College Football Live. What If's "RR took the Alabama job in 2006"
College Football Live as been doing What If's scenarios this week. Monday was "What if Tom Osborne had not gone for two against Miami?". Tuesdays was "What if Rich Rod took the Alabama job in 2006?" I cannot find the video/link but here is the brief summary.
RR take job in Alabama, Saban stays with the Dolphins. The next year UM and Nebraska jobs come open and since Saban has ties with the Big Ten he takes the UM job over Nebraska. Alabama has some spread guy on team and the transition is smoother, but if "Practice Gate" happens in Alabama it's right on the heels of the text book scandal. Saban runs a pro system and he keeps Mallet and recruits Mark Ingram.
My take, it would never have happened(as I suspect most of you agree). UM would never take Saban (MSU, plus over signing would never jive at UM). Mallet was gone regardless, leaving Threet or maybe getting T. Savage (Rutgers), M. Ingram would go to MSU over UM (was UM even recruiting him?). Were still a ways away from fall practice and it's something to bitch about. If someone can find the link you’re a gentleman/woman and a scholar. Sorry for spelling/grammer in advance.
We were never really players in Ingram's recruitment, no.
We weren't players in Ingram's recruitment... but who's to say that wouldn't have changed in the (ridiculous) hypothetical world in which Saban becomes the coach here?
Al Bundy had never scored 4 touchdowns in one game for Polk High School? He never would have reached his elite status as a shoe salesman - that would have been tragic.
And think of the life Peggy and the kids would have missed out on.
And who would have been such a great neighbor to Jefferson?
And think of all the "wooooooooooo" ing we would have missed out on without Kelly Bundy
mgoPole
Who was the better Kelly? Bundy or Kapowski?
Oh... I see what you did there
And for the recent part of the poll:
What was this post about again? I posted it but all my blood has left my head and went south.
I would like to spend some time with each to do research and I'll get back to you guys with my results.
This argument is so much better than the "Mighty Ducks 1 or 2" argument of yesterday.
Al bested Bubba Smith (Ex Spartan) when he was a securtiy guard for Polk High when he got fired from selling shoes (some say his knee was down). The city championship trophy was stolen and Al found it to be taken by Spare Tire (Bubba) and they had an epic goal line stand in the hallway and Al was victorious. Sparty losses on TV shows too. Hail Bundy
Well, things would have been different. To say much beyond that is just ridiculous speculation. For all we know, RR taking the Alabama job would have led to the end of the world.
You're right it is the off-season and it is sometimes interesting to play the hypothetical game. Saban to Michigan is a very weird (albeit unlikely) thought.
If RR went to Alabama though, there wouldn't have been a practice gate at all. No one in Alabama reads (the Detroit Freep.)
I immediately thought, "Why would Practicegate not happen if RR went to Alabama? Didn't we already set this up for failure starting in 2007?"
Then I remembered that the Freep launched a jihad for no reason other than to look like the world's worst vigilante. A jihad they would likely never have launched against Saban.
Saban to Michigan would have been the greatest meltdown in the history of the RCMB.
He wouldn't have been a big help. He is INCREDIBLY overrated.
watching Ingram break tackle after tackle, touchdown after touchdown.............."this guy is incredibly overrated!" Good one!
Ingram is talented, but he has definitely benefitted from being in the right place at the right time. For example, does anyone really think Ingram would have won a Heisman at MSU last year if he had decided to follow in his father's footsteps? I think he would have been just another decent player at MSU and wouldn't have even been mentioned as a Heisman candidate.
I don't know if that makes him "overrated" or not, but I definitely think his choice of schools had a lot to do with the perception of his talent level.
"It helps to have played at a big name school, having a great team year, and have things fall in place to win the Heisman."
Yeah.
Coach Rod probably wouldn't have been sued over the failed Real Estate deal if he took the Alabama job. If he was, the local headline would have read something like, "Even Coach Rodriguez Isn't Immune to Tough Economy".
On a side note, I think we should put an end to the "Mallett was gone regardless" meme. I know this arose as a defense to the "Dick Rod ran Mallett off!" mouthbreather blather, but neither is accurate.
Mustain leaving Arkansas was the single event most responsible for Mallett's move, as far as I know. I'm wondering; for what coach would Mallett have stayed?
I can't say for sure......likely any coach that has produced NFL QB's. I'm just saying that I spent a lot of time around him prior to his transfer, and he certainly didn't seem to already have a foot out the door.
This is what plays in my head every time I read "Mallet would have transferred anyway" or "RR ran Mallet off"
she'd be my uncle.
I laid there in bed sipping coffee, and the whole thing prompted me to shut the t.v. off and take a dump.
Not in bed, of course.
I'm starting to hate sports
I'm starting to hate the future-centric sports. And the sports media. And "Sources" And speculation.
I wish everyone thought like Garth:
LIVE IN THE NOW MAN!!!
Well, for one thing, you can bet the Birmingham News would not have made a big stink about RR overworking his poor players. Rosenberg/Sharp would not be employed long pulling that crap on Alabama. (Not that the News' editors would have let them. Their circulation would have been cut in half the week after the articles came out.)
Well, yeah, because Birmingham isn't full of shithead Spartan fans clamoring for more dirt on their big brother.
Don Canham had informally approached Paterno about taking the UM position, but since he'd just taken the PSU job he was unwilling to leave for Michigan.
After that is chewed on, I wonder how things would have turned out if that asteroid hadn't slammed into the Earth 65 million years ago. Would dinosaurs ever have invented football?
They just wouldn't have been very good...
Good point on JoePa. As for the seconed...Stay away from your Billy Bong Thornton/Wesley Pipe for a while.
What is the date of the first practice? I can't take too many more "what if" threads...seems like the longest summer I can remember.
If Nick Saban was our coach, we probably would have scored Mark Ingram. He went to Alabama because of Saban, who had an impact in his father's playing career. Much as it would have hurt initially for the Ingrams to see their son play at UM, it probably would have happened.
That being said, that is literally the only thing that might have come to pass, meaning that Nick Saban would never have become our coach in the first place. I could make a laundry list of reasons for that, most of which result in him never even being offered the job, but I don't think they need to be said.
1. Saban NEVER becomes the head coach at Michigan. Never. Forget about it. If people were unsure about Les Miles, the same people HATED Saban. Dirty SOB as far as they're concerned. That would have gotten squashed fast. He might have headed to Nebraska.
2. It's all speculation, but since that's what it's about....there's no guarantee Mallett doesn't stay to play for a coach of Saban's stature, if what never could happen happened. No guarantee he stays either. Ingram is more likely. Let's see, he can play for the coach with family connects he committed with...AND stay home? Just because we weren't recruiting him, doesn't mean Saban wouldn't have. I mean, he's wasn't at Alabama before, and I'm sure they were recruiting Ingram then, but Nick still got him.
3. And Rich? No one is wondering down south if he needs to put up a really good season to keep his job at Alabama. Because if he had the 2 seasons he's had here, down there, he'd really know what heat is like. Because they wouldn't take into account injuries, or recruiting classes, or any of that other stuff. It'd be win now, or we'll find someone who can.
1) Kapowski.
2) ESPN is retarded because Michigan would never hire a former Spartan coach. I think I'd rather die than see Nick Saban in the Maize and Blue.
3) As mentioned above me...Les Miles is probably the man hired...certainly before d-bag Saban.
Didn't Miles sleep with someone's wife? I want to say Moeller, but I don't remember what the rumor was. It was all very "90210ish" though. I don't think he was coming here regardless of the circumstances.
I think a better scenario would have been what if WVU's AD retired a couple years earlier and RR never left WVU. What would be of WVU and the BE now
ESPN ceased being interesting when it devolved into televised sports talk radio. The only thing missing is Terry Foster.
If RR goes to Alabama, he would probably recruit like a normal human being at first, get vilified for not returning Alabama to its glory days fast enough, then devolve into the typical SEC coach - over-recruiting and providing "benefits" to nab the best kids available. Over time, his system (infused with a steady stream of 4* and 5* playmakers) takes off, and he dominates SEC along with Florida. if he decides not to over-recruit, though, and struggles in his first year or two, he is out the door and probably an OC at a power team for a year or two.
Saban going to UM would be followed by the ground in Michigan Stadium splitting in half, demons pouring out to enslave man and destroy humanity as we know it. The sky is filled with ash blotting out the sun, society as we know it crumbles, and dogs and cats begin to cohabitate peacefully. Seeing all the mayhem and destruction his signing has caused, Saban voids his contract and runs off to coach the Seattle Seahawks, telling the huddled masses shivering under overpasses that Seattle is a dream job and one he will never leave.
http://espn.go.com/sportsnation/polls?pCat=52&sCat=1362
Right now 8% say Alabama returns to elite status if Rod takes the job.