Bulletin Board Material Alert: Maze Says Bama Beat Selves Vs LSU

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It’s the BCS Championship Game.  There shouldn’t be any need for extra motivation.  Of course, we all know that’s never actually the case and each and every team that’s ever stepped on a field, court, pitch or rink has convinced itself that it’s been disrespected… either by its opponent or the media or both.

Well, LSU has a new disrespect card to play courtesy of Alabama receiver and return man Marquis Maze:


“What we learned (from the first meeting with LSU) is we beat ourselves.  LSU didn’t do anything to beat us.  We made mental mistakes.  We have to focus on what we have to do this game. … I think we beat ourselves.  We got in the red (zone) five or six times and didn’t execute.  We did something to stop our progression in scoring.”


No disrespect to Maze, but that’s what losers always say.

You can be sure that Saban — in order to prevent his team from doubting itself as it preps to play a team it lost to — is telling his squad exactly what Maze regurgitated back to the press.  And if LSU had lost Game One, Les Miles would be telling his boys that they beat themselves, too. Mental errors.  Poor execution.

Here’s the trouble with that — it’s extremely rare for all 11 men on an offense or defense to execute a play to perfection.  Every man doing exactly what he’s supposed to do at the exact instant he’s supposed to do it?  Rare.  But if the other squad isn’t good enough — or executing well enough in its own right — to take advantage of those errors, it doesn’t matter.

Sure, a Bama player might have failed to make a block here or turned the wrong way there.  But LSU had players in position to take advantage of enough of those errors to win that first matchup.

“We beat ourselves?”  Technically, every losing team can say that.  But in doing so, they fail to give credit to the other team that executed better than they did.  As was the case when LSU beat Alabama 9-6 on its home field back two months ago.