Written by Ell | 15 October 2008

Nick Saban led off the Wednesday press conference by noting that Alabama had the best graduation rates in the SEC. He also noted that everyone was healthy and ready to play. For a moment, it would appear he had very little else interesting to say. Nick Saban was a single wing QB on his first team. A single wing QB never saw the football in those days - except to pull and block after the ball was direct snapped to a tailback. He compared this to the "Wild Hog" or "McClusterF&#!" that Ole Miss runs and Houston Nutt ran at Arkansas before he came to Ole Miss. He also talked about how cyclical football was. Eventually, coach Saban guarantees us, the wishbone will come back, "and they're not going to know a damn... they're not going to know a thing about how to stop it." Saban also talked about how Ole Miss usually stacks the box with eight men and tries to stop the run. He expressed concern about trying to run the ball against their stout defense. He also talked about how turnovers had profoundly effected the Rebel's fortunes. Sayeth the coach:

When you look at games, if you play well, and you do a good job, and you don't turn the ball over, and you don't give up a bunch of big plays and you don't make a bunch of mental errors, you're going to give yourself a chance to win the game.

Profound. The nickel was once again a point of emphasis this week. It seems that Corey Reamer is destined to be MIA again this week. The nickel set has been the de facto base set for Alabama this season. Monday was rough - although the coach would not admit that. He did note that we were rusty and got better as the week wore on. But we were not bad on Monday. Please don't say we were. Finally, William Vlachos (say - veh-LAY-hoos) has been working with the second team offensive line this week. This could mean any of several things. First, the Tide coaches could be looking to see if Vlachos can help us this season. It could also mean that they're unhappy with Evan Cardwell at backup center (where we've seen him before). Likely, it means the Bama coaches want to get a better look at Vlachos and understand where he will fit in on the team long term. After this season, some hard decisions are going to need to be made about who continues to be on scholarship. Guys like Vlachos who haven't seen much action, are prime candidates to be elsewhere if the staff thinks they can't contribute.

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