Shocker
Nick Saban got irritated with the media Monday.
It must be game week, right gang?
Hooray Game Week. Stupid media.
We all knew that Saban was going to get testy this week. In fact, here’s betting that he’s not done either. There could be more, considering that Alabama is almost a four-TD favorite over a Power-5 foe.
And we fully respect Saban’s decision not to name a starter at quarterback. It makes good football sense before an opener and it has some competitive edge, especially when the two quarterbacks have differing styles like the candidates to be the Tide QB1.
But Saban getting snippy about reporters wanting to know and having to ask who the starting quarterback is going to be is really silly and beneath him. Even when he’s being calculated.
Saban has been doing this long enough to know that quarterbacks are different. Always, and in every way.
They get too much credit when they win and too much blame when they lose. They are the face of the team – even one run by someone as great as Saban – and the first player’s voice in 90 percent of non-featurey stories.
That’s especially true when the presumed back-up is a guy who is 26-2 as a starter, has an SEC offensive player of the year award on the resume and had a TD-to-INT ratio of 17-to-1 last year.
But it’s part of the song and dance, and that’s cool, because now that the music is playing we know one thing for sure
It’s game week.
FILE – In this Nov. 4, 2017, file photo, Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer walks on the field before an NCAA college football game against Iowa, in Iowa City, Iowa.College football thoughts
OK, we are going to be pretty college football heavy. We’re excited. Sue us.
But, and this plays into the discussion above.
Some of the worst depth charts ever released were circulated Monday. There were more ‘Ors” on these things than a Viking ship and more ‘slashes’ on them than a prison wall.
In fact, it prompted West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen to continue his pre-opener fencing moves with Tennessee. Remember last week when Holgorsen lamented that Tennessee got extra practice time. Monday, Holgorsen said the WVU depth chart had a few extra ‘ors’ in there because Tennessee had so many in its depth chart.
Holgorsen said: “We ‘OR’d them because Tennessee ‘OR’d us first.” Perfect.
Now we’re at petty acts of vengeance with the media folks as the middle man.
This leads us to an overarching question and then a future wondering.
First the question: We live in the day and age of the “Fake news” allegations being made against the media. Sadly, some of it has merit and devalues my profession as a whole. We’ve talked about this before in this space and we will continue to because real journalism and thoughtful commentary and discussion has never been needed in our society than right now. It matters. Greatly.
But our question on this is, the ripples of “Fake news” have now lead us to the scary place of “Fake interviews.” We’re in a place Jeremy Pruitt, Saban, Holgorsen and just about any other coach of a team big enough that everyone in the interview room knows that the media there need that coach more than that coach needs those reporters can pretty much say whatever they want on just about any topic.
Urban Meyer got caught in a bold-face lie. Saban said Monday – and started giggling – that he can’t believe the written word of the folks in the room in front of him.
And we’ll ask it this way: Do you really think these coaches do not know who the starter is at all these positions? Exactly. Maybe we should consider ourselves lucky that Holgorsen did not list his starting quarterback – Heisman candidate Will Grier – as a co-starter. (Although that would have been really funny in the battle of ‘or.’)
Now for the future: Will this depth chart waltz before college football openers be allowed to continue into the future when gambling becomes legal in more and more states, and those states – like West Virginia and Mississippi – are already in discussions of paying major college universities a cut of those monies gambled on their sport?
The biggest story in college football
Gang, all the jazz hands and sideshows of depth charts and whatever petty move Dana Holgorsen has up his sleeve for tomorrow are background noise.
And in truth, the biggest story has little to do with Auburn-Washington or any of the other first-weekend slugfest whether they are in South Bend, Jerry World or Disney.
Nope, the power players in the NCAA and their bosses – the powerful college football folks at ESPN, the college football playoff committee and coaches recognized by one name like Saban, Urban, Dabo and a few others – are assuredly watching this story closely.
Yes, that is the SI story on four families who filled wrongful death lawsuits against college football because of family members and loved ones who died of alleged injuries and head traumas caused by playing NCAA football.
Do they have a case? Hard to know, but the details are tough. We all know football is a violent game, but this quote from the lead attorney for the plaintiffs is a scary paragraph for the folks cashing these monster checks from college football.
“Our goal is to take these to trial,” Jay Edelson, a lawyer that is representing the plaintiffs in the case, said to the Los Angeles Times. “Our clients want to get in front of a jury. We think a jury is going to act very favorably to the stories that they have, and we want to get there as soon as we can.”
Do they have a case? Again, I don’t know.
Do they have the attention of the college football powers that be? Absolutely.
And not unlike the billions the NFL paid the families of hundreds of former players, here’s betting that there will be more and more names on that lawsuit sooner rather than later.
This and that
– Manu Ginobli retired. He’s not on the Rushmore of international basketball players., but he’s still a first-ballot Hall of Famer. (That Rushmore would likely be Dirk, Patrick Ewing, who was born in Jamaica, Tim Duncan, who was born in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Hakeem Olajuwon.)
– Hmmmmm, been a strange few weeks for Santino Marchiol, the linebackers who petitioned the NCAA to be immediately eligible because of allegations he made of NCAA violations at Texas A&M before he left and transferred to Arizona. Well, a video has surfaced in which Marchiol referred to multiple black Texas A&M players as ‘monkeys’ and Arizona has dismissed him.
– Remember Homer Bailey, who blew through Chattanooga on his way to the big leagues. Well, this is not exactly the mark any pitcher wants by his name in the record book. The Reds are all-time bad this season when Bailey starts. The Reds are 1-17 Bailey’s 18 starts. Wow.
– As for a cool mark, how about this one: Shohei Ohtani is the first player since some dude named George Herman Ruth (aka The Babe, aka, The Great Bambino, aka, the Sultan of Swat, aka The King of Swing, aka, well you get the idea) to have 15 homers and four pitching wins in the same season.
– Blake Bortles sent a meal and a hand-written note to the first responders at the shooting at the mall in Jacksonville. Class move.
– OK, normally we avoid the dreaded interweb slide show like the plague and Carrot Top movies. This one though caught my eye. That’s the slideshow of dying professions people should avoid. No. 5 was broadcaster, and the quote tile read “More and more listeners prefer streaming over their local, drive-time disc jockey.” No. 17 was newspaper reporter, and the tile said, “Circulation has been dropping for 17 straight years and Sunday circulation of the nation’s newspapers are at their lowest levels since 1945.” Welp, that’s got me covered.
– ESPN’s BPI gives the Lakers (and some dude named LeBron) a 2 percent chance of winning the NBA title. That seems a little high to be honest.
– Mississippi State QB Nick Fitzgerald will miss the Bulldogs’ season opener against Stephen F. Austin. Want the perfect reason counterargument to scheduling a major showdown in the opener, it’s this. FYI, Game 2 for MSU is at Kansas State, and it’s fair to wonder a) would the new coach have suspended his star if the schedule was reversed, and b) short of murder was there anything that was going to get Fitzgerald multiple game suspensions
Today’s questions
It’s a true, that today is Tuesday, which means some True or False.
Before we get there, anyone interested in having a suicide NFL pool? I figure if we get 30-plus folks – no charge of course – it would give us a game to follow on Sundays and Mondays even. You can respond below, on the Twitter (@jgreesontfp) and in the electronic mail (jgreeson@timesfreepress.com).
OK, the T or Fs, true or false, Tua will get snap one for Alabama on Saturday night.
True or false, Jalen Hurts has talked to Nick Saban about playing in only four games this year so he could have the option to count this season as a redshirt, under the new rules.
True or false, bow tie is a good look for a grown man. (It’s national bow tie day friends.)
As for Aug. 28, well, let’s review.
On this day in 1994, Tiger Woods won his first U.S. Amateur at TPC Sawgrass. Wow.
Alana Thompson is 13 today. (She was/is Honey Boo Boo.) Jack Black is 49. Shania Twain is 53. David Soul is 75 today. He was Starsky. Or maybe Hutch. Yeah, he was Hutch, who was more the the John to Panch on CHiPs. Where were we?
Oh yes, college football Rushmore. Hmmmmmm, let’s go here.
Rushmore of live college football mascots (take that PETA). And yes, even though we graduated from Auburn, we’re mighty partial to that pooch that shares a sideline with Kirby. (We have an English Bulldog that looks just like Uga. His name is Bo Jackson.)