ESPN First Take - Harbaugh vs Saban RE: Sat. Camps and Respect

Bayless is correct for the first time in his career

You have to admit we are in all the high ranking recruits final five. If we close on them we will be once again the most recognized and still most winningest program in college football. 

These pretzels are making me thirsty.

Since he always loses on First Take. Only thing good about the show is host Molly very pretty and beautiful.

opposite points on everything just to stir up ratings. Who know or cares what they really believe. 

His first year at Alabama.....

Harbaugh doubled our wins, Skip should have brought that up!

Either way, the notoriety is undeniable, can't stop grinning!!

I understand the thread because the topic is relevant, so no disrespect intended to the OP. But I care as much about the First Take crew's opinion as I do Paul Finebaum's.

Personally, I much prefer Stephen B. Smith over Stephen A. Smith.

Are we really discussing the discussions on First Take? I'd be much more interested in you recapping your work water cooler discussion on the topic, MFanNE. It'd likely feature more thoughtful and/or original analysis.

Is Stephen A. Smith an idiotic talking-head? Absolutely.

But let's all keep in mind that both of these guys are paid a lot of money to disagree and argue. I don't watch First Take, but the reason it is still even on the air is because either Bayless or Smith will play devil's advocate or make up some lame reason to disagree with the other simply for views, clicks, and ratings.

If one of them presented their view on a particular topic and all the other one said was "I completely agree", the show wouldn't last. Smith could absolutely believe what is coming out of his own mouth, or he could just only care about keeping his job, and has to create an opposing viewpoint to Bayless to keep their show interesting and relevant.

Either way, he's still an idiotic talking head.

These two literally represent everything that's wrong with sports reporting and sports television today. "Here, you take an outrageous stance / some crazy hot take and I'll support the opposite. Then we'll yell at each other and make senseless arguments with no hard data for an hour and the ratings will take care of themselves!" I hate both of them, regardless of who supports Harbaugh.

You lost me once you brought up First Take with SAS and Bayless. 

is simply an ESPN spin job on the satellite camp remarks that led to the comparison between Saban and Harbaugh's coaching record. 

Saban is a proven college winner at two major SEC programs, the best in the game, and otherwise reigns as the prince of fucking darkness in the college football coaching fraternity. When he says that he has nothing against our coach but thinks the camp tour is bad for college football without specifying why, the defense for his POV is that he is the best coach in the game and that he is being disrespected.

Not so. His viewpoint is being challenged by Coach Harbaugh, not his place in the game. And he challenges Saban, the same way he spoke out against Michigan, charging his alma mater with steering football players in certain less rigorous academic directions to keep them eligible while then coaching at Stanford, drawing a line in the sand that separated him and Michigan faithful for years. He doesn't care who he offends,

But he wasn't knocking the program or its achievements, as he isn't challenging Saban's record of achievement as a college coach. He is challenging Saban's thinking on the camp tour and contesting that opinion by pointing out the the recent recruiting indiscretions that have occurred at Alabama, which seemingly undercut the unstated motivation behind Saban's remarks.

Look, Harbaugh's career record speaks for itself. He's had success wherever he's been as a player and coach, at the highest levels. The record defense of Saban in this argument is specious and lame, because Saban won't even articulate the rationale for his opinion, afraid that if he acknowledges what it is,  it might be questioned for what it is, fear and loathing about recruiting inroads on his home turf. 

So, instead  his media and conference minions and suppoters spin Harbaugh's contention into some kind of disrespectful swipe at the game's most successful coach.

And then we get to their evolution as coaches. Nobody in the SEC ever talks about this. But I always love to point this out, because the truth is the SEC has benefitted from having two premier coaches in Saban and Urban Meyer who  got their start in the MAC and midwest. Outside of Steve Spurrier, there is no recent home grown SEC coach with any particular historical success beyond the interlopers.

Saban went to Kent State, Meyer to Bowling Green;

For OSU DC and current MSU coach, Mark Dantonio was a grad assistant at the Ohio University after going to South Carolina, the only Big Ten coach with an SEC connectuon. There are plenty of Midwest and Michigan connections in the SEC.

And Saban was actually  chased out of MSU by Lloyd Carr, went to the NFL, didn't succeed as well as Harbaugh, came back to the college ranks and dominated at two schools like no other. But he has also coached at two of the greatest tradition-rich programs and hallowed football schools ever, in LSU and Alabama.

Meantime, Harbaugh is just getting started at Michigan, and is making a greater splash doing so, then eanyone could ever have imagined.

The gap is closing fast and Saban can see that, which is why he is really against the summer camp movement and its publiclity and PR recruiting benefits. That's the real collateral damage for him and his supporters even as they lamely fall on the sword of lack of respect