First off, I'm not working today so the mimosas are flowing.
There's been a lot of ink spent on how the teams with byes have fared and while I mostly chalk that up to the better teams winning (Texas and Penn State were clearly better than their opponents and nobody is playing better than Ohio State right now), but the bye teams have been outscored 42-3 in the first quarter.
Both Saban and McAfee said they'd rather play a home game than get a bye
When people mention rust, they're usually talking about slow starts offensively. That's a benefit to us because 1) we've been slow starting all season and 2) this isn't the same offense.
Gunner doesn't have a ton of starts to then shut down the engine and then try and restart it, he's essentially being thrust in from the moment Carson went down. He's had to ramp up during this break, as opposed to an entrenched starter focusing on recovery and down time.
TL;DR - we can't start any slower than we have offensively all season and this is, by default, a different offense than we've had this season.
There's been a lot of ink spent on how the teams with byes have fared and while I mostly chalk that up to the better teams winning (Texas and Penn State were clearly better than their opponents and nobody is playing better than Ohio State right now), but the bye teams have been outscored 42-3 in the first quarter.
Both Saban and McAfee said they'd rather play a home game than get a bye
When people mention rust, they're usually talking about slow starts offensively. That's a benefit to us because 1) we've been slow starting all season and 2) this isn't the same offense.
Gunner doesn't have a ton of starts to then shut down the engine and then try and restart it, he's essentially being thrust in from the moment Carson went down. He's had to ramp up during this break, as opposed to an entrenched starter focusing on recovery and down time.
TL;DR - we can't start any slower than we have offensively all season and this is, by default, a different offense than we've had this season.