There Is Crying In Football

 

During the Washington versus USC game this past weekend, a despondent Caleb Williams went up into the stands after losing and began crying with his mother. He has faced ridicule, scorn, and questions about his worthiness of being a top NFL quarterback prospect all because he was showing emotion after seeing the goals of a national championship and conference championship evaporate in three very public and humiliating losses.

Caleb Williams is the reigning Heisman trophy winner. He has put up amazing numbers in the Lincoln Riley system at Oklahoma and USC. He has had some controversy during his Heisman campaign last year but I tend to put that towards being a brash QB who is still in his early 20s. The nail painting backfired terribly and resulted in an epic troll by the Utes. It was a teachable moment.

A lot of critics are jumping on this show of emotion as unmanly, weak, and childish. I disagree. Football is an emotional game despite what some critics are saying. USC came into this season with national championship aspirations and Williams trying to become the second back-to-back Heisman winner. He was prominently featured in the Fansville campaign for Dr. Pepper as well as the Nissan Heisman House and other NIL deals. He has a lot on his plate and was essentially an NFL quarterback balancing his football with endorsement deals. He is also 21.

According to multiple studies, the prefrontal cortex of the brain that controls the rational part of thinking is not fully developed until you are 25. That means that most young adults are straddling the line between adolescence and adulthood while letting emotions control their thinking. Throw in the fact that Williams is also taking violent hits with that and you see why he can become so emotional. 

Williams cares about the team and the goals they put forth. He is an emotional leader of the team who just had everything they had been working for all offseason dashed in the span of four weeks. He was facing a tremendous amount of pressure internally and externally and he just broke. It is completely human to break when you have reached your limits. Most people have their breaks in the privacy of their homes, cubicles, bathrooms, or cars. Williams just happened to be on national television as the face of USC football when the loss happened and cameras followed him into the stands with his mother. 

I think that people tend to lose sight of how much pressure is on the current crop of athletes. While Jordan, Favre, and Jeter were always shown with their icy demeanor under pressure, they were able to just go home and turn off the TV if they had a bad game. Now, with sports talk 24/7 on the radio, social media interactions constant, and YouTube armchair quarterbacks reacting after every game, the pressure is never-ending and almost inescapable. This is the media landscape that these young players face every day. Fandom is at an all-time high and intensity. Death threats to players for messing up are common on social media. After the Kick Six, Cade Foster had death threats. A Colorado State football player and his family received death threats after giving a hit that knocked out two-way player Travis Hunter of the Colorado Buffaloes. Fans have more access to players than ever before and it's not necessarily a good thing. 

I know I never achieved the notoriety that Williams faced but I remember being that upset after football games. My junior year of high school was very rough and we were coming off being undefeated state champions. We played one of our archrivals Mountain Brook at their stadium and lost to them for the first time in 14 games. I was despondent. I was angry. I had angry tears. Then the next game we played another heated rival in Homewood and my botched snap ended up costing us the game. I was angry and crying in the locker room because I had let my teammates down. My mother rode home with me because she was worried about how upset I was after the game. High school football in Alabama is an intense and popular thing. We had the weight of our school, fellow students, parents, and community on us. It only becomes more intense the higher levels you go. 

Caleb Williams showed that he was merely a young man who was dealing with a lot of emotions at the time. He sought consoling from his mother. There is nothing wrong with that nor is it a sign of weakness. Give the young man a break and understand that this is all part of the growing-up process. He just happens to be doing in front of an audience of millions each week. 

The Importance Of Never Giving Up

 

One of the most underrated movies of the late 90s is an homage to Star Trek and its fans called Galaxy Quest. The commander of the ship Peter Quincy Taggart, portrayed by Tim Allen, has a simple yet effective catchphrase that is said multiple times throughout the movie. "Never give up. Never Surrender." This is exactly what the motto of the Alabama team for this year has become.

Many pundits and fans had left Alabama for dead after the devastating loss to Texas on September 9th. The annual talk of how the dynasty is dead and Nick Saban cannot connect with the players anymore was featured prominently on the talk shows and columns of various publications. Then the following week, Alabama benched their starter from the first two games and got a struggle win against South Florida. Many folks throughout the college football landscape predicted a loss to Ole Miss and the descent toward mediocrity for Alabama. But somebody forgot to tell the Alabama team they weren't supposed to be any good this year.

Going through a gauntlet of Ole Miss, at Mississippi State, at Texas A&M, Arkansas, Tennessee, and LSU, the Tide became a cohesive unit. Yes, they still tend to start slowly on the first drives for Offense and Defense, but the team really seems to turn it on as the game progresses. Alabama has embraced difficulty and decided that they will #LANK. This is an uncommon thing for Alabama teams of the past to acknowledge external factors but this team seems to feed off people doubting them and their abilities. 

The story is still being written about the 2023 Alabama team and they have plenty of obstacles left in their path. A difficult 11 a.m. kickoff road game at Kentucky this weekend. A true test of Auburn Jesus at Jordan Hare to end the season. Win both of those and the game against Chattanooga, they make the SEC Championship with a shot at making the College Football Playoffs. Some pundits believe that if Alabama upsets Georgia and gets a little help, they'll be in the Playoffs only to be exposed by supposed superior competition.  Only time will tell who is right about this. But there is still plenty of football left before we even get to that point.

This team thrives on doubt. They seem to have a genuine love for each other and are holding each other accountable for actions on the field. They make mistakes but adjust and get back at it instead of lingering on the bad plays. They're preaching and walking the #Process . They without a doubt embody Commander Taggart's catchphrase, "Never Give Up. Never Surrender." I cannot wait to see how far this team will go and all they plan to accomplish. 

The C Student

 

"I enjoy coaching this team. That's not to say they're not taking years off my life. But I'm okay with it. It's fun because they've got a good spirit about them." - Nick Saban

I know it is difficult to watch this Alabama team struggle each week to win a game and that the discomfort of watching this team can sometimes get a little too much to bare. But I think this Alabama team is one of the most special and unique teams that Nick Saban has had during his time at the Capstone. This team is showing a resilience not seen by the previous two years' teams with a better roster. 

My wife and I have not been blessed with children but I'd like to think that if we were a typical family with multiple kids, we'd have an amazingly talented child who barely needed to study to get straight As and another child that worked hard but could only pull Cs. We would be proud of both of our kids. We'd support both of our kids. But if that C student put in a ton of effort and worked hard to study for an upcoming test that resulted in a B, we'd be ridiculously happy and proud of our student. If that child kept working hard and eventually made an A in the class, we would be ecstatic. We would know that our child put in a tremendous amount of effort that allowed them to make that A.

This is what the current Alabama team is. They have possibly three first-rounders on the team right now with Dallas Turner, Kool-Aid McKinstry, and JC Latham and a lot of later round talent. Jalen Milroe is not as good a QB as the four that preceded him. None of the wide receivers are what you would consider to be elite like the amazing run Alabama had from 2017-2020. But this team just works.

The Texas loss was a setback but it was a teachable moment. Coach Saban loves to preach about not wasting a failure and this team has responded. This team has busted their butts to finish games and find ways to win. While not always a pretty victory, an ugly win tops a pretty defeat every time.

We've seen remarkable improvement from the team since the Texas game. The defense in the second half since that game has given up zero points to USF, three points to Ole Miss, seven to Mississippi State, three points to Texas A&M, 15 to Arkansas, and zero to Tennessee. The offense has scored in the second half of those games 14 against USF, 18 against Ole Miss, 9 against Mississippi State, 16 against Texas A&M, 3 against Arkansas, and 27 against Tennessee. The Arkansas game is the only outlier of the run since Texas.

This team while not perfect, is a lot of fun to watch. They're not the dominant football machine we have come to expect from Tuscaloosa, but you have to love the heart. As the fight song says, "Bama's pluck and grit have writ her name in Crimson Flame." This team is full of pluck and grit. Will they win the national championship? Probably not. Will they leave it all out on the field for us the fans every game? Without a doubt. I'm proud of this team and while they may take a few years off my life, I wouldn't ride or die with any other team.