McClain's football smarts off the charts

"You black out for a second," Arenas said, "and try to figure out what truck hit you. You see him walking away. OK, it's him."

Crimson Tide H-back Preston Dial makes room for Heisman candidate Mark Ingram. Dial knows how to open holes. It is his station in life to block McClain three days a week. He's considering an easier line of work, like being Brock Lesnar's sparring partner.

"Not only are his legs real strong," Dial said of McClain, "but he's so physical with his hands in shedding blockers. He never stays blocked. You have to stop the linebacker's charge and switch his momentum. He's so violent when he comes and meets you in the hole, all you hope for is a stalemate. Instead of the running back picking his hole, Ro makes the decision for the running back which way he is going to go."

Yet McClain's physical skills are not the main reason he leads one of the nation's best defenses with 57 tackles. His ability to deliver a blow isn't why he's a semifinalist for the Lombardi Award.

There are moments on the practice field when McClain takes a play off. That's not to say that McClain would ever line up and not give everything he can possibly give, whether it's Saturday in Bryant-Denny Stadium against No. 9 LSU, Tuesday on the practice field or a July Wednesday in a 7-on-7 drill. McClain would take his uniform off before he would take a play off.

But there are times in practice when the coaches take McClain out of a drill to give a younger guy some work. McClain takes the play off. On those occasions, more often than not, McClain will not trot over to the sideline, grab a water bottle and chat up his teammates. McClain will walk to the middle of the field to stand alongside head coach Nick Saban.

Saban will watch the drill with his arms crossed. McClain will watch the drill with his arms crossed.

When McClain, consciously or not, adopts Saban's posture, it is physical confirmation of what everyone within Alabama football already understands. Ro McClain is Nick Saban writ large -- and fast and explosive. "Coach on the field" may be a cliché. With McClain, it fits. He may have a football-hot body but McClain is loved by his coaches and his teammates for his mind.

"It's unbelievable how much he understands the game," fellow linebacker Cory Reamer said. "The second part is how well he knows the defense. He really knows what Coach would like to go to in the situations we get it and he really does a good job communicating it."

On offense, when quarterback Greg McElroy calls an audible, the center changes the blocking scheme for the offensive line, and the backs and wide receivers signal one another their changes. On defense, when McClain calls an audible, he makes the changes for the defensive linemen, the secondary and the linebackers.

Clemson defensive coordinator Kevin Steele, who held that position at Alabama the previous two seasons, has coached linebackers on the major college level and in the NFL for more than two decades.

"He's got that gift of being able to analytically process information and react to it as fast as any guy I've ever been around," Steele said. "There are a lot of ways to teach players -- in the classroom, on the board, with video, practice reps. Some guys have to do it full speed. You can pass Rolando in the hall and say, 'In this formation, in this defense we need to do this,' and it's done.

"I've never coached but two like that," Steele said. "One of them was Sam Mills, who played 12 years in the NFL and was All-Pro several times. And Rolando."

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