Hard-Nosed

My alma mater, The University of Alabama won the National Championship. UT's quarterback was injured by Bama early and couldn't play, leading to a lot of whining. Our QB, Greg McElroy, was also injured. He had ribs broken in the SEC title game against Florida, but gutted it out and played well enough for us to win - ESPN. There's no whining in football.

Alabama wins the SEC

The last play of "The Drive"

Alabama beats Auburn. All is right with the world.


And yet more: Photos

Undefeated

My alma mater, Alabama, is undefeated at 11-0 headed into our rivalry game with Auburn. We already have a spot in the SEC championship game vs. Florida locked up. It seems like a dream.

hiding in plain sight

19) On my desk at school I have three cups – a Captain Kirk coffee mug, a Rules of Fight Club coffee mug, and a ‘beverage’ cup from the 1993 Alabama/Miami Sugar Bowl.

Coach Saban on the State game.

"You wanna know how I feel about it?
That's how I feel about it!"

Chaos

Pat Forde is a college football writer after my own heart - BCS Chaos.

One at a time.

Checklist - step one - crush Tennessee - done.

Everybody take a breath.

- The insanity of my beloved Alabama being #2 in the country and people across the spectrum picking us to win the SEC and play for the national championship is making me crazy. I'm not all concerned that we are winning close, which is how a young thin team wins. I'm concerned that people, not just Alabama people, have lost their minds:
- We go to Knoxville to play Tennessee. They are playing for their lives. It could salvage everything (and everybody's job) to beat us. We are 1-5 in Knoxville in the last 6 there. Why is this a gimme?
- Okay, we'll crush Arkansas St. (who is QB'd by a Decatur High grad). This will give us 8 wins, the high end of our expectations.
- We play LSU, the defending National Champions, at Baton Rouge. They want to beat Saban worse than anything imaginable. With the jealous hatred of the jilted that cannot be expressed in words. This may actually be bigger to Miles needs this more than he needed the National Championship. We are 1-7 in our last 8 against LSU. 1-7. How are we the favorite?
- We host Mississippi St. They have beaten us the last two years. Has everyone forgotten this? Coach Croom really wanted the Bama job. Now he really wants to make us pay for not hiring him. And he has. Until we beat them, I assume nothing.
- We host Auburn. We all know guys. We've lost 6 in a row & 7 of the last 8. 1-7. How can anyone assume we are going to win? It's in Tuscaloosa, and it will save their season if they beat us.
- That anyone can assume that we are going to cruise through this is simply insane. They all hate us and it will make their each of their seasons if they beat us. A coin has only a 6.25% chance of landing on heads four times in a row. Should we really expect any more chance than that? Have you seen our quarterback?
- Even if we did win all five games. Then we get to play Florida or Georgia in the Championship. Did anyone see the Florida-LSU game? Oh my the gators are fast. And don't you think Georgia wants so badly to make up for the embarrassment we gave them when they were so beloved, just a month ago?
- We have a real coach and will have a real team as long as he stays, and a chance to hire a quality successor. We're in the discussion, which is all I want.
- But come on guys, everybody take a breath.

"Go Teach the Bulldogs to Behave"

Alabama 41 Georgia 30 (and it was much worse than that)
ESPN
Alabama Papers
Tuscaloosa News

Potential for Alabama Football

As you all know by now, Alabama pounded Clemson in the opener. Clemson was clearly overrated, but the way we played - hard-nosed, old-style football, was comforting to me. More comforting are quotes from the Coach after the game, and the knowledge that he means it:

"I'm happy for our team. But we got to learn how to play with consistency."

"I would say our team played well for an opening game," Saban said.

"Nobody can be satisfied with a one-game performance," Saban said. "This will be a challenge for our team and it'll be interesting to see how they respond."

“This is just one game,” Saban said. “We’ve still got to find an identity. We’ve just made a ‘B’ on a midterm. Do we slack off and make a ‘D’ on the next one and have a ‘C’ average? Or do we try to make an ‘A’?”

Between the focus on 'process', the way the freshman phenom flipped the ball to the ref after scoring instead of acting a fool, that celebrations during the game were muted, and the Coach immediately reminding the team that this butt-kicking of the number 9 team is a step in the process, not an end, I am encouraged. It feels the way I want it to feel. (Cecil Hurt Column)

Sports Agnostic

Since February I have just about given up on sports. During most of my life I have been a sports fanatic, following just about anything.
About the time the Michael Vick atrocities hit I became irritated. Irritated with him, and with the way it became a national case. Irritated that he was so stupid and that it was somehow a national tragedy that he was going to jail.
Then the constant bashing of the patriots over the camera thing drove me nuts. If anyone thinks that almost every other team is not trying to steal signals, they are blissfully unaware of reality. I coached on a high school team that used four coaches to send in plays. Other teams had coaches whose job it was to decipher our signals, so we would vary the signals. The whining and attempts to denigrate the Patriots by people jealous of their success made me further frustrated.
When Dana Jacobsen got suspended from ESPN for ripping on Notre Dame and Jesus (off the air) at the Mike & Mike roast and there was outrage I took a break from ESPN. When Itried to turn the radio or TV back on it was all-Roger-Clemens all-the-time and it had nothing to do with actual pitching.
Which brings us to this baseball and steroids. I just don't care if anyone took steroids. I just don't. If baseball didn't want people to take steroids, they should have tested for it. That's what football has been doing for years. Give them a suspension and then put them back to work if they fail. Hell we test high school players. Instead it was a continuation of the flagellation of excellence - beating on Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire with no actual proof just innuendo and questionable sources. And again, I don't care if they did. Thanks for trying hard to be successful and entertain me guys. Then came the unmerciful hounding of Roger Clemens until all his dirty laundry was in public. He didn't do enough to deserve that harassment, and now a great player, probably the best pitcher of the last 40 years (since Gibson & Koufax) is needlessly embarrassed and tainted.
I didn't push to form a fantasy baseball league and I have not watched one baseball game this season. I'm not sure who is in first place. Is it the Devil Rays? The world has turned upside down.
The Celtics won in Basketball and I have been a fan of them since about 1973. I'm glad for Kevin Garnett, who appears to be a genuine hard worker and leader. I didn't watch a minute of it, and truthfully I had to rack my brain just now to remember who won. Just not that excited about it.
I have not watched a minute of the Olympics live. I watched the relay team anchor man hawk down the frenchman on internet video and got very excited. I watched a replay of the final two gymnastic performances by the US gold & silver winners. Blah. I'm glad for them, but floor exercise is a ridiculous sporting event. Why do the two big women's events, summer & winter, have to be judged? Making them necessarily subjective. I'm just not happy with the Olympics being in China. It validates their oppressive Maoist-captitalist regime. It's bad enough I can't actually live without having to by Chinese goods anymore, I don't have to support this. I want the US to do well, and I'm fired up about Michael Phelps (a little), but it all makes me uneasy.
Maybe football will draw me back this year, but if ESPN and reporters spend all their time "Outside the Lines" and focusing on non-game stories I will be hard-pressed not to give it the boot.
Then there is Alabama football. Maybe my uneasiness actually began when we hired Saban and he and we were unmercifully destroyed in the press. I mean I enjoyed PTI and Wilbon (and have actually watched it twice this week) but he pounds on Saban. I have kept up steadily with team developments and a college friend is the lead writer for a new bama website, and I will try to enjoy it. But the last ten years of controversy and embarrassment and incompetence have even put my enthusiasm to the test. I have a great deal of respect for the process that Saban has installed and I think he knows exactly what should be done to make us successful. An egotistical controlling jerk is probably exactly what we needed, as long as he knows what he's doing, which I think he does. So maybe Alabama football will allow me to enjoy sports again.
Either way it has been a very different experience, sort of being less-informed, which is not my style, and spending less time thinking about it. Not fretting over a doomed fantasy team (except for the great 2004 League Champions, led by Barry Bonds, of course) and not living and dying by the bridesmaid Braves who, I gather, have finally collapsed. I suspect I will return to form during football, but my level of devotion to all things sport, at this midway-point in my expected lifespan, is a sea-change that I think I can live with. Carry on (and roll tide anyway). -mr