 Posted by waltm, on February 17th, 2011, at 10:58 am From the Selma Times-Journal, A classless act committed at Auburn and its sequel. The inevitable reparations bill introduced in next month’s Legislative session could be an interesting read.
Posted by Danny, on December 3rd, 2010, at 9:49 am 
It’s Friday, the SEC Championship game is tomorrow, football talk is in the air, and time for me to unburden myself of something that has bugged me for a week. Time for Friday fun.
Birmingham News reporter Kevin Scarbinsky wrote in Sunday’s News:
As good as he is, as much as he’s done, Saban still has to prove he can win a great majority of his games when he doesn’t have a decided edge in talent.
This season, in games decided by a touchdown or less, Alabama is 1-2. During his four years in Tuscaloosa, that record is 10-8.
Now look at Gene Chizik’s Auburn record under the same parameters. This year, the Tigers are 6-0 in close games. In Chizik’s two years, they’re 8-3.
This was a small part of a larger article, but someone at the News made it a bigger deal by putting a teaser on the front page above Sunday’s masthead, “In close games, Saban only average.”
Folks, it just doesn’t follow that great teams will necessarily have great records in close games. When really good teams win games, they tend to win by bigger margins – because they are really good teams. When really good teams lose games, they tend to lose by smaller margins. Very good teams tend to have good won-loss records, but their records in close games tend to be not as good.
Continue reading “The Best Way for Good Teams to Win Close Games”
Posted by Danny, on November 26th, 2010, at 7:02 am 
I hope your team wins today.
Unless, of course, your team is not my team.
Posted by waltm, on August 13th, 2010, at 12:23 pm How else to explain U of A football tickets that misspell Mississippi? Or maybe it was a game prediction or otherwise taking the mickey. Right? The cow bells will be loud….
Posted by Howie, on September 24th, 2009, at 9:11 pm 
I apologize for not being with you last week. I spent the majority of last week in tryouts competing for the Tennessee starting QB.
Week 3 review:
- USC’s yearly loss to an unranked team came a little early this year with their 16-13 loss to Washington. People will point to USC [...]
Posted by Howie, on September 11th, 2009, at 11:47 am 
Here are the top games this weekend:
(#3) USC (-7) @ (#8) Ohio St (7:00PM ESPN)
True freshman QB Matt Barkley will lead the Trojans to Columbus, OH to take on the Buckeye’s sensational sophomore QB Terrelle Pryor. It might be unfair, but this game will undoubtedly serve as a referendum on the Big 10. If the Buckeyes get trounced at home, the conference will be ignored on the national scene for the remainder of the season.
(#18) Notre Dame (-3.5) @ Michigan (2:30 ABC)
Both teams avoided potential trap games in their openers to give this game a little more meaning. Rich Rodriguez gets a chance to notch his first big win as the head man for the Wolverines. With a victory in Ann Arbor, the Fighting Irish can clear its biggest hurdle on their path to the October 17th showdown with USC.
South Carolina @ (#21) Georgia (6:00 ESPN2)
Continue reading “Week 2 in College Football”
Related Articles:
Posted by Howie, on September 10th, 2009, at 3:20 pm 
Before we run down news you need to know on this weekend’s games, let’s take one last look in the rear view mirror at last week’s games of note.
OU 13 vs BYU 14
The biggest story of week 1 occurred Saturday night in Dallas. BYU catapulted themselves into the top 10 with a huge 14-13 upset of Oklahoma. There will be people that blame OU’s loss on the injury of their Heisman winning QB, Sam Bradford. However, BYU was dominating the game everywhere except the scoreboard when Bradford went out right before halftime. The Sooners title hopes took a major blow while BYU now has a very real shot of at least a BCS bowl, with the championship game as a distinct possibility. The Cougars most difficult game away from home will be UNLV. Florida St, TCU, and Utah all travel to Provo.
Continue reading “Week 1 in Review”
Related Articles:
Posted by Howie, on September 3rd, 2009, at 11:03 am 
Let’s not waste time with small talk…
What’s new this year in the SEC
- SEC signs record deal with ESPN
The conference signed a 15 yr deal with the sports cable giant for a reported $2 billion. This has to be considered good news for SEC fans, as almost all games involving an SEC team will now be televised. In past years Auburn‘s opener vs La Tech would cost ~$40 on pay-per-view. With the new deal, the game will be broadcast live on ESPNU HD. More details on the deal can be found here.
- 3 SEC schools will start the season with new head coaches
At Mississippi State, new coach Dan Mullen gives optimism to the Bulldog fan base that suffered through the Sly Croom experiment. The former offensive coordinator under Urban Meyer will try to bring the spread offense to Starkville. There doesn’t appear to be any way Mullen lasts more than 3 years in Starkville. Either he will turn the program around and bolt for a better job, or he will suffer the same fate as his predecessor.
The most controversial coaching change of the off-season occured on the plains of Auburn. Tuberville “resigned” as head coach of the Tigers after a decade long tenure where he guided Auburn to 2 division titles and a 2004 SEC Championship. The 2004 squad did everything it could to play for a national title, but was denied when USC and Oklahoma finished 1/2 in the BCS standings. A portion of AU’s fan base had become tired of Tuberville and thought his entire staff had become lazy recruiters. It’s impossible to know if the unhappy portion of the fan base had Gene Chizik in mind as a replacement, but it can be assumed AU supporters had their sights set a little higher than the former Iowa State HC. The firing of Tuberville and subsequent hiring of a HC with a career record of 5-19 was derided last December. Since that time, Chizik has put together a staff that has a better reputation on the recruiting front than Tuberville’s old regime. Auburn fans’ sentiment towards Chizik has definitely changed in the last 8 months. He must now win on the field.
Easily the most talked about new hire is University of Tennessee head coach Lane Kiffen. He incorrectly accused Urban Meyer of recruiting violations on National Signing Day. Kiffen allegedly told a recruit (who ended up signing with South Carolina) that if he went to South Carolina the recruit would end up pumping gas like all the rest of the players who had gone to South Carolina. It became clear before Kiffen admitted as much that he subscribes to the theory that there is no such thing as bad publicity. All publicity surrounding the program has not been controversial. Kiffen has assembled a good staff, including former Ole Miss Head coach Ed Orgeron. Known as a great recruiter, Orgeron will give Tennessee a much needed recruiting boost. Kiffen’s most lauded hire was his dad, Monte Kiffen. The former Tampa Bay Bucs defensive coordinator brings years of NFL experience and a sterling reputation to Knoxville. While there’s little doubt that Kiffen has assembled a solid staff, doubt remains about his ability as a head coach. The pressure will be on Kiffen, as this team is only 2 years removed from playing in the SEC Championship game.
Week 1 Top Games:
Continue reading “Week 1 in College Football”
Related Articles:
Posted by Danny, on September 2nd, 2009, at 11:49 am 
Ah… autumn… change is in the air… temperatures are cooling down, new haircuts and new shoes are at new desks before new teachers, Friday nights are full of football and flags and oom-pah rat-a-tats, and soon the leaves will be bidding us a beautiful farewell…
It is a season of change here at Doc’s [...]
Posted by Danny, on January 10th, 2008, at 11:20 am
Doug, a fellow Alabama blogger, has a new post reminding us once again why his blog Hey Jenny Slater is such a fun place. It starts out good…
If Ohio State has just gotten bent over and humiliated by an SEC team on national network television, then that means another college football season [...]
Posted by Danny, on November 23rd, 2007, at 10:49 am 
Google Trends lets you compare search volumes for multiple terms.
The Iron Bowl is tomorrow, and this felt like a good time to pull out of the closet our use of Google Trends…
No telling who will prevail tomorrow, but we can know now who predominates in Google searches. As a general [...]
Posted by Danny, on November 21st, 2007, at 12:59 pm
And from the same Rasmussen Reports poll released this week and referenced in the last two posts…
Which is most important to you personally: the winner of the Alabama-Auburn football game or who will be elected president of the United States?
10% Winner of the Alabama-Auburn game
88% Who will be elected president [...]
Posted by Danny, on October 29th, 2007, at 3:09 pm Former Alabama head football coach Mike Dubose is coaching at Millsaps in Mississippi and might should be on a suicide watch after Saturday’s game against Trinity University. I always considered the end of the 1982 Stanford-California game to be an unbelievable finish, but this…
Trinity takes over on its 40 with 2 [...]
Posted by Danny, on September 3rd, 2007, at 4:02 pm 
With the excitement of the first college football weekend, this is as good as a time as any to remind folks that you can find Auburn and Alabama football stories in the Political Parlor’s “newsfeeds.” If you are a fan of one of the teams, the newsfeeds can be fun because you [...]
Posted by Danny, on September 1st, 2007, at 8:37 am 
One more enjoyable read on college football…
Wright Thompson of ESPN.com writes “A Love Letter to Southern Football.” If you are a fan of college football in the south, I recommend it.
An excerpt:
I love “ARE YOU READY?” and all the other SEC football idiosyncrasies, too, because they come from the same [...]
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Legislative DispatchBy Joe Hubbard on June 8, 2011 This Thursday will mark the last day of the legislative Session. For some, it was a Session that seemed would never end. For others, it was one that ended much too quickly. It may be early, yet, to write an obit on this Session, but as we approach the finish line, some perspective may be in order.
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AL House, AL Senate, Legislative Dispatch, Uncategorized | By John Merrill on May 24, 2011 As you know, a very important piece of legislation will be presented for our consideration in the House tomorrow in Montgomery – Senate Bill 310 – the “Students First” tenure and fair dismissal reform bill. Like me, many House members have been inundated with phone calls and emails from opponents of this bill, and some have been [...]
Legislative Dispatch | By Cam Ward on May 17, 2011 There are a lot of issues to debate before we begin the final days of this session. In fact, I am quite certain there will be some comments on this post debating many of them. Before we get into the last seven day of the session I wanted to bring up a topic that [...]
Legislative Dispatch | |
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