Interesting article about if F Scott Fitzgerald originated the idea of two platoon football. http://online.wsj.com/articles/the-football-genius-of-f-scott-fitzgerald-1414166403
Sid and KP, On Facebook earlier (the ND 247sports) thread, I took the ND fans to task for their asinine reaction to the letter. It was a straight up class move by Nick Saban and you'll note, you don't see Gus, Freeze or what's his name at Tennessee writing any letters. That's an area that has produced multiple players for all those schools but only Saban reached out. It's an awful tragedy. It doesn't seem like it would be a suicide, but then again, some suicides seem to come out of nowhere. That community of Tuscumbia, although famous for Helen Keller, live and breath Deshler Tiger football. One of my good friends was the DL coach there for Coach Mothershed who stepped down this past year that allowed Coach Linville to step in. From what I hear, Linville was actually going to get the job all along. The school board had grown tired of Mothershed (which is insane considering how much the guy won there).. there's probably some back story there I'm not privy to, since my friend left Mothershed's staff to take a job at Spain Park, then Hoover and now I think he's at Mountain Brook. Anyway, point being, I'm very familiar with that community. I moved to Tuscumbia to escape my ex-wife's antics here in Decatur. I can't tell you how crushing that was to them, and to have the hands down, single most high-profile person in the state of Alabama reach out to them was a wonderfully kind gesture. There's a reason why Saban is absolutely the cream of the SEC and maybe the nation.
BTW KP, I was at the Florence Decatur game tonight. It was for 1st place in the region. Florence's Sam linebacker, Keaton Anderson, is a Tide commit. He'll be a good one for you. He's not big, but he's really fast, hits like a ton of bricks and does not miss tackles. It's easy to see why Saban took him so early despite his 3 star ranking on rivals. I've seen a lot of 4 or 5 star rivals guys who are nowhere near as good as Anderson. Interestingly enough, that kid's father, uncle and brother all played football for Tennessee. http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2014/05/family_mattered_for_florence_l.html http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2014/07/a-list_no_15_keaton_anderson_a.html The kid had 191 tackles last year and he seemed to make, or be near, every tackle tonight.
Hunting story: Most of you if not all of you know the strained relations between my father and I. Lucky for him that didn't start until I was 17 years old and witnessed him beating my mother. I could have been charged as an adult that day but that is another story. At the age of 9, I found out just how afraid of snakes he is. A snake slithered up with the head within about 6 inches of one of his feet. I just said the word snake. He said "Shoot it!!!!!" My little .410 single shot was an open choke and from the distance of 20 feet, would have sprayed him all the way up the torso. Missed my chance long before the pain began. :wink:
Yeah Corey, we will have to see how he turns out but there are many, many stories about kids from small towns around Alabama that are not sought after by anyone but Alabama and Auburn, that turn out to be great college players. That's one reason why I am not real interested in recruiting rankings and how many stars a recruit has.
Watching Oregon State @ Stanford, I couldn't believe the huge number of empty seats. I'm guessing the stadium isn't much more than half full.
Sid, Tune in to the Alabama/Tennessee game in a couple of hours. 105000 of screaming Southerners. I know, I know, your worst nightmare right? 8)
Sid, I do not think there are any M fans, except maybe relatives of Brady, who want him back next year.
KP, You know football and it shows. I enjoyed reading the comments in the articles about kids like Anderson. He was recruited ferociously by Alabama, LSU and Tennessee. What are the odds he sucks? The fans commenting are about 10:1 that kids like this will never play at Alabama like they know something about anything. I've always said the star system and rankings system done by these recruiting services is ********. I guess people think I'm bullshitting, but when I coached at UMD, all of the major recruiting services would call and ask me for my assessment of players even those who were combo sport players. These guys are frauds, they're businessmen. They're your fantasy league commissioner who found a way to get paid for it. They still do that stuff. They are leaches. Anywho, you're getting a good one. I'm surprised the DE is going to Texas State. He was the best player on the field. There's an OLB who is being recruited by ACC/SEC teams who was pretty good as well. One of these days/years, you should come hang out. My season tickets are at the 50 and I live 300 yards from the stadium. I seriously need a golf cart.
Corey, That sounds good. My dad was a high school coach in Trussville Alabama and Norfolk, Va. He played at what is now called Samford (it was Howard College back then) on the same team as Bobby Bowden. I've hung out with or played on football teams since before I can remember. Sucks to be 145 lb db/wr/rb and be clocked in the 40 using a calendar, but I did learn my football from my dad. Anyway its almost time for the UT game. 3rd Saturday in October and all that. Roll Tide!
Good luck to you guys, although I kinda doubt you'll need it if Saban can keep the emotion down early. I'm pulling for a little tragic magic in the LSU game right now.
82 points by TCU think Patterson wanted make sure the committee noticed them? Sid the talked about the poor attendance before the game on the xm radio college sports show Friday afternoon. Said it was a mistake to move it to Levi, said the sold 60k tickets but that the bay area was bankers over the Giants and the expected a lot of no shows
Terry, I only watched a couple of minutes of the game. I did not know it was in San Francisco. I thought it was Stanford's home stadium. I see now why the attendance was so low compared to the size of the facility. Thanks.
ooopss I was talking about the CAL/Oregon game. But Stanford has always been a somewhat poor supporter of their football program. Name another major college who has downsized their stadium? Not a single one that I can think of other than Stanford who went from about 80K to less than 60k. There was a reason. Plus I'm sure the Giants have impacted game attendance at the Oregon State/Stanford game as well.
Re: my last post. Never mind. :lol: If the Stanford stadium capacity is less than 60,000, that was a very sparse crowd.
Heck I would love to have a 45,000 seat stadium and even then we would struggle filling it some weekends.