InkStainedWretch

I would much rather have Stoutland than Pruitt.

Like I said I was just quoting talk on some Eagle forums, the drift of which is that people are saying the right things but that there’s a changing of the guard with the Eagles offense and he doesn’t want to be a part of it and the new OC isn’t really sad about that. He’s about to be 64, he certainly could be semi-retiring.

I respect your feelings, sincerely.

I guess I am an outlier, and not popular in some quarters because of it, in that while I absolutely cherish the experience of college football in the fall … if heaven is better than being in a full SEC stadium on a crisp autumn day with all the colors and sounds and smells, and two teams giving everything they have with much on the line, it must be a special place … I have never had any illusions that the sport was pure and righteous, wave the flag, kiss Mama and serve the apple pie.

I guess it’s because, in what I did for a living, I spent two decades up close with major college sports and saw and heard a seamier side of things that regular folks never saw or heard. I’m not saying that to brag, it is what it is. And it’s made me a very cynical person about college sports.

I wasn’t posting here, but every time the TV contract got insanely larger and every time coaches’ salaries got insanely larger, I told friends and colleagues that eventually the players were going to seek a cut of that action, it was absolutely inevitable that tuition, books, room and board was not going to satisfy them, and that the courts were going to look favorably toward their cause.

And we are where we are.

And I am troubled about where we are, but I am not ready to fold yet.

No one has mentioned his mental and physical toughness that would be a rarity today.

I was watching one of those YouTube reaction videos to Bird’s career highlights reel, and the reactor came to that series finale with the Pacers where Bird face planted at full velocity and broke his cheekbone and was concussed and seeing double, but sneaked past the team doctor and came back on the court and dominated to bring the Celtics back to win. The reactor noted that today’s players will sit out for a week if they have cold-like symptoms, but Larry came out with a broken face and started raining baskets on the Pacers.

The OP keeps wanting to make wagers. I will offer the same wager that within five years Ty will be a lower echelon coach at a college somewhere beginning his climb up the ladder, which IMO is his career destiny.

Gene should never have written that letter to the NCAA in 1993 mentioning Coach Bryant. He also should have kept UAB basketball only.

Mike Anderson had them going pretty well but they were never going to keep him.

Nearly 50-year journalist here.

It’s not a blank check.

And the traditional attitudes have become impossible to navigate since anyone with an iPhone can call himself a journalist.

Years ago the place I worked … which I would prefer to keep anonymous … paid to do an actual survey and Alabama fans were a huge majority. At the time … and this was during Dye’s heyday down there … there were more Braves fans than Barn fans.

You have to understand Scarbinsky prefers basketball to football, ergo he’s a UAB homer. During the Alabama Sports Writers Association conventions he was always organizing pickup basketball games while everyone else was playing golf and poker. I think he sees football as a nuisance he has to deal with because he took a job in Alabama.

Too many in our fan base only see discipline as coaches having cows on the sideline and grabbing players by the face mask and cussing them out or making them run gassers until they puke at practice when they screw up.

He’s a UAB homer. I think he favors the Barn just to be contrary and go against the established order.

Phillip was a drunken disgusting slob to be around until he gave up drinking about 30 years ago after a DUI … I heard another story that he “came to” one time somewhere in the bowels of Montgomery, not knowing how he got there and having burned all the oil out of his car … after that he just became a disgusting slob.

But my professional disagreement with him and where it became obvious to me that he was an Auburn homer … I don’t know how that happened, Benny was so tight with Coach Bryant … was when I heard from a source I trusted that he personally talked Sonny Smith into staying at Auburn after he took another job. Now Sonny was a good guy and he was fun to cover, but it wasn’t Phillip’s business to give Sonny career advice, it was to report what Sonny did. Period. I had zero respect for him after that.

I actually have voted on Halls of Fame. Baseball and Motorsports.

If I was facing a situation where if someone who I sincerely think is deserving could be facing his last go-around on the ballot ... not necessarily Ken Anderson, any player in any sport ... if he doesn't get in this year, period, I could see myself doing that and leaving BB off.

People are just locked onto this thing that BB is such a no-brainer first-ballot choice ... and he is, period, mic drop, discussion closed ... that if someone else forever loses their chance to be considered to get him in first ballot under this wacky system, then tough s**t, they're just collateral damage.

They need to change the rules to allow more than 3 people to get in at the same time.

Here’s a good piece from CBS that outlines the voting process and has a complete list of the voters. 22 of them said they voted for BB. The subject of this thread is the only one who said he didn’t. 27 others haven’t said or aren’t saying.


LINK

Roger Craig, LC Greenwood and Ken Anderson is a pretty damn good Hall of Fame ballot. But you should not have a system that keeps out no-brainer first-ballot choices.

I don’t know if y’all have looked at the voting system but it’s a complicated mess. It needs to be fixed and I imagine it will be.