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A spread passing attack certainly would have more issues playing in AA in the snow than in the dome in New Orleans.
So "built for cold weather" does have some validity.
IMO, its not so much an issue of scheme, although it does factor in...anybody who's laid a hit on a dude when its 30 degrees knows its quite different than doing so when its 75, or even 55 though. As is throwing or catching a pass, fielding a punt, running hard into a gap, getting up after being hit forcibly out of bounds, or even just standing around while the offense is out of the field.
There is nothing magical of biological about it....in time the human body acclimates. But it doesn't happen in two days.
True...but it doesn't have to snow to be cold. (I know: Newsflash! Film at eleven)
I will dip into anecdote just a bit, but one of our local D2 teams is a national powerhouse (Northwest Missouri) that I kind of follow. Near as I can tell, they have never lost a home playoff game to a warm weather team...that being teams from the SE, TX, SW or CA. MN-Duluth and N Colorado have managed it on occasion.
Part of that is that NW is damned good of course, but I think December weather in Missouri plays a role as well.
It was a blustery and frozen night as I entered the dank, austere surroundings of the Liberty Bowl on the late December night of 1982. Slow barges lumbered down the Mighty River. Blues bands played a somber dirge - as if they were heralding in a fresh lamb to the slaughter.
The Mighty Fighting Illini were big. They were strong. They were mean. The wounded and much-beleaguered Crimson Tide team formed a thin red line as they shielded themselves from the cold and valiantly headed onto the tundra that night.
The rifle-armed All-American, Tony Eason, set his angular jaw against the gale-like, frozen winds on that dark Memphis night. Like a gridiron Baryshnikov, Eason’s 6’4” frame danced nimbly through the pregame warm-ups as he focused his mind on the task at hand: Embarrassing – no humiliating – the great, but terminally ill Paul Bryant and his rag-tag band of undersized and injured players...
Head Coach of the Mighty Fighting Illini, Mike White, knew a pro career lay ahead of him. He chuckled slightly as he perused the gameplan and thought to himself, “This is Bryant’s last game. I’ll make him wish he’d quit sooner.”
The ailing Bryant grimaced as he slowly emerged from the tunnel. Heart disease was killing him and he knew his doctors had warned him about coaching this game, especially considering the extremely harsh weather. He struggled to keep from letting his family – the players – see him in such mind-searing pain as he covertly placed a nitroglycerin tablet under his tongue. He never wanted this game to be about him. He simply wanted the players to hold their heads high and compete honorably for the University, their families, and most importantly, themselves.
“Make your mamas proud," he growled as the last of the players and trainers ran from the tunnel.
Somehow, Alabama had managed to keep it close through most of the game; however, Eason was driving his team for what should have been the winning score. But Alabama's defense came through one last time for Bryant. Afterward, the young Illinois coach said that he had never seen a team hit as hard as Alabama that day. Bama was outgunned and out-manned, but they played with incredible heart and won the game for Bear on desire and grit alone.
That fateful Liberty Bowl was played on December 29, 1982. Less than one month later Bryant would die of heart disease. Coincidentally, less than one month after that, his beloved wife of 59 years, Mary Harmon Bryant, would die, too.
From the time Bryant first prowled the sidelines at the University of Alabama in 1958, until the day he died in 1983, no other team in the Nation won as many games, had as high of a winning percentage, or as many championships. And no one was really even close.
"The problem with quotes on the Internet is that it is sometimes hard to verify their authenticity." -Abraham Lincoln
...and all of that just happened to come to a head, mere days after that fateful Liberty Bowl? That is as suspicious as talent's third and fourth voter registrations.
No, he had been in and out of the hospital all year. Even have his old room specially decorated at the CCU at DCH Regional Medical Center in Tuscaloosa.
"The problem with quotes on the Internet is that it is sometimes hard to verify their authenticity." -Abraham Lincoln
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