alabama

Go to Rivals and look at Alabama's recruiting class for 2010:

A year removed from having the nation's number one recruiting class and they have three guys who have less-impressive offer-lists than Michigan's newest addition: Ronald Carswell, Jalston Fowler and Austin Shepherd, while a fourth one, Wilson Love, might be a push. I don't think it's worth worrying about.

Besides, this is how RichRod recruits. He has a "throw everything against a wall and see what sticks" mentality, and as we saw with Steve Slaton, it's often times the lowest rated recruit in his class that ends up being the biggest contributor.

In Rod we trust. Let's keep it that way.

Quarterback Blake Sims has verbally committed to Alabama one day after receiving an offer from the Tide, reports Rivals affiliate BamaOnline.com.

Just a few weeks ago ESPN (ha!) was reporting that the rumor around the high school was Sims was leaning towards Michigan.

Look, nothing personal against Saban (though I have to admit I don't much care for him), but I think everyone agrees that oversigning is going to explode in the next few years if nothing is done about it.

http://www.bamasportsreport.com/2009/01/04/scholarship-numbers-january-4...

If it's this obvious to fans, of even their own schools, something needs done (despite the $$/greed drivers).

Over the past four years, Alabama has recruited 107 players to Michigan's 85. That's 22 more players - an entire class - over a four year period (using raw, unadjusted numbers from Rivals). On the heels of national criticism for signing 32 recruits and relying on "attrition" to shoehorn those 32 players onto campus, he unabashedly racks up 27 more including an astounding six on signing day of the four and five star variety:

Kenny Bell WR 6-1 160 - 5.8 Rayville, LA
Kendall Kelly WR 6-4 210 4.45 5.9 Gadsden, AL
Dre Kirkpatrick DB 6-2 180 4.5 6.1 Gadsden, AL
Eddie Lacy RB 5-11 210 4.4 5.9 Geismar, LA
Brandon Moore OL 6-4 313 5.2 5.8 Montgomery, AL
Tana Patrick LB 6-3 215 4.5 6.0 Stevenson, AL

Clearly, Oily Nick has a way of assuring new recruits that the depth chart isn't working against THEM. Look at the two stud WR signing today (and four in this class), despite Alabama having TWELVE underclassman WR on the roster, including ELEVEN freshmen and sophomores:

Wide Receiver

82 Earl Alexander WR So. 1V 6-5/216
11 Brandon Gibson WR Fr. RS 6-1/192
15 Darius Hanks WR So. HS 6-0/190
19 Chris Jackson WR Fr. HS 6-1/190
8 Julio Jones WR Fr. HS 6-4/210
4 Marquis Maze WR Fr. RS 5-9/167
80 Mike McCoy WR Jr. 2V 6-3/199
39 Kyle Pennington WR Fr. RS 5-11/170
1 B.J. Scott WR Fr. HS 5-11/188 Prichard, AL
48 Travis Sikes WR So. 1V 6-2/194 Nashville, TN
45 Sam Snider WR Fr. HS 5-10/163
43 A.J. Walker WR Fr. RS 6-1/185

Or how about seven more OL to go with those 15 underclassmen OL on the roster? Nothing like 22 OL competing for spots on the two deep with those that fall short developing bizarre illnesses and family problems.

Setting aside the coaching transition, what would Michigan have been like with a whole extra class? Three or four more LB to help that weak spot, alternatives to Sheridan, no positions of need such as DL...

Or how about Ohio State, who signed 80 players over that same period of time? How much better would they have been with 27 more players passing through the system?

This is not a level playing field. As long as this loophole exists, southern country club destinations will have a massive advantage over schools that actually regard these players as human beings rather than meat.

The time for limiting the number of recruits to the actual number of available scholarships is way overdue.

Saw this article today:

http://footballrecruiting.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=887217

What a horrible (bizzare?) story. Such a shame, considering the bright future he had in front of him. Hopefully more info will shed some light on this. Prayers go out to his family.

I just got back from a couple of nights in New Orleans and the LSU - Alabama game. Here are my observations from some classic football tourism:

Short of Austin where you can party in town one night, then take a cab to the game the next morning, the New Orleans / LSU game may be one of the great college tourism set ups.

It is about 80 miles from New Orleans from Baton Rouge. The Louisiana drivers are probably the only people that drive faster than Michigan drivers. The do it at about 90 MPH in big ass F250 and F350 Pickups and aren't afraid to tailgate (not the football kind).

We made the trip in no time then got off the freeway when it started to back up. We made it fast to about 3 miles from the stadium when traffic just locked up. This was two hours before game time and we could have walked faster from this point. Traffic and parking sucked - you would think LSU had never seen a crowd. We got to about 400 yards to the stadium then got sent back down another road away from the stadium. People were parking on the shoulder of the road, in the medians and literally in the left turn lanes (those folks got tickets) It was insane and totally f'd up. We drove through some ghetto apartment complexes and ended up on a road by the Mississippi River. We literally parked on the side of the road by the levee - had to walk two miles past cow pastures (with cows in the pasture!) then through the 'official' parking areas. We - my wife and I - did meet a nice LSU couple (more on them later) and we followed them on the trek to the stadium.

Three miles of travel, two hours before gametime and a two mile hike - we ended up with zero LSU tailgating experience - we met my friend with our tickets and got into the game with 3 minutes to spare before kickoff.

Pre-Kickoff - this was the absolutely loudest pre kick off I've ever experienced. The place was rocking - then they decided to launch fireworks before the LSU team came out. It was totally out of control and I was thinking this place is as loud as everyone says it is.

Our seats - we were with friends from Bama and we were Bama fans for the day. My wife had a Bama shirt on (from a trip to Tuscaloosa last year). I had a yellow Michigan T Shirt and a yellow M hat. We were in the south end zone - row 24 at the back of the Bama section - Tiger fans hard on our tail - about ten rows of them on our level and another tier above

The stadium - I was glad to be in the good Bama seats - endzone - vs the last row of the upper deck, those seats must have sucked. It was loud but not constantly loud and other than the start of the game and when the field goal was blocked at the end of regulation not as loud as you'd think from the stories you hear. This could be because it was not a 7PM game and people couldn't get to their pregame tailgates because of the F'in traffic! The stadium inside is a bit of a pit. We decided they actually have narrower aisles the Michigan Stadium and they paint the seat #s closer together. We stood up the whole game (no "down in front"). We also decided the Louisianans have a general lack of cleanliness. There is crap all over campus and all over the stadium. My wife saw two used tampons on the floor in the woman's bathroom.......

The game - one of the great ones. Alabama tried to lose it in the first half but still exited that half tied at 14. LSU's quarterback, had he been accurate, could have won the game. He wasn't and they didn't. We thought it was game LSU when they blocked the field goal but then there was that last INT in overtime.... The LSU fans may have been more subdued than normal due to the final score.

Football Tourism - like Brian at Auburn, I got a lot of "you are at the wrong game", "the big house is 1500 miles from here" etc. My standard response was that after our season, I needed to come see some football the way the SEC does it. Given that my shirt was yellow I also had a number of Tide fans think I was on the LSU side. Once I explained the football tourism I think most people got - all were cordial

The LSU fans - we were a bit apprehensive wearing Alabama colors (my buddy had a Bama shirt for me but that didn't work because of the f'in traffic!!!) and we heard stories that had them ranking up there with Buckeye fans. I was also expecting crap to rain down on us from up above. Nothing bad happened. Every LSU fan we met was at least ambivalent while most where down right friendly. I think the LSU fans are some of the best in college football.

LSU Tailgating - the LSU website talks about their great tailgating tradition - I have to say we did not see it. I thought the traffic was going to be a function of tons of folks hanging out and partying (not going to the game) we didn't see much of that. As I said we missed the pregame tailgating so I was looking forward to the post game tailgate (that and we knew there was no way to get out of town....) It wasn't very impressive. We ended up in the equivalent of the Victors club lot where our Alabama friends were tailgating with some LSU friends. In the smallest of small worlds - the LSU couple we hiked in with were at the tailgate that we ended up at. The LSU fans were great but there was very, very little tailgating post game - ten times less than I've seen in the lot by Crisler Arena - I don't care that this was an LSU loss, nobody was going anywhere fast anyway.

The Campus - we stopped by the next morning on our way back to the New Orleans airport. What a dirty place! they had the convicts - Dixon Correctional Institute - cleaning up the place. At least they were putting their tax dollars to use but maybe if they had trash cans and taught the local how to use them?!?. We wondered why Ms. Miles would want to live in Baton Rouge vs. Ann Arbor - I mean how much are your millions worth if you have to live in a $h!t H@#*?

All in all a great trip. Awesome game and the LSU fans are some of the best. Great stadium, mediocre tailgating, horrendous traffic and parking.