Calvin Middleton watched himself on film and didn’t like what he saw. There was something about the guy running the ball across the screen that just didn’t look right.

TUSCALOOSA — San Jose State certainly won’t have much in its favor Saturday night in Bryant-Denny Stadium. The Trojans are short eight scholarships due to academic sanctions. They have a few players who could see action on both sides of the ball against the defending national champions in front of 101,000-plus hostile fans. Throw in a brand new coaching staff led by a first-year head coach, and the task sounds helpless for San Jose State. But it’s that element of the unknown that’s throwing the Crimson Tide for a loop in the game planning for Saturday’s 6 p.m. season opener. Without game film from previous seasons to examine, the Alabama staff has pulled from a much larger library based on the Trojan coaches’ previous employers. “It’s been a mystery,” Tide linebacker Dont’a Hightower said. “Some of the coaches were fighting and scratching to try to find out the best that they’re going to do. I think they have a good hold on it. That’s one of the real good things why we’re always prepared for a team is because they scout and they prepare us well. So far, we’ve been watching film and preparing for other things, even things they haven’t done that they might.” The Tide defenders are expecting some variation of the “pistol” offense that Alabama used at times last season. In the formation, the running back lines up behind a quarterback taking a shotgun snap. It allows the running back the same advantage of a running start on handoffs he would get when the quarterback was under center. Coach Nick Saban cited Nevada’s offense — one of the pistol pioneers and the top rushing team nationally in 2009 — as one Alabama is examining. “Supposedly that is the offense that this team is running,” Saban said. “But we have no evidence of that, so we are preparing for all kinds of stuff and its option type football that we have never really experienced before. That makes it a difficult preparation for us. Now whether they have the personnel to do that or will run something totally different, we aren’t sure and have no way of being sure.” So the tape library from which players are examining images comes from schools such as Washington and Duke, where San Jose State coach Mike MacIntyre was the defensive coordinator the past two seasons. Tide center William Vlachos even said they were more comfortable in the opponent scouting heading into last season’s opener with top-10 Virginia Tech because defensive coordinator Bud Foster’s schemes were no secret. MacIntyre, though, isn’t resting easy given the talent he sees in all phases of Alabama’s game. “The only advantage it would give us is they would not be able to probably be able to do the checking system as well as coach Saban would like,” MacIntyre said. “I know — following his career and studying his excellent defense — he likes to do a lot of checking and different coverages and fronts. Without them having film on us, there’s no way for them to prepare that. So they’ll probably be a little more vanilla.” Michael Casagrande cover the University of Alabama sports for The Star.

The Wellborn Panthers defeated Gaston 67-16 this past Friday night. In the Peerless Grille Team of the Week voting, though, it was just a little bit closer.

The Anniston Star's "my team" pages for local high school football teams have made the higher education leap. You'll be able to keep up with Alabama, Auburn and Jacksonville State through individual pages created specifically for each team.

The Auburn Tigers enter this season with a No. 22 ranking and are predicted to finish third in the Southeastern Conference Western Division by league media, which would be a two-spot improvement from last season.