With today's official announcement of Colorado to the Pac10 conference and the expected announcement of Nebraska to the Big10 conference (which officially makes it a Big12, don't you think?)… it would seem that the summer realignment-ageddon has officially begun.
SEC expansion list has six teams on it
As has been mentioned on several occassions by SEC Commissioner Mike Slive, the SEC will not stand pat if the Big 10 Conference elects to expand beyond twelve member schools.
From Champ to Chump?
With recent talk of Texas AD Deloss Dodds attempting to renew his contract, one can't help but wonder about the logjam that it will create in Austin. HC Mack Brown was supossed to ascend to Dodds' position sooner rather than later, with his DC already lined up as his successor. Which brings us the curious case of Will Muschamp possibly being the Horns' understudy for a bit longer than he originally bargained for. The whole scenario got me thinking about a host of things–including the whole coach-in-waiting, coach-on-deck concept. With other CIW slots paying off recently–Joker Phillips at Kentucky and Jimbo Fisher at FSU, Muschamp, with this latest news, might end up looking like a wallflower at the Yellow Rose hoe-down. While the jury is still out on CIWs, I think that in the right situation, it can help bridge the gap for a successful transition–provided it's done quickly and you don't have an Al Haig situation arise. Recruits and your fan base need to know who the successor will be immediately, even if a retirement is announced in good time, and truth be told, most would prefer an orderly line of succession as opposed to the chaos of the great coaching hunt in a bear market.
Saban-Brown Re-Match?
For those who thought last season's national championship game between Alabama and Texas was a chess match between Nick Saban and Mack Brown, it turns out that it was actually a game of Hungry Hungry Hippos and Jenga.
Nah, Nick and Mack were reunited recently to film one of those funny ESPN commercials. I'll let you fill in your own jokes today, unless it's a hi-tech computer joke.
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NCAA to release findings in USC case this week?
Yahoo Sports reporter Dan Wetzel tweeted that the NCAA is expected to release its findings this week on a four-year investigation of improper benefits to USC players.
For those of you who may have forgotten, the allegations center largely on payouts given to the family of Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush. According to Yahoo Sports investigations in 2006 and 2007, the Bush family received more than $280,000 in cash, gifts, and free rent while Bush was a student at USC from agents hoping to represent Bush. Bush himself is also alleged to have received cash during his playing days with the Trojans.
Bye Week Blues
“The thing I'm concerned about is playing Auburn on a short week. Sometimes a bye is an advantage and sometimes it's not. It's not going to be an excuse for us.”
It's now a well-known fact that some quirky shuffling from the SEC offices has left the Alabama Crimson Tide a scheduling SNAFU for this coming season as it's last SIX conference opponents all have a bye week before their game with the Tide. How this happened is anyone's guess, but I'll be first to go on the record on this blog to say it isn't fair. Some remedies are being offered, but with six teams in question with 12 games each in 13 weeks, you're better off laying down this week's paycheck on Powerball than you'd be to expect much of anything to be worked out at the last minute. There's little doubt that Alabama is getting a little bit of shaft, but if there's now a team in the conference that could put on their big boy pants and suck it up it's probably them.
NCAA kills the “Tiger Prowl”, but recruiting arms-race not over
In yet another offseason move to control the recruiting arms-race, the NCAA has banned the “Tiger Prowl”, as utilized very effectively by Auburn.
Under the new rules, teams are only allowed to have two coaches visit a prospect's school on a recruiting day.
Auburn gained national recruiting buzz when the “Tiger Prowl” first rolled onto the scene. Instead of sending just a couple of coaches to schools, seven members of the Tigers coaching staff all jumped into a stretch limo and made the rounds from school-to-school.
The high-roller approach didn't go over with other coaches or the NCAA, who specifically mentioned the visits in the statement accompanying the rule.
Although during an evaluation period no in-person, off-campus recruiting contact may occur with a prospective student-athlete, it has become commonplace for institutions to send numerous coaches to a prospective student-athlete’s educational institution. Oftentimes arriving in limousines and extravagant buses, these multiple coaches are appearing at the high schools of the prospective student-athletes just as much to be seen as to actually conduct an evaluation. Many institutions are unnecessarily expending resources in order to have multiple assistant coaches attend these evaluations as a result of the perceived recruiting benefit. By permitting only two football coaches per institution to visit a prospective student-athlete’s school on any given evaluation day, it would preclude institutions from sending a large number of assistant coaches to a school just for perception purposes.
(emphasis added)
Knowing the rule has been coming, at least two schools – Auburn and Georgia – have been using the Prowl in the last few weeks to maximize attention before the NCAA could put a stop to it.
I think this should be taking as a compliment to the Auburn Tigers. They did it and it worked. Auburn finished with the Rivals #4 recruiting class, besting SEC rivals Alabama, LSU, Tennessee, Georgia and 10 other conference foes.
And since no good deed goes unpunished, the Tiger Prowl concept is banned, just as Urban Meyer's texting thumbs were summarily silenced by the NCAA.
It's hard to predict what the next big thing will be in the recruiting arms race, but you can pretty much count on the SEC to dream it up. Les Miles in a jetpack? The Kentucky coaches in a YouTube lipdub? The Vandy “V” being shown like Batman's bat-signal high over Atlanta?
Don't laugh – it could happen.
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Jesse Williams Arizona Western #54 DT Highlights
The 6-foot 4-inch, 320-pound junior college transfer will suit up for the Alabama Crimson Tide in the Fall of 2011. Roll Tide!
Why Alabama Can Claim 13 National Championships – Part 3
Link to Part 1 Link to Part 2 Continuing the discussion of years that Alabama has a case for at least a share of the national championship but was overlooked, one additional year jumps out and that is 1977. In…
Why Alabama Can Claim 13 National Championships – Part 2
There are many ways to degrade the success of one team or the other. Most of the negative things I have run into regarding this matter are done by people who are simply jealous of the…
Why Alabama Can Claim 13 National Championships – Part 1
Any college football national championship, by its format alone, can easily be debated. We saw a number in the '90s, such as the exclusion of Penn State in '94 from the news services polls and the awarding of a national…
From Behind Enemy Lines: 2010 Wishes, Hopes and Predictions
Today I pulled out my newspapers I'd saved from the Alabama Crimson Tide SEC win in Atlanta and the National Championship in Pasadena, to decide which ones to frame. My wife and I settled on the Dec. 6 Tuscaloosa News front…
Well Worth the Wait – Exceeding Expectations
Back in July, I wrote a blog entitled “Summertime Dreams of the Fall” here on Al.com where I said that things were starting to remind me of my fond memories of the 1992 Summer and the ensuing national championship run. …
Thousands line up to get picture taken with Alabama’s national championship trophy
An estimated 6,000 to 9,000 University of Alabama football fans viewed the school's national championship trophy today at the Skyland Boulevard Walmart in Tuscaloosa, the store's manager said. A team for Dr. Pepper, the presenting sponsor of the Coaches' Trophy, provided the crowd estimate and also took pictures of about 4,500 of those fans with the glittering hardware, manager Chad Souers said. Others took photos with their own cameras. [Read More]
Fans cheer ‘Roll Tide’ as champs’ plane touches down in Tuscaloosa
The Alabama Crimson Tide partisan chanted and cheered as members of the 2009 national champion football team touched down at the Tuscaloosa Regional Airport tonight. Chants of “Roll Tide” started as an airplane bringing players and head coach Nick Saban from California was spotted on its approach to the runway about 7:15 p.m. The cheering became louder when Saban emerged from the plane and acknowledged the crowd that had gathered on either side of the airport terminal. [Read More]
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