19 thoughts on “Iron Bowl Preview: A look at the ground game”

  1. has the toilet paper ever been set of fire in toomer’s corner that would be cool -without the fire = it sounds gay

  2. Good Morning! Happy Turkey Day, Bammers!- Choke On A Bone (Mine), Goat Phucker’s! Just one more day ’til the Uncivil War and we get to kill the REAL Turkey, uhh Battle Buzzard, uhh Eagle. Go Bama. curbstomp the Neutered Cumbucket and his Goat Phucker’s! RTR!

  3. y HANNAH KARP
    On Aug. 5, 2009, just before Alabama’s football team embarked on what would be a championship season, head coach Nick Saban delivered some unpleasant news at a preseason news conference. Four players hadn’t been invited back to the program because they had “violated some type of team rule.”

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    Associated Press

    Alabama coach Nick Saban talks with an official near the end of a 63-7 win over Georgia State Nov. 18.
    .”These guys all did something,” Mr. Saban continued, without elaborating. “It doesn’t make them bad people.…These guys didn’t do what they were supposed to do here, whether it was for academic reasons or whatever. They’re not going to be part of the program.”

    In interviews with The Wall Street Journal, three of the players Mr. Saban mentioned that day—cornerback Alonzo Lawrence, running back Jermaine Preyear and linebacker Prince Hall—said Mr. Saban’s statement about their departures wasn’t accurate.

    Mr. Lawrence said he decided to transfer from Alabama because he didn’t think he would get to play, not because he’d violated any rules, and was “shocked” by Mr. Saban’s comments. Mr. Hall, who had played in 36 games at Alabama, said while he had been suspended three times for violating team rules in the past, it was his decision to transfer—and Mr. Saban had tried to talk him out of it.

    Mr. Preyear also said he chose to leave over concerns about playing time. “I don’t know any rules I could have broken,” he said. Reggie Barlow, Mr. Preyear’s current coach at Alabama State, confirmed Mr. Preyear’s account that he wasn’t dismissed by Alabama for rules violations but had asked to transfer.

    A person familiar with the matter said the school has no evidence to show that Mr. Lawrence or Mr. Preyear had ever violated team policies. Mr. Hall and the fourth player Mr. Saban named, linebacker Brandon Fanney, had both faced disciplinary action in the past. In published reports, Mr. Fanney, who transferred to North Alabama, said he left the team because of a “difference of opinion” with Mr. Saban. His high-school coach said Mr. Fanney had been dismissed by Alabama. Mr. Fanney couldn’t be reached for comment.

    The three players said they believe Mr. Saban falsely portrayed the circumstances of their departures to protect the image of his program. Mr. Saban had previously come under scrutiny by the media for offering scholarships to more incoming recruits than the school could accommodate under NCAA scholarship limits. This relatively common practice, which is known as “oversigning” is not prohibited by the NCAA. It allows a coach to improve his roster by giving him a larger pool of talent to choose from. But it also eventually forces the coach to get rid of a few scholarship players he no longer wants—which can put him at risk of scaring away future recruits.

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    .If Mr. Saban had said the players decided to transfer because they didn’t believe they would have a chance to play at Alabama, the players said, it would have provided ammunition for rival coaches competing for the same recruits. But if the players were seen as disciplinary cases, they said, Mr. Saban’s recruiting methods wouldn’t be viewed as the problem. Mr. Saban, Mr. Preyear said, “was just making himself look good for the media, and making us look bad.”

    Mr. Lawrence is playing this season at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College and hopes to play for another Southeastern Conference school next year. Mr. Hall finished his college career at Central Washington. Mr. Preyear transferred to Alabama State. His coach, Mr. Barlow, said he isn’t playing because of low grades.

    Mr. Saban, whose No. 9-ranked Crimson Tide play No. 1 Auburn Friday, declined to comment. A university spokeswoman said in a statement that it is “very difficult for the University of Alabama as an institution to deal with inquiries that are so blatantly pointed toward discrediting one individual, particularly when the University is prohibited from addressing specific cases due to student privacy laws. The University of Alabama has complete confidence in Coach Saban.”

    The latest pushback from Mr. Saban’s recruits follows claims by three other former Alabama players that Mr. Saban and his staff had pressured them into quitting the team for medical reasons, even though their injuries weren’t serious. In September, the players told The Journal they’d been offered “medical scholarships,” which are funded by the athletic department and not subject to NCAA scholarship limits, in exchange for agreeing to never play football at the school again. These players said they believed Mr. Saban had made these demands because he had signed too many players and needed to make cuts in a way that wouldn’t hurt the public perception of his program.

    Mr. Saban declined to comment about medical scholarships. In a Sept. 29 interview with a local newspaper, he said he had “nothing to do” with medical scholarship decisions, which were made by the team’s medical staff and always “in the best interest” of the player.” Whether the player agrees with the decision or not, he said, “I can’t control.”

    Oversigning is a common practice in college football and a serious competitive issue in the sport. To promote parity, the 120 schools in the NCAA’s Football Bowl Subdivision, the sport’s highest echelon, are limited to 85 scholarship athletes each. No more than 25 new signees are allowed to join a team in the fall. Many coaches will sign a few extra players in case some are injured or forced out by bad behavior or poor grades. The problem for teams comes when the roster gets too bloated. If a coach simply revokes the scholarships of the players he had recruited, or if a large group of players defects out of frustration, his ability to recruit in the areas those players came from could be compromised, and those players could end up playing for a competitor.

    Since 2002, Mr. Saban has averaged more signings per season than any active major-conference coach except one, Mississippi’s Houston Nutt. The average for teams in the FBS since 2003 is 23.5. As the coach at LSU, where Mr. Saban won the national title in 2003, he signed an average of 27 players per season. At Alabama, where he arrived in 2007, he has been signing an average of more than 28.

    In some cases, oversigning seems to have given Mr. Saban a significant competitive advantage. Two years ago, after having signed 29 players—four more than the limit for an incoming class—Mr. Saban decided to add three more: wide receiver Julio Jones, running back Mark Ingram and defensive lineman Marcell Dareus. All three not only stayed on the team but became stars. Mr. Ingram went on to win the Heisman Trophy last season, and Mr. Dareus was named most valuable player of the BCS championship game. If Mr. Saban hadn’t felt comfortable signing so many players, these players would have had to go somewhere else.

    In April 2008, Alabama had 91 players already on scholarship or expected to enroll. A Birmingham News reporter asked Mr. Saban at a news conference how he planned to whittle the roster down to 85 by August. “We know how it has to be managed, and it will be managed,” Mr. Saban said.

    Mr. Lawrence, the cornerback, was a highly touted recruit from George County High School in Lucedale, Miss. He said he turned down offers from Miami, Florida and Mississippi to sign with Alabama in 2008. But after redshirting his freshman year, Mr. Lawrence said he grew doubtful he would ever get to play in a game. In July 2009, he said he decided to leave Alabama. He transferred to Southern Mississippi.

    Mr. Lawrence said that after he read Mr. Saban’s comments in the newspaper, he received a barrage of phone calls from friends asking what he had done. Mr. Lawrence said he thought about calling Mr. Saban and asking for an explanation but decided instead to write a letter thanking the coach for recruiting him—in case he might need Mr. Saban to call coaches on his behalf in the future.

    Southern Miss coach Larry Fedora said he was never told why Mr. Lawrence left Alabama, but he didn’t ask because he knew Mr. Lawrence was academically eligible. “It was my understanding there were no disciplinary issues,” he said.

    Mr. Hall, the linebacker, wasn’t recruited by Mr. Saban. While he had been suspended for rules violations in the past, he said it was his decision to transfer to another school, Central Washington, for personal reasons. Mr. Hall said Mr. Saban initially tried to talk him out of leaving. “He thought I was giving up on myself and wanted me to see if I could work it out,” he said.

    Mr. Hall said Mr. Saban had called him on the day of that August 2009 news conference to tell him he was going to say Mr. Hall was transferring for personal reasons. He said he hadn’t heard about Mr. Saban’s statement about rules violations. “It’s all really new to me,” he said.

  4. Hey fools. Does your field have grass or artificial tuff? Just answer the dam question and move on down the dam road and good riddance after we get the hell outta there tomorrow with a win. Morons.

  5. stupid ignorant slut – losing 52 6 is not a win it’s a moral victory and at least u won’t have to vacate the losses

  6. nevermind, I found it in wikipedia. If I waiting on you fools Id never know. You probably know nothing about your own damn stadiums turf. You dumbasses.

  7. written by crimson hammah, November 25, 2010
    do not be deceived as said in broadcast and au db’s in post game – au had stolen bama offensive signals …
    ingram was fine – hardheaded jim mci kept sending ingram over center…trent got way more over tackle plus plays..ingram when running over tackle looked great see last drive ….

    great job…

    shut down cam and we will au is the same 3-5 in sec team..
    BAMA 52-6 MARK IT DOWN AND BOOK IT …TAKE AU AND THE POINTS

  8. Hey stupid Syphilis Slut, BDS is a grass field and we don’t tarp it. So you phuckers better hope this rain goes away cause your dipsey doodle, jitterbug offense will play hell slippin’ and slidin’ in the mud! RTR!

  9. I’ve been talking about that all day long. There is definite rain in the forecast which WILL affect the passing game (100% of Aubarn’s offense) — good luck running the ball — even with your QB who will be looking at the dirt.

  10. Problem is not the wet field, but the rain and heavy gusting wind might affect us more. Barnie does have a halfway decent run defense (the numbers are skewed because everybody so far has had to abandon their running game to try to keep up or catch up), and our running game seems to have gone South lately. If it’s raining buckets and gusting 50mph like it is here now, and we have to depend on the down field passing game to keep up – we’re phucked. Don’t like to make excuses, but this weather isn’t an excuse; it’s a reality. With two completely different types of teams, incliment weather is bound to affect one more than the other. Just have to wait and which one. RTR!

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