re: What do you think was the cause for the arse whooping in the trenches?

Number one answer is recruiting. Second - their strengths match up well vs our weaknesses. Third - they found individual tendencies that tipped off when to stunt and when not to blitz in certain situations.

The only other time I've seen us struggle was against was Chris jones of Mississippi state. That guy made a lot of plays against our line, he was the only one though. bama had 4 Chris jones playing at once, and not just on the interior.

Who was the best interior Dlineman we have played between ms state and bama? I know UF is a great D but I didn't notice any standout interior Dlineman, against us at least.

Coaches had a shite gameplan deal with it. Anyone could see on film or just by looking at stats that we weren't gonna manhandle their dline. We should've spread them out and loosened them up from the start with some quick slants, screens, and outs. Instead, we just tried to run straight at them even long after it being evident that it was not happening. We either run up the middle or throw deep on routes that take far too long to develop. Nothing in between because our scary arse coach is too scared of interceptions to chance it. We played right into their strength allowing their dline and Lbs too tee off on us without fear of being burnt by quick throws behind them. We don't have to change our whole damn philosophy to put more than two receivers on the field at the same time.

A lot of things came into play. Like someone mentioned, losing to Ole Miss didn't do us any favors (and btw, they ran at will and stuffed the run that game, too). And keep in mind they still almost came back and won, despite the 5 turnovers and one of the flukiest TDs ever (up there with the Saints vs Titans today ). They were still in it, but backed against the wall, rather than feeling all the love like we were. It was "oh, and Alabama".

All the Fournette for Heisman chatter probably rankled them too. That's a proud group, and hearing how dominant our running game was for 2 weeks, I think it stoked them up.

The earlier game against Georgia, too- they'd already faced one dominant back in Chubb, while we hadn't faced a similarly dominant defense before.

And don't forget- Chubb had 146 yds against them... because he broke an 83 yd run when Bama was up 38-3. So you better believe everyone was talking about not letting up late and letting Fournette get a cheap run on them.

Along the lines of the recruiting... it is what it is. It was Chavis' scheme to have smaller, faster defenders. That's what we recruited, and why our front 7 is so much smaller than Bama's right now. That will change with a new coordinator and recruiters, and a game like this will help shape the direction we go in recruiting.

Perhaps the gameplan was the best we could come up with; had we been able to force them into more 3 and outs, we get more possessions, and we keep hammering away with Fournette until he eventually breaks through. He had 19 carries, which was about 10 less than most of us figured. Who knows if it's a 3 pt game, and we get the ball more, if those 10 carries break through? He finally had a good run towards the end, he might have gotten more later. Afterall, that's the way the 9-6 game ended up, with us finally wearing them down. The problem was that Bama broke us down before it could happen, the same way they did in 2013. Saban eats up the Chavis smaller/faster defense with power runs.

I believe it's almost the perfect storm.

Miles is no doubt one of the best recruiters out there. We always have a ton of talent.
He's just not the absolute best recruiter in the country, and no one else besides saban is either.

Saban built his team to stop LSU, his biggest threat. Don't use LSUs performance against bama as a gauge against anyone else they play.
1: Miles' style is going to be the toughest to be successful with against bama
2 bama is more rested for us than any other team that will face them (bye)
3 bama is more prepared for us than any other team they will face. (Bye)they had two weeks to break down and drill to stop our blocking schemes.
4 bama is more often than not more motivated to play us than anyone else on their schedule.

LSU is good enough to blow out any other team in the country. Miles has us a great LSU squad this year. Saban just has a better team this year when they play their best football. We match up perfectly for them, where the talent is and our philosophies.

Wait until all these bigs uglies come in on D next year. We didn't have the depth on the edge or tackles as strong and experienced as we needed yesterday, or will have 12 months from now.
Then with the way we are getting Dlineman I see us controlling the line of scrimmage against any team in CFB for years to come.

Part of it was our lack of depth IMO.

We have a really solid starting line on both sides. Behind that....eh...lots of youth.

We'll see it change going forward.

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Along the lines of the recruiting... it is what it is. It was Chavis' scheme to have smaller, faster defenders. That's what we recruited, and why our front 7 is so much smaller than Bama's right now. That will change with a new coordinator and recruiters, and a game like this will help shape the direction we go in recruiting.

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This too. I figure next year is when we see what Steele really can do. He hasn't been GREAT this year but the D has played well enough to keep us in it. Even with big plays, the opposition has had to work for it. Couple blown plays but overall I think they've played well.

You know, I think some of it was probably stubbornness, if you want to call it that (can also be called using your best player). Now that I think about it, the one play that could have been used more often, and not too hard to try, was putting Williams at FB. He got a decent 3-4 yds on his carry from that. It almost seems like a gimmick play... but it could also be basically the old Nebraska I Bone.

Maybe, just stay in that formation, and run the belly dive with Williams more. Everyone on defense is aiming right at Fournette, he might slip through. Or, he might force them to play a little more honest. And you could still run play-action out of it, it's just using the FB more. If it looks like it's stonewalled, turn and toss the dive to Fournette as always, but make them stop Williams first. And while you're doing that, go ahead and have Dural come in motion like he does, and occasionally let him have the jet sweep once or twice.

But if we had actually ran that offense, our fanbase would have gone beserk

Grimes. Never liked the hire and they showed why last night.