That was not good, folks.
Although respected commentators such as the RazorBloggers and our own KevinHog have made valiant efforts to find the positive in Saturday's humiliating loss to Alabama, the fact is there's not a lot of upbeat stuff to say (my personal favorite was Kevin's comment that the team plane landed safely back in Fayetteville).
I suppose it's some tiny sign of improvement that we went from a 49-14 loss (at home) last year to 35-7 this year, but frankly distinguishing between two butt-kickings isn't what anyone had hoped for three games into the season. The defense seems pretty helpless, the offense regressed and, worst of all, Bobby Petrino admitted after the game that the team didn't feel like it could win this one. Ouch!
For what it's worth, our ace soothsayer Rasputin did predict that the Hogs would be 1-2 at this point, so we shouldn't be too surprised by these developments. But, the nature of the losses - particularly this last one - has been a little shocking. And, since Rasputin made his prognostications we've seen upcoming opponents Texas A&M (undefeated), Auburn (in the midst of full-blown Chizikmania), South Carolina (knocked off the allegedly top 10 Ole Miss last week) and even Mississippi State (threw a big scare into LSU) exceeding expectations. Winning all those games suddenly looks really tough and we still have Florida, Ole MIss and LSU to contend with.
Suddenly the game this Saturday against the undefeated Aggies is looming larger than ever. A win would soothe a lot of bad feelings and put us back on track with a lot of football yet to be played; a loss would send the Hogs (and, even more so, the fans) into a spiral that could be tough to pull out of. So, with that in mind we'll close the book on an ugly loss to the Tide and focus our blogging mojo on A&M...if you have any final thoughts, please share 'em in the comments section.