Tag: Nick Saban

Top 10 Non-SEC National Title Contenders

Sad as we may say, there are National Title Contenders outside of the SEC. And yes, we know they actually exist. Anyway, so here we go: Clemson: Dabo Swinney won one a couple of a seasons ago, and the Tigers’ defense is going to be an absolute beast this year. Oh, and offensively they’ll be pretty good too. We expect them to beat Texas A&M, walk the ACC, and win their home game at season-end against South Carolina. Ohio State: Urban Meyer’s a horrible piece of human garbage, but his QB Dwayne Haskins is the real deal. The school also churns out talented player after talented player. Unless they play Iowa. Oklahoma: The Sooners have an insanely talented coach in Lincoln

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Alabama 2018 Preview: Will the QB dance become a mess?

January 9th, 2018. Tua Tagovailoa replaces Jalen Hurts as Alabama’s quarterback mid-game after Hurts fails to show up, and wins the game for the Crimson Tide in overtime. Tuscaloosa celebrates (again). Athens mourns (again). Nick Saban breathes a sigh of relief. After all, he’d lobbied the program ever since the Tide lost to Auburn and didn’t get into the SEC Championship Game and might not have gotten into the danged play-off. Rammer Jammer was played, sung, and chanted. A lot. Someone swore that they saw Bear Bryant in heaven, crying. Roll onto August 2018 and a controversy still reigns around Tuscaloosa. Who’s going to be the starting quarterback when the team kicks off against Louisville? Will it be ‘Tua’ or will it

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Florida 2018 Preview: Can Dan Mullen improve Florida?

Trainwreck doesn’t cover just bad Florida’s 2017 season was. There was a bit of a smile when they beat Tennessee on a Hail Mary in one of the plays of the season, but that was it, save for Jim McElwain’s nudist battle with a shark. Dan Mullen arrived to the pomp and circumstance (and some new Jordans), but he’s had to deal with non-stop disciplinary crap – something that must be weighing on Gator Nation. You know, that and the rise and rise of one of their most hated enemies. OFFENSE Every time we think about UF’s offense, we get squeamish. The Gators were 110th in total offense, good enough for the second-worst in the SEC behind Tennessee (the third-worst

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Auburn 2018 Preview: Can War Eagle fly to the promised land?

Georgia and Alabama both had something in common when they played the National Championship Game last season: They were both comprehensively beaten by Auburn. There is an argument that the Tigers could have won the SEC Championship Game if running back star Kerryon Johnson – who had ripped the Dawgs apart in the win at Jordan-Hare – hadn’t been hurt. With the team obviously deflated, the season finale bowl loss to UCF wasn’t pleasant for Gus Malzahn, either. Anyway, it’s 2018 now, and Johnson gone, but QB Jarrett Stidham is staying. As seeems usual on the plains, it should be an interesting season… OFFENSE As mentioned ad infinitum, Stidham got engaged this summer and took part in a camp or two.

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Nick Saban inks monster contract extension

The SEC West’s all about oneupmanship, and that’s why we like it. Florida is looking like a National Championsip contender for arrests, and Alabama has oneupped the rest of the SEC West with another contract extension for Nick Saban. The school announced that Saban’s extension will be through the 2025 season, and pay him a tidy $8.3m for 2018. Saban’s base salary will rise to $7.5m per season – and $400,000 a season for every season after that. Although that might seem peanuts compared to the $11.1m contract extension he signed last year, but if you take out the $4m that he was given as a signing bonus, then it’s still a slick pay rise. He said: “We are very excited about

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Mississippi State 2018 Preview: New coach, new offense?

If you’re a fan of offense, then Mississippi State got one of the hires of the season when they brought in Penn State offensive coordinator Joe Moorhead to replace Dan Mullen as its new head coach. When he was in Happy Valley, he made Saquon Barkley a top-five NFL draft pick, Trace McSorley one of the best quarterbacks in college football, and a juggernaut, lightning-quick offense that jumped from 42nd to 19th from 2016 to 2017, and ranked 12th against conference in touchdowns. Moorhead immediately comes across as a pretty affable guy – something that we’ll find interesting how this translates to the cowbells and stress that comes with a SEC job. It might not be his first job (before he got

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LSU Preview: Can Ed Orgeron save his job?

Thanks to the firing of 50% of the SEC coaches, Ed Orgeron is on the hottest seat in the SEC. In fact, after a season when LSU was awful offensively, failed to beat Alabama, didn’t even figure in the SEC West AND was upset by Troy to boot, it’s a small miracle that he stayed in Baton Rouge for the 2018 season. Yes, the 9-4 record may have stood out with a 6-2 record in the SEC, but if you look deeply into the season, the Tigers were more unimpressive than impressive all season long – particularly on points-scoring side of the ball. Despite all of this, LSU had seven picks in the 2018 NFL Draft (yes, even Danny Etling was

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SEC Media Days: The important parts

We missed the fact that SEC Media Days weren’t in Birmingham, Alabama this year. As much as people love Atlanta (apart from the terrible traffic, an even worse airport and a city climate during summer that you wouldn’t wish on Gary Danielson), it just doesn’t feel like SEC territory. SEC teams – apart from Vanderbilt in Nashville – are in small college towns all over the Southeast. The big cities don’t seem to suit them – unless they are getting paid millions to play season openers, hosting a Championship Game, or winning National Championships. Of course, the SEC regulars were there. Bespeckled SEC homer Paul Finebaum, fresh from a re-up in his contract after his agent started rumors that he was

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Alabama boots former four-star linebacker

Alabama has booted sophomore linebacker VanDarius Cowan for a violating team rules. Cowan’s issues included getting arrested for a fight in Tuscaloosa where he punched a 26-year old man in the face, and he was also sidelined from some of Alabama’s Spring Practice for his poor academics – something that’s quite a feat at the 110th university nationally for academics. “VanDarius has been dismissed from the team and is no longer a part of our football program due to a violation of team rules,” Saban said in a statement. “Each of us has a responsibility to represent The University of Alabama in a first-class way, and failure to meet those standards can’t be tolerated. We wish VanDarius the very best

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Saban and Smart go head-to-head on transfers

Nick Saban and Kirby Smart have gone head-to-head on transfers at the SEC Spring Meetings this week. The Alabama head coach has long been derided for denying players the right to go where they want – particularly inside the SEC. This year he’s getting the heat for not allowing graduate student (and back-up center) Brandon Kennedy the right to transfer to Auburn or Tennessee. This comes a couple of years after the Maurice Smith debacle, where the SEC eventually had to intervene and let the player transfer to Georgia. Smart wants to do quite the opposite – and let players transfer to whatever school they wish. Typically, Saban shrugged his shoulders during a press conference and said that it is not

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