Williams Gets What Process Is About

How does Alabama bounce back from a loss to Texas A&M? Well, it appears the schedule took care of that. No one would expect the Crimson Tide, 9-1 after last week’s loss to the Aggies, to have any trouble with Western Carolina, which is 1-9. Just getting a win, however, is not the issue.

Alabama senior tight end Michael Williams understands the situation as Bama prepares to host Western Carolina at 11:21 a.m. CST Saturday at Bryant-Denny Stadium.

“It’s not really about the opponent,” Williams said. “We're all going into this game knowing that we still have something to play for. It's not the picture that we wanted, but we still can accomplish all our dreams and all our goals. We have to approach every game with the same mindset and that's to dominate. And we're going in and try to dominate and come out with a win.”

Alabama had been ranked first in the nation before falling last week to Texas A&M, 29-24, in Bryant-Denny Stadium. A week earlier the Tide had been able to get by LSU in Baton Rouge with a late touchdown that produced a 21-17 victory.

In short, Bama has not been playing at a high level the past two weeks, but Alabama is still ranked fourth in the nation in the BCS rankings. The Tide is expected to qualify for the Southeastern Conference Championship Game, which means beating Auburn in the regular season finale on Nov. 24. It will take some help, though, if Alabama is going to qualify for the BCS title game and the opportunity to repeat as national champion.

Williams said one area in which the Tide attempts to be consistent is the 24-hour rule – 24 hours to enjoy a win, 24 hours to anguish over a loss. “You still have that 24-hour rule,” he said, “but it seems a long longer when you lose.”

Williams noted that Bama was able to bounce back from a regular season loss to LSU and then go on to defeat LSU again in the championship game. He said the Tide may be able to use that experience this year.

Williams, 6-6, 270, from Reform, has been a part of two national championship teams at Alabama. He has played in 50 consecutive games, 37 of them starts. This year he has 17 receptions for 134 yards and three touchdowns, part of his career 44 catches for 454 yards and six touchdowns.

He said older players on the team have experienced the process of bouncing back from a loss. For younger players, it’s a new pill to swallow. “We knew how (from last year) to get our team to bounce back real fast,” he said, adding that older players talked to the younger players “about having energy in practice. The more energetic you are in practice, the more fun it is.

“It seems to be working.”

Williams said, “I feel like we had more energy this week than we have any week of the season. It’s more of a challenge for our leadership group to come out with energy and have the team practice well. We’ve got a lot of young players who haven’t really experienced a loss before and they probably were down a little bit. We took it upon oursleves to come out and practice with high energy.

“It seems to be working.”