It’s a power struggle since Saban retired. We are the beneficiaries of that good fortune. Timing is everything, and you make your own luck. It’s all coming together. The mentality? The culture? Only one way to find out. 

• This is part 2 of the forum topic started by Nathtoy123 way back in September 2023. The commentariat did their thing in quite predictable fashion all the way up to 300 comments.   
   
• Preemptive tl;dr 
   
• Most people here have read Friday’s Skull Session. It was probably your first time hearing of Bijan Robinson. Don’t feel bad, I also didn’t know what a “silent commit” was. (Man that was a shocker. Has that ever happened before? I mean geez! Drop a comment below if you’ve ever heard of it.)

Immediately what came to mind was that  age-old question: If a tree falls in the woods and nobody is around to hear it,… you know how it ends. Sadly, when I read Chase’s skully, I also knew how it was going to end. 

I was surprised instead as I read further and there was added context. I’d heard Bijan interviewed about this before, but it sounded like there was a new wrinkle. Maybe I didn’t follow closely enough before, but this part struck me as new: 

What are you talking about? I sent all my other running backs away. You were the only one I was getting.

That was (allegedly) T. Alford’s response to Bijan after he informed Tony he was now silently uncommitting. He probably didn’t tell Tony he was going to later announce publicly that he silently uncommitted and flipped his choice. 

• Chase has a way of opening wounds, and he had a two-fer this time. He reminded us what could have been while also celebrating the departure of what once was the agony of our RB coach being an extremely mid recruiter at arguably the most decorated RB program in history.

And here we are full circle back to the OP’s topic. An extremely unfair distillation of his premise is here in the author’s own words:

Just doesn’t seem like we go out and physically dominate teams as much anymore & I wonder if some of that mentality was lost when Urban left. 

Translation : “Are we soft like Charmin? Like, are we a bunch of pussies? I mean wtf, right?”

• After witnessing what we have seen, it’s fair to ask “What IS our culture? What IS our mentality? 

When T. Alford (allegedly) told all his other RB recruits they were just his “plan B” all along, that’s when he lost his job. That was our culture. That was our mentality. Plan A. What happens when plan A doesn’t work? Shit.

It wasn’t all his other misses. It was the fact that not only did he not have a plan b or c, he actually did have them, then doused them in gasoline and blasted a roman candle into them. Smooth move, Tony. Anybody else missing him to death? 

• I think Ryan Day is done getting his ass kicked. The criticism pointed at the previous hires, extensions, and promotions has been heeded. The run game won’t be shitty again. Our offensive line won’t suck again. QB?…

Woody knew something about getting his ass kicked and how it can change a man. You know the thing. I think Ryan knows too. Hopefully that’s his mentality and our culture from now on.