But it’s not just AJ. Alabama’s lineup the past 3 years has read more like a superhero comic book than a roster of young men. I mean, I wouldn’t put it past the Justice League to call on these guys when THEY need help, like Circle Button, Nico Johnson, Kuandjio(s), Jesse Williams, Kenny Bell, Vinnie Sunseri, Robert Lester, TJ Yeldon, I hear names like theirs and I get excited the same way a kid does for Thor, Hulk, Iron Man and Captain America. The volume of really good players alone means so much already, but I agree with you that talent isn’t enough.

If anybody knows that talent isn’t everything though, it’s this football team, if for no other reason than the number of times I’ve heard Saban say it, knowing the guys on that team have heard it several hundred more times.

Our schedule is brutal, opponent bye-weeks won’t help, and our toughest competition will be out for revenge, some potentially with jobs hanging in the balance. That’s a lot of incentive to beat Alabama.

That’s why I worry about injuries. I worry about the brutality and retaliation Alabama will have to face in LSU alone, not to mention Arkansas. I don’t trust it to be completely fair, but the team has the best training and prep possible for those situations. If they stay healthy, stay relatively uninjured, and keep focused the way they are these past few weeks from what I’ve read, I think absolutely Alabama can do it again this year.

I really believe this is A.J.’s team on the offense at this point. His leadership will be pivotal along with Barrett Jones.

As for the defense, the team really needs a leader to emerge who can assert himself the way a Hightower did last year or McClain did in the past.

But this year, even if the team has done some repairs or seen the damage still remaining in Tuscaloosa and West Alabama, it’s dimished a lot. It’s natural though, but the freshman wouldn’t have been there when it happened.

And the freshmen won’t be playing (much) this year. That’s why I think the players that will be on the field making up THIS year’s team will be able to repeat better than just another team that won a title, including Alabama’s 2009 squad.

I saw enough of how the volunteering and compassion from last year’s team affected them and Tuscaloosa that I can’t imagine what I didn’t see and how it helped them grow quickly into men, except I did see them become champions. I don’t think it’s a coincidence. And I don’t think they’ve lost that edge, and it’s moved from them to the younger class. I think it will be a problem the more it diminishes and as this year’s freshmen grow into juniors and seniors, but this year’s team has learned (and are teaching) so much from both the tornado and a national title.

Also, “never again.” I think that one-point loss to Auburn was the game-changer that sparked an attitude Alabama’s coaches and leaders haven’t lost since.