroll.com, www.edsbs.com, booze.

1) I was at work. I made a men’s sports hours activity for this a couple of months in advance for the residents of the nursing home I work at to be able to enjoy this.

2) AJ raining the long throws was nice. I really enjoyed Star’s TD series. I wasn’t happy with julio dropping nearly every pass his way, yet I’m not sure it was entirely his fault for the drops. I was disappointed that hanks and not gibson was given the WR award for the A-day game.

3) Dareus, dareus, dareus!!! I felt demarcus millner got burned a couple times by gibson.

4) hmmm hard question. I wasn’t thinking National Championship at last year’s A-day game. Though I had very high hopes for Gmac as being a better QB than JPW. I thought Gmac would be the spark we needed for greater offensive production. WRONG (though he did great)… I don’t think anyone could have predicted the meteoric rise of the Ingram/Richardson duo. we were fretting a little over the loss of Coffee to the NFL. next year I think we have the best chance of anyone to run the tables again, but the schedule is totally stacked against us. the 6 opponents we face off of their bye weeks worries me because our hardest regular season games last year were against teams who had an extra week of preparation than us. if we pull off another undefeated regular season this year… everyone on the team deserves a bronze statue.

5) I can honestly attribute my resurgence as an avid tide fan to the arrival of nick saban. I don’t miss a single presser of his on al.com. now, I’ve always loved the tide my whole life, but ever since I joined RBR… the plethora of information about the team here has fed my interest in the team. I wouldn’t want to seem bandwagonish, but RBR makes me an educated bama fan and not just an emotional one… this is the best site around for bama fans… period! I’ll spend these dark days looking for every tid bit of info about recruits and whatever I can find on AL.com, SI.com, rivals, scout, ESPN, and RBR.com and try and make a few good fanposts and fanshots!! I look forward to articles and commentary by OTS, kleph, todd, and pete holiday.

1. I was at the game. There’s no way in hell I’m missing a chance to see Alabama play, seeing how the last time I saw them play was 3 months ago and the next time will be 5 months from now. And, I’m a sophomore here.
2. GOOD: AJ McCarron/Brandon Gibson. AJ surpassed my expectations, and Gibson was a straight play-maker.
BAD: For all the hype, I was a little disappointed in Lacy. I thought I’d see a flash of his speed or that redonkulous spin move. But then again, he did get limited snaps. Julio, on the other hand, continues to disappoint me. Albeit he’s been dealing with injuries, but I can’t make more excuses for him, as he was 100% healthy. He’s an insane athlete, not an ounce of fat on him. He’s ripped. But he’s got cinderblocks for hands. He needs to carry a football with him every minute of every day for a week, Glen Coffee style.
3. GOOD: Dre Kirkpatrick was solid at corner. Not spectacular, but he wasn’t abysmal. Marcel Dareus is an absolute monster, and I would piss myself if he ever wanted to fight me. BAD: Safety not named Mark Barron.
4. A little worse. If we played a game today against, say, Arkansas, they’d win by 2+ touchdowns. They may not have a defense, but any high-powered passing offense is going to have a field day with our secondary. But, it is ONLY SPRING, so I’m sure our secondary woes will be assuaged by then.
5. Women.

1 Watched it at home

2 What stood out the most too me was the inconsistency of the offensive line. Granted we have a great defensive line but pass blocking wasn’t that good

3 Dareus what can I say, secondary still looked raw

4 About the same, We need some major improvements in the special teams if we’re going to repeat

5 I DVRed all the games from last year and then burned them to disc. I will be watching them repeatedly

1. I watched the game at BDS, because I never miss a chance to watch the Tide play for free.

2. Brandon Gibson stood out the most on offense, hands down. There was plenty of evidence to expect A.J.’s strong showing, Mark Ingram just won the Heisman, and nobody else really stood out to me. But who saw Gibson coming? Like many others, I actually thought he might be one of the young men who would be off the team by now, but Saturday, he simply ruled the day.

3. Who stood out on defense? Pick any one of the quadrillion players who recorded a sack. Joe Pendry gets to earn his check again this season.

4. I actually feel better about our chances to repeat, but part of that is due to the fact that before Saturday, I thought we had almost no chance to do so. I still feel like we have almost no chance for a perfect season this year, but I can see us winning the title with one loss (or an LSU-ish two). The defense looks much scarier than I expected. The front seven should be better than last year (as crazy as that sounds), and my only real concern in the secondary, barring injury, is who plays alongside Barron as the other safety.

5. My favorite coping mechanism is spending way too much time at this muthaflippin’ site, but I also love my Back On Top 2009 National Champions DVD.

1. On my sofa, laptop in hand, in Omaha, NE..because I felt like it.
2. Fluker: It burns, it burns!!!
3. Dareus: He thinks he’s still in Pasadena
4. Better: There is not a tremendous drop-off on that side of the ball, but there’s no substitute for experience.
5. Stanley Cup playoffs

1. I attended the game at BDS.

2. Brandon Gibson and all the great handed RB’s were a pleasant surprise.This means our safety valve on pass plays is not only a possible big play due to the talent at the RB position, but, a high percentage pass.

3. Marcell Darius and Coutney Upshaw are huge, fast and instinctive players. I was a little surprised to see Nico Johnson playing with the second team defense. The depth there is scary and talented beyond any ever fielded at Alabama.

4. The 2010 season is one that plays out in my head just like a game of poker. The talent we need to win is in the deck. Depending on the draw of those cards and some luck Bama could win the pot. However, the looming cloud that keeps me from having complete faith in a repeat is the schedule. The six SEC games against opponents comming off their week off is really a problem. Say what you want but this may very well be the reason the if there ever is one.

5. Golf, Sex, Gardening, Watching my “Back On Top 2009 National Champions” DVD I bought at A-Day and my DVR full of the 2009 season.

1. How did you watch the game, and why?
Was meaning to go to the game, but I was sick all week. So I watched it on ESPN with my dad.

2. Who stood out most on offense, be it for good or bad reasons?
Maybe Gibson. He had a monster day. Trent was really impressive out of the backfield, and McCarron throwing the ball. The Julio drops were not a welcome sight, but all indications are that he’s been doing well.

3. Same question for the defense.
The D line in particular did well.

4. Did A-Day make you feel better or worse about our chances for a repeat in 2010?
Roughly the same.

5. With the long dark of the offseason finally upon us, what’s your favorite coping mechanism?
Nothing. I simply suffer stoically.

1-At home with the dude who goes to most of the games with me.

2-AJ is the real deal and I hope Gibson gets a chance to shine this season. I am glad that Julio is 100% healthy, now just need to transplant Joey Jones hands onto him.

3-Darius and Upshaw were the monsters Sat. Dre and Fulton showed flashes, hope they can put it all together before kickoff.

4-If we can work out a few bugs, maybe even better.

5-Internet Pron and well, you guys…

1. Had to pull an all nighter at work, so at home.

2. The one thing that keeps running through my mind is when McElroy through his Int and it wasn’t even close to the reciever. Also how he mad the TD pass to Maze shouldn’t have been that difficult.

3.Dre looks beast, and so does Darius. Our LB’s impressed me also.

4. I feel good about this season. The tandem at RB is stout (plus Lacy looks good) and our defense, while young, looks very fast and talented.

5. Watching the Braves, Golf, watching all the games from last year, and of course XBOX.

1. Had to work all day so on TIVO.
2. Good..AJ and Sims. Trent’s recieving and the overall bad ass level of our running game. Bad..O-Line and Julio’s drops.
3. Dareus,Dareus,Dareus. As far as bad….secondary.
4. About the same. It’s only spring and I’m not worried…YET.
5 Racing mountainbikes and obsessively checking this site.

1. How did you watch the game, and why?
Sat on the home side of BDS around the 20 yard line…and becuase it was Saban wanted.

2. Who stood out most on offense, be it for good or bad reasons?
Trents ability to catch out of the back field really stood out to me. He also picked up blitzes quite well. Huge improvement from last year.

3. Same question for the defense.
The sheer size of our d-lineman. This might be the most stout line I’ve ever seen at Alabama. These guys are huge but also have great speed. They will give Olines hell all year.

4. Did A-Day make you feel better or worse about our chances for a repeat in 2010?
Hard to say. Im still a bit worried about the safeties and our kicking game. I for one won’t feel “good” about our defensive back field until we actually see them in a real game. I am not worried about our O line at all. (see comments about d-line)

5. With the long dark of the offseason finally upon us, what’s your favorite coping mechanism?
NCAA ’10 on Xbox and Call of Duty