Posts Tagged ‘Nick Saban’

Welcome to the next-to-last BCS bowl season, or as we like to call it: “The mole in the middle of our forehead that the plastic surgeon said he can’t remove for another two years because the deals are in place, conference commissioners have been bagged, athletic directors already have used the free golf clubs, the booze cruise just left port, it’s too late to cancel the caterers, and, dang it, Mike Slive just took the last shrimp!” So we’re stuck.

After 15 years, it’s almost gone. After 17 years, it will be. (How did the BCS get to vote before it was 18?) We’re left with a palatable title game (Alabama-Notre Dame) but a nonsensical way of getting there and zero postseason drama.

BCS road map looks something like this.

Well, except this: (Promotion coming. I feel so dirty.) There’s still time to enter the “Sack Schultz” Bowl Special. We’re giving away $200 in gift cards to Marlow’s, which should buy a lot of wings. Don’t worry that some of the 36 bowls have been played because …

Continue reading Predictions: It’s time for bowls(!), contest (!) and BCS (ugh) »

According to various websites that I looked through while doing research for this final week of investments — not counting those that kept asking for a credit card number, age verification and automatically opened 27 new windows (Close! Close! Dang it, close!) while my wife screamed down to the basement, “Are you still looking at point spreads!?” — I came across some interesting statistics.

The chances of winning Wednesday night’s $579 million Powerball drawing were approximately 1 in 176 million. That was still far more likely than the odds of having a meteor land on my house: 1 in 182,138,880,000,000. Or about double that for the same meteor landing on the ACC championship game and hitting somebody.

Is that a meteor falling on me, or Dogs going to BCS?

Other odds I came across: 1 in 3 million chance of spotting a UFO; 1 in 11,500 of bowling 300 in a game; 1 in 649,740 of being dealt a royal flush; 1 in 20 million of being canonized; about even-money that one of those …

Continue reading Predictions: Georgia pulls upset, Tech goes down »

Aaron Murray has 14 touchdowns and no interceptions in last 17 quarters. (Curtis Compton/AJC)

ATHENS – When gazing at the nation’s leaders among college football defenses, Alabama doesn’t stand out statistically so much as it leaps off the page, stomps on cars, knocks over skyscrapers, swats away missiles and terrorizes women, children and offensive coordinators.

The Crimson Tide rank No. 1 nationally in total defense. Also No. 2 in rush defense, No. 3 in pass defense, No. 1 in scoring defense, No. 1 in red zone defense. It has shut out four opponents, held seven to 10 points or less and all except one to 17 or less.

Which begs the question: All except one?

Texas A&M coach Kevin Sumlin relatively humbled Nick Saban three weeks ago with his hyperventilating, no-huddle offense. The Aggies upset then No. 1 Alabama 29-24, scoring touchdowns on their first three possessions, accumulating the second-most yards (418) and the most red zone possessions (five) of any Tide …

Continue reading Georgia’s best chance vs. Alabama may be to step on gas »

Mark Richt has Georgia in the SEC championship game for second straight year. (Brant Sanderlin/AJC)

(VIDEO ADDED BELOW)

This might stun starry-eyed middle-schoolers and high school players, who are otherwise oblivious to ancient history before 2006 in the SEC. But even the football Godzillas of this conference and, it follows, the globe, aren’t that far removed from humility (and Shreveport).

Before the last five seasons under Nick Saban, Alabama had an 11-year stretch (1997-2007) when it reached double digits in wins only three times, suffered through four losing seasons, four non-bowl years, lost to Auburn six straight years, went to the Music City Bowl twice and even was subjected to the Independence Bowl . . . three times! There’s your, “Roll Tide.”

Florida fans would like to forget the Ron Zook era of relative torment, sandwiched between Steve Spurrier and Urban Meyer.

Auburn just fired a coach, Gene Chizik, who won a national championship two years ago.

LSU: You say …

Continue reading SEC title would mean Georgia’s return to elite status (video added) »

Nick Saban and/or Mark Richt need some help for BCS title berth. (Jason Getz/AJC)

(Video added below)

Is it time for a rare dirge at SEC headquarters?

Not quite.

Three non-SEC teams — Kansas State, Oregon, Notre Dame — top the BCS rankings. This is the equivalent of a Big Foot sighting – or maybe three of them. But there’s still a possibility that the winner of the SEC championship game in the Georgia Dome between Georgia and Alabama will wind up in the BCS championship game.

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SEC schools have won six straight BCS titles. In short, two of the three undefeated teams ahead of Georgia and Alabama have to lose for a chance to make it seven. And that could happen.

Here’s how I see it breaking down:

No. 1 Kansas State (10-0).

Schedule: at Baylor (4-5), vs. BCS No. 15 Texas (8-2)

Recap: The Wildcats will beat Baylor. The Bears can score a ton of points but their defense can’t hold up …

Continue reading Will SEC get team to BCS title game? (answer below) (video added) »

According to legend, and also Wikipedia, my two favorite sources when I have other things to do, the expression, “Eureka!” dates to the Greek scholar Archimedes, who noticed that when he stepped into a bathtub the water level rose and he exclaimed, “Eureka!” because, I dunno, “Wow,” just didn’t sound scholarly. Archimedes then continued this research into volume by seeing what would happen if he sat in a hot tub with five co-eds from Palermo State, but that didn’t work out so good, he lost his grant and now can be found teaching sociology at junior college in Poughkeepsie.

So last week, Georgia punched Florida in the mouth, and I’m certain I heard Mark Richt exclaim, “Eureka! No more Mr. Nice Guy!” See, because I’m sure the Bulldogs played tough because they were angry at being called “soft” by teammate Shawn Williams.

So coddling days are over. This week Richt called in appropriate inspirational speakers to address his players:

"Bring me the broomstick of Nick Saban!"

Oz: …

Continue reading Predictions: Smelly, incompetent, soft Bullldogs win again »

Before getting to this week’s investment advice, we have an important announcement from Weekend Predictions Storm Central: About 16,000 dead rats, and I’m not sure who actually counted, have washed up on the Mississippi coast since Hurricane Isaac. Officials are withholding names of the rodents until next-of-kin can be notified, although it’s believed none yet have been identified as Jackie Sherrill.

Two from UGA’s recruiting class.

Mississippi officials assured all that dead, smelly rats on the beach posed no health risk — I am not making this up — but decided to clean them up anyway because they thought the atmosphere at their “Cruisin’ The Coast” event in October might be slightly marred by the carcasses. Now THAT’S thinking ahead! Unlike Sheldon Richardson. (Aspiring writers: This is a transition.)

Richardson did about the dumbest thing a Missouri player could do before the school’s first SEC game. He said he watched some of Georgia’s game on TV last week but turned it …

Continue reading Predictions: Dogs, Falcons win, ‘Sack’ video update »

Hello, I'm Mike Slive. I can crush you with my wallet.

HOOVER, Ala. — Made it to SEC media days, the biggest-dumbest annual event of the college football season, if we assume July is college football season, and it must be because here’s another chance to make Nick Saban jokes.

Today’s schedule includes news conferences with newbies Texas A&M and Missouri, who probably feel like those astronauts in “Planet of the Apes” when they crash-landed on a planet and didn’t realize they had just passed through a time warp and they’re really still on Earth (sort of). Also on stage today is South Carolina’s Steve Spurrier (who’s generally well-equipped with talking points and this time won’t have to defend how Stephen Garcia is just misunderstood) and Vanderbilt’s James Franklin.

Also, SEC commissioner Mike Slive will have his State of the Empire address.

I’ve done a full Digi-Blog on SEC media days in the past. Here’s a link from the 2009 SEC Media Daze. But here are a few shots from …

Continue reading Digi-Blog: Welcome back to SEC Media Daze »

Sporting News has Mark Richt (14) just ahead of Paul Johnson (19) among 124 FBS coaches.

The problem with most “rankings” in sports is that there’s a large degree of knee jerk thinking in the thought process. Somebody wins, they deserve a stature. Somebody loses, they’re road kill. A coach wins a BCS title, he’s a sudden visionary.

But The Sporting News just ranked 124 FBS (Division I) coaches in college football and in my view the publication pretty much nailed it. Not so much because Nick Saban of Alabama is No. 1 or Charley Molnar of Massachusetts is No. 124 (UMass has a football team?) but because of the placement of so many others. A few examples:

– Boise State’s Chris Peterson (No. 2) and Texas Christian’s Gary Patterson (No. 7) both received lofty rankings for their success in actual games, not on national signing day. Winning games really is what coaching is all about, is it not?

– Auburn’s Gene Chizik was ranked only 36th nationally and seventh among 14 SEC coaches, …

Continue reading Richt, Johnson score high on rankings, not Chizik, Muschamp »

If this was Pledge of Allegiance, Janet would have right hand over her heart, not left hand over … you know.

Like most people in the regular and underworlds, The Count likes the Super Bowl, not for the game but for the food and the commercials, and that rare occasion when the the NFL halftime show morphs into a night at the “Club Hubba Hubba,” less for the split-second look at part of one of Janet Jackson’s breastacles (I saw it! I saw it!) but because it looked like somebody had just connected jumper cables to the toes of then-commissioner Paul Tagliabue, who said, “We were extremely disappointed by the MTV-produced halftime show. The show was offensive, inappropriate and embarrassing to us and our fans.” After which the league showed more commercials to help you get drunk and correct erectile dysfunction. (”Daddy, why did mommy laugh at the Viagra commercial?”) Any way, this is Super Bowl week, and that means more new commercials and hopefully nothing to surprising at …

Continue reading Countdown: Super ads, PETA’s wings, Saban’s job offer? »