CECIL HURT: 2006 season summed up in 60 minutes of disappointment

Sometimes, a moment of clarity comes like a soft light, with the sounds of an angelic choir in the background.

More often, though, it just kicks you in the teeth.

Almost since the opening kickoff of 2006, observers of Alabama football have been waiting for a single defining moment, some way to attach a handle on a slippery season.

For some people, enlightenment had already come as the tough road losses (and the lackluster home wins) began to mount. For other people, there was still uncertainty. If Alabama wasn’t an elite team in the Southeastern Conference – and that much, at least, was obvious to all – then there was at least room for discussion of where, precisely, this edition of the Crimson Tide really stood.

There is no debate any more. The defining moment for 2006 came knocking early on Saturday, kicked down the door and outplayed Alabama on its home field.

Furthermore, the defining moment was wearing the maroon and white colors of Mississippi State.

That’s happened to other programs and other coaches in the recent past.

Most didn’t survive long afterwards. See Ron Zook.

That’s taking nothing away from Mississippi State or Sylvester Croom. If anything, the fact that it was MSU who exposed Alabama’s 2006 team, once and for all, provided a stark contrast for those who need such contrast to see clearly.

It was easy to argue that Alabama couldn’t really be expected to blow out Duke or Florida International, or to win at Arkansas or Florida. After all, there have been scholarship limitations, and injuries, and inexperience. All that can be said, truly, about Alabama.

But the thing is, it’s true about Mississippi State, too. State has had NCAA sanctions, not as bad as Alabama’s, but bad enough. It has had a rash of injuries. It’s had off-the-field problems. And the program that Sylvester Croom inherited from Jackie Sherrill was an utter disaster.

Still, in the face of all those obstacles, Mississippi State has managed to actually improve.

The Bulldogs still aren’t great, by any means. But they are better than they were last year. They are better, by far, than they were when the 2006 season started. They looked motivated and prepared on Saturday.

Can Alabama make any of those statements about its own program this morning?

So this Tide’s season, even with two weeks remaining, has been defined, fully and completely and beyond the dispute of the final holdout.

It’s a disappointment. It’s a step backward for a program whose sole mission is to climb back to the top. An unlikely late-season upset of LSU or Auburn would soften that verdict, but would not change it.

It’s a disappointment, not because Alabama is now 6-4, although, given the schedule, that’s certainly part of it. It’s a disappointment, not because Alabama isn’t even assured of going to a bowl game (a 6-6 record makes them eligible, but if the SEC doesn’t qualify two teams for the BCS, Alabama won’t necessarily get an invitation with that mark.)

It’s a disappointment because Alabama hasn’t gotten any better. If anything, things have gotten steadily worse. Yes, there were prognosticators who expected an average season, and a record around .500. What no one anticipated was a season when Alabama was playing on a par – maybe not worse, but certainly not demonstrably better – than the worst teams in the SEC, the perennial residents of the league cellar. The Crimson Tide played Vanderbilt, Ole Miss and Mississippi State, all at home. Alabama won one by a field goal, won another in overtime and probably wasn’t as close as the 24-16 final score indicated in the third one.

The solutions, if there are to be any, haven’t changed. It starts with the head coach looking into the mirror, then extending the same scrutiny to every other member of his staff. The problems still seem to be primarily on the offensive side of the ball, which is not to exempt the defense from its fair share of the ample Saturday blame. But (and this is the only statistic I will cite in this column, since it essentially says it all) – Alabama has not scored an offensive touchdown against Mississippi State in over two years, in more than 125 minutes of football.

That’s why I don't dispute Shula's decision to play for a touchdown on the last play of the first half. Yes, it was risky, but what good was one more field goal going to do?

Shula at least alluded to some tough self-examination of himself and his team in his postgame comments.

“I know we’re a better football team that we played out there today,” he said. “Now, we’ve got to find out why we’re not where we need to be.”

I’ve said before that Shula deserves the chance to turn things back in a positive direction, but it now imperative that he do so quickly.

Alabama isn’t where it needs to be. That was expected this season.

The real problem is that, after Saturday, Alabama isn’t even where it was when the season started. And that, more than anything else, is troubling.

Cecil Hurt is sports editor of The Tuscaloosa News. Reach him at cecil.hurt@tuscaloosanews.com or 205-722-0225.