I’ve found a new must-read blog regarding Alabama sports: Dennis Pillion, a new sports producer at al.com, wrote an informative piece on the Saban issue. Some of the best lines: hat kind of criticism hits closer to the mark than the moronic rantings of The Montgomery Advertiser’s Josh Moon, who decided to play shock jock and get his name out there by slamming Saban in his column. AND “The Advertiser’s Tim Gayle — a good guy who actually covers the Tide and deals with Saban firsthand — had a much more reasoned take on the situation in his blog..”

Pillion understands the situation. As a journalist, he wants (and hey, even I want) reasonable access to players and coaches. But he doesn’t let his desires and wants interfere with intelligent analysis.

Pillion isn’t the only journalist in the state snickering at the amateurish commentary from Josh Moon. From what I can tell, a large percentage of newspaper writers understand Moon’s Auburn bias.

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RECRUITING
The Spain Park 2007 Combine attracted many Alabama prospects.

Gymnastics
Alabama prepares to face familiar foes as it gets ready for the National Championship meet. The first round is Thursday afternoon for Alabama.

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NCAA
Eight In the Box shows the hyporcisy of the NCAA when it comes to $$$. The post was from last week; however, any day is a good day to post something bad about the NCAA.

And another media comment
The Birmingham News and its reporter Brett Blackledge won the Pulitzer Prize Monday for work on exposing the corruption in Alabama’s two-year college system. I’ve been saying over the last couple of weeks how seriously flawed the system is, and I came to that opinion thanks to the superb reporting of the Birmingham News.

Now, would the Birmingham News news department have allowed its reporters to produce such shoddy work like the sports department produced during the Alabama coaching search? I think not. And the Pulitzer proves just how good the News side of the editorial department is. Let’s hope management insists on the same accuracy from the sports department.

The fallout from the Birmingham News series appears to have erroded Democratic support for the House majority leader. Let’s hope all legislators do what is right and stop their double-dipping.