cup of coffee


There’s a term that has come to be affectionately known amoung Tide faithful as the earmark of the effect Nick Saban has had on college football. That term? Processed.

Bye-bye Everett.
Bye-bye Everett.
The term was birthed when Alabama head coach Nick Saban preached the importance of “the process” upon his arrival at Alabama. That you have to go through “the process” of preparing, acting and performing like a champion before you could BE a champion. But quickly, as the Crimson tidal wave has overtaken the landscape of college football since his 2nd year in Tuscaloosa (in 2008), the term “processed” has taken on a new meaning.

“Processed” means after your program is dominated by Nick Saban’s Alabama, it immediately begins to cave in upon itself. Coaches get fired. Regimes have to change in the wake of their encounter with the golden standard, and weird things start happening to your program.

Phil Fulmer once ruled the SEC. Complete domination at the hands of Nick Saban has sent fat Phil to a coffee shop in Gatlinburg for good. Tommy Tuberville once raised fingers and showed classless leadership of his sub-human fanbase. 36-0 got Tommy fired despite an unreal winning percentage in his tenure at Auburn. Auburn was once competitive. Saban has changed that as the Tigers continue to chase their tails, looking for answers. The University of Texas following their BCS loss to ‘Bama in 2009 is another example. They haven’t been on the map since, and didn’t even make it to a bowl the following year.

These are just a few immediate examples, but there have been many, many more. Standing at 61-7 since 2009, an encounter with Alabama hasn’t been a good thing for your team as of late. Forget the sure loss. It’s the shockwave that comes with it that hurts most.

Those who hate Alabama loathe the term, because they know its truth and can’t do a thing about it. Notre Dame appears to be the latest program to receive this processing following Crimson domination. Up until the final minutes leading up to game time on January 7, 2013, the Fighting Irish seemed unable to do wrong.

Then came the beatdown: 42-14 in the BCS National Championship game…a contest that by their coach’s own admission at halftime was over at halftime. Then the deflation after the game…that you made it to 12-0 to win absolutely nothing. Then the revelation that your best player was “probably” in on one of the most embarrassing hoaxes in recent memory. The worst of it is that the entire Notre Dame program is viewed differently after their encounter with the best. The contender, which we now know was an overtalked media creation, is clearly known as the pretender.

Now when the Irish take the field this fall they’ll be without their signal caller. Among others, ESPN.com is reporting that starting quarterback Everett Golson has been dismissed from school.

“Everett is not enrolled at the university. Federal law and our own polices preclude us from discussing specifics,” spokesman Dennis Brown said in an email.

This smells, but usually in these cases academics is the culprit. This news comes in the wake of 5-start defensive lineman Eddie Vanderdoes…the prize of their 2013 signing class…reportedly reneging on his letter of intent this week. Highly touted 5-star QB Gunner Kiel left the Irish to transfer to the University of Cincinnatti last month, leaving the leprechauns with senior Tommy Rees as the signal caller with the most experience. Golson replaced the then junior Rees, the former starter, as a redshirt freshman. The other two options at QB are now an unproven junior and a true freshman.

Processing is fun to watch. We’ll see how this one continues to unfold in the weeks (and season) to come.

Coach Murphy has to have an immediate date with one of these.
Well, the ladies are done. Bama followed up its 2012 National Championship in softball with a 0-2 series loss to Tennessee in the Super Regionals in Knoxville. Bama just couldn’t overcome the Vols’ offense, nor could they undo what appeared to be a bone-headed coaching decision in Friday night’s contest. When a coach replaces the #5 hitter in the order with a 1 for 8 pinch hitter with a .161 batting average…with the tying run on first base…it’s time to investigate mafia involvement.

I say that in jest, kind of, but it was truly one of the dumbest moves I’ve ever seen in sports. Maybe head softball coach Patrick Murphy has an anniversary cruise to catch this Monday and wanted to be sure he’d be on the boat. I don’t know. But my hat’s off to the Bama girls for another strong season. The World Series is always the goal, but another fine showing in 2013.

Big Cat Weekend, brought to you by the school that gave us this.
Big Cat Weekend, brought to you by the school that gave us this.
Pussycat weekend is all but over in Auburn, and we now see the effect of a non-Trooper Taylor coaching staff. The guy couldn’t coach his way out of a wet paper bag (I’ve never understood that phrase), but he could recruit. It wasn’t always on the up-and-up, as evidenced by the NCAA taking him off the recruiting trail following their first Big Cat Weekend. But the momentum in Auburn, following processing, has slowed to a molasses on a cold January day pace.

Gimmick U will always be Gimmick U, and they’ll always do hokey things to try to get attention. At Alabama football is serious, and we don’t have to do stupid hokey things to elevate our game. We just win championships and dominate. But the fact that you’ve heard next to nothing from the ongoings in Lee County, except from the usual Auburn mouthpieces, means things are back to normal.

An actual tweet from an attendee:

Dante Sawyer… RT @taecoolin: what other college throw water ballon fights with the coaches and the recruits? nobody? #WarEagle loved it!!!

Water balloon fights. That’s got to get the faithful excited about the future of the Auburn football program. Wasn’t the entire 2012 season one big water balloon fight?

Anyway, if the first Big Cat Weekend was a Dodge Viper, this latest one was a Dodge Dart. War Eagle, everybody. Just another function in Lee County that’s been processed. And if Nick Saban wants any of this year’s attendees, even those who’ve committed, all he has to do is call. Cyrus Kouandjio, T.J. Yeldon, Dee Liner and Reuben Foster say “hey.” But they’ll not find water balloon fights in Tuscaloosa. They’ll see a lot of crystal, but no water balloons.


(Follow ITK on Twitter for Bama news, commentary and smack.)

14 thoughts on “Is Notre Dame the latest to be processed? The answer is in your Sunday Cup of Coffee”

  1. As an American fighting man serving our great nation in Afghanistan, I occasionally get the rare chance at internet access. I anxiously surf for news and articles from back home, and especially enjoy reading about the SEC, as I am an rabid SEC football fan. This article on 25 May caught my eye. As a loyal fan of SEC football, I was drawn to the title and precept of your article. Coach Saban’s success and his methodology are both interesting and the success means that life lessons and leadership values can be had. The amazing success of the Tide is testament to his “process”. One of the things that always strikes me is that Coach Saban wins, but maintains a class and sense of perspective, while demanding class from his team. However, it is sad to say that over-zealous fans and narcissistic “beat writers”/bloggers/narrow-minded Cretans don’t take that trait from the coach. Although I enjoyed most of the premise of the article, it is the superior, arrogant tone that is just sad. Maybe you think that your sad brand of writing will inspire Bama fans or rally those to help hate the rest, all you do is serve to further the stereotype that we southerners are hicks with no class that don’t know how to act when we have success. While I pull for Bama 364 days a year, I am not a Bama fan. However, I’m saddened that you represent such a successful program, folks from Alabama and the SEC. However, I will stay here and fight for your right to say whatever ignorant statements you want to make. Your sad little articles that show the worst side of our freedoms will not affect my spirit.
    Signed…A sub-human fan in Afghanistan.

    1. First, thank you for your service to our country. It’s people like you that give “cretans” like myself the freedom to think, act and say whatever we wish. Our country’s freedom was built by people like you willing to pay life’s ultimate sacrifice, if necessary, in ensure the freedoms that we have. Our generation has forgotten that freedom isn’t free. As I teach my children, America is still built by people like yourself. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you.

      While your service is noble and much appreciated, it doesn’t enable you to be an idiot. Nor does it give you the right to take a superior tone in regard to the subject matter at hand. Sport is the diversion we all need to get away from the harsh realities of life; it appears you still take it too seriously.

      I understand your disdain for Alabama, and sincerely doubt you pull for the Tide 364 days a year. But instead of going on rival fan sites and preaching to fans in an effort to try and change their thinking, why don’t you worry about your program becoming something of value in and of itself? Why don’t you hold your program to the same standard Nick Saban has created at Bama? Why don’t you hold your coaches and staff accountable for the shallow, bush-league shenanigans that have come to define Auburn football (from your last line it appears you’re of that persuasion)?

      Much of my jubilation over the current state of our football program is rooted from the days when success didn’t come easy. Namely, in a day when fans of your program held up fingers in classless fashion to celebrate a streak over a hapless rival…printing shirts, your head coach wearing them on camera…at one point a grown man (witnessed it) shoving six fingers into the face of a child leaving the stadium. I wonder how much shock and horror you had at those practices, and how many blogs you sought to seek out to correct those behaviors? It’s much easier to leave our arrows of judgment in our quiver when things are going well, as opposed to when they’re not.

      Envy of a program’s success is natural. Ire at their fans who enjoy that success is predictable. America is hated around the world because people are envious of what we have. Instead of building it themselves, they want to chip away at what we have. You of all people should know this. In a different stratosphere, on a much tinier level, Alabama is the same way. There’s us, and everybody else. I’m really sorry that bothers you.

      Again, thank you for your service. Please come back often.

    2. I’m a retired Marine who spent time in Iraq – Fallujah. As you know, those places are suck holes.
      Best of luck and God bless, man.

  2. The only time noter dump stepped on its whang and I didn’t laugh about it was when they let a student be killed in a scissors lift during a windstorm while videotaping practice. that should have resulted in the immediate dismissal of the head coach and the athletic director. O, and don’t let me fail to mention when they cover up their football players raping women and allowing them to continue to play.

    1. I thought we were apes back then…that’s a contemporary “footprint” if I’ve ever seen one. I’ll bet this guy sees Popeye floating in the sky on a regular basis too.

      1. Dude, it’s in stone. How is a contemporary footprint in freaking stone?
        And there are more of them about the globe. Evidence of giants on every continent – to include full skeletons.

  3. WOW! “Processed!” Ain’t it great? I have to say, though, that I am sadde3ned by Golston’s dismissal. I don’t find any satisfaction in any of the negatives that befall these kids. Because they are just that-KIDS. Whatever his issues were, I wish him success in changing. I still want Notted Dump to be winless, and I know that has never been the case. But, if they need it again, I’m sure Coach Saban can arrange another “Processing” for their little hinies!!!!!!

    1. They are young, but they’re not kids; there’s a difference. This is a college sports site and it’s college sports news, so it’s newsworthy. The fall of Notre Dame in and of itself is newsworthy!

  4. From what I read, Auburn is doing a great job of recruiting. I keep scratching my head wondering “why?”.

    Several regime changes in the last few years. Between coaches and assistants coming and going it is becoming hard to keep up with the revoloving door in Lee County.

    Also, I fail to see how a 3-9 season would be turning heads of those looking at name-brand Universities. (ex. Texas, Bama, Georgia, Florida, USC, Ohio State etc….etc…) I’m sure someone will jump in with the insight of saying Auburn is something akin to “big time” or a major player in the SEC. But lets face it. They aren’t. They were a whipping boy and cellar dweller last season and have declined to mediocrity at a steady clip since the 365 days of Cam Newton. Auburn is a fairly average gameday experience for the SEC, and isn’t exactly a booming cultural metropolis or the birthplace of family values or ideologies.

    So my $64,000 question is how does Auburn manage to recruit so well in these conditions?

    1. Auburn recruiting has been sufficient to good, but not the mind-blowing, superlative free for all it’s been in recent years. As for how they do it, they can $ell a high $chool $tudent on thing$ like the $mall town atmo$phere, fambly, and the fact that they are in the $EC, competing again$t the big boy$ in college football.

      But like a worm on a hot pavement in June, take them out of the SEC and Auburn would shrivel up and die. Auburn is like a girl you see at a party who at first glance looks hot. But separate her from her friends and it’s obvious she only looked that way because she was standing with a half dozen hot chicks. By herself she’s a 6. That’s Auburn. Auburn people just have become good at not letting recruits see Auburn without the other hot chicks in the crowd until they sign and it’s too late. Then comes the payola to perform and keep your mouth shut, and the other things that make Auburn Auburn.

    2. “and isn’t exactly a booming cultural metropolis…..”

      they’ve got a supercenter walmart, what else would you expect, the louvre??

      /sarc off

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