All Things CW: Did You Notice These 5 Things From Alabama's Media Days?
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We've listened to a lot of Nick Saban press conferences over the years, and been involved in more media days than we care to remember (yes, former Vanderbilt coach Robbie Caldwell talking about being a turkey inseminator has left a mental mark).
Sometimes you have to read between the lines a little and get a little extra input to sort of interpret what's going on with Alabama football.
Here are five good examples from Atlanta and the 2022 SEC Media Days this week:
1) He singled out assistant coaches
Saban almost never does this, especially with his new coaches. Yet he went out of his way to praise two new additions to the staff, beginning with his opening comments at the podium in the main room.
"I'm really pleased with the new special teams coordinator, Coleman Hutzler, that we have. He's done a good job. The players have bought into it, which is always important on special teams."
When Saban gets asked about special teams he always notes that they're a lot more than just the punter and the kicker. This was a strong hint that the Crimson Tide return units (and coverage teams) could be very good this season.
The other comment was about Eric Wolford off a question about the offensive line. It's a perfect example of the coach talking about what he wants, and making specific points, instead of what was asked.
"I think that's one of the biggest challenges, is the offensive line rebuild that we need to do. I'm excited about the coach that we have at that position, Coach Wolford has done a really good job with the players and relationship building, fundamental progress."
2) Speaking of the offensive line ...
We've been hearing all spring and summer that Alabama's offensive line is going to be better than people expect.
The strength of the unit is obviously in the interior, where the Crimson Tide has three returning starters, and some reserves with experience as well.
As for the tackles, Saban said: "We do have some new players that may contribute to that that weren't there in the spring. That's something that we'll have to sort of assess in fall camp."
That's an obvious reference to Vanderbilt transfer Tyler Steen, but note that Saban said players, as in plural. The other new addition over the summer was true freshman Elijah Pritchett.
The guess here is that Steen will be at left tackle and JC Latham will get the first look at right tackle when training camp opens. But we'll keeping an eye out to see if Pritchett is working more on the right or left side.
3) Cornerback
No one should be surprised that Saban zeroed in on the position group that he helps coach during practice, especially since the Crimson Tide will have two new starters.
Regardless of who gets the two primary roles between Eli Ricks, Khyree Jackson and Kool-Aid McKinstry, all three are going to get plenty of opportunities. Ricks may have the most upside this season, but things hadn't clicked in getting the defensive scheme down during the spring and since then he's been getting in extra work and film study with new defensive backs coach Travaris Robinson.
The rest of the defense is pretty much set, and has the potential to be top-notch this season if, and only if, the cornerbacks live up to their potential.
"The biggest challenge is how do we replace the corners that we lost, because corner is probably the one position that puts the greatest restriction on what you can do on defense," Saban said.
“I do think that those three guys’ development is going to be critical to the success of our team."
4) Alabama won the transfer portal
Some teams can claim to have won the transfer portal for this season. Others would be in serious trouble without adding numerous players to help compensate significant losses.
But take a second look at the preseason All-SEC team selected by the media. Of Alabama's eight first-team selections among position players, three were first-year transfers (Jahmyr Gibbs, Jermaine Burton and Ricks) and another was a transfer last year (Henry To'oTo'o).
Quarterback Stetson Bennett had nice things to say about Burton even though the wide receiver transferred from Georgia (which had to sting), but so far Gibbs has been the key addition. Look closely at this quote from Saban:
“He’s an outstanding player,” the coach said. “He’s a very mature person. He’s got great work ethic. He’s very talented from an ability standpoint. He’s got speed. He’s a really good receiver. He does a great job of pressing holes and getting the defense to commit to things and making a cut and gets to top speed very quickly, which are all tremendous assets for a running back.
“He’s made a really, really positive impact on our team in a lot of ways, on the field and off, and we’re very pleased to have him in the program."
Like with coaches, Saban rarely gives that kind of praise to a new player until he proves what he can do during a game and season.
5) Leadership
This is the kind of offseason quote fans want to hear from Saban about the makeup of the Crimson Tide:
"I've always said that when the best players on your team are really good people with great attitude and great mindset, it's really helpful to developing the type of team chemistry you need to have a successful team."
He often says the same thing about the team's work ethic, that when the best players are also the hardest workers it usually makes for a good season.
Consequently, the answer to the first question Saban took the podium in Atlanta was very telling. Legendary SEC writer Bob Holt asked: "As far as Will [Anderson] and Bryce [Young], can you think of another team where you've had such elite guys on each side of the ball? What is it like having two guys back that are so good, arguably the best in the country?"
Saban responded: "I don't like to compare players, but to have two players that make such a significant impact on our team as those two guys, I don't recall ever having a circumstance like that. We've had some great impact players, but never one on offense, one on defense, of the caliber that these guys have been able to play on a consistent basis."
Meanwhile, Anderson gave the following response on another room, unaware of what his coach had said:
"The biggest goal for our team is always to win the national championship, and we didn’t meet that goal last year. So, last season was not the successful season that we wanted. All the blood, sweat, and tears that we put into a season is towards getting to the national championship and winning it, and last year we got there and we did not finish the way we wanted to."
Put it all together and what do we have?
Saban already likes this team a lot, and with good reason.
This Year's Saban Rumor De Jour
Saban always has a few points that he wants to make at SEC Media Days, and one this year was about ongoing retirement rumors. The seven-time national champion said that other coaches have told prominent recruits that he will step away from the Crimson Tide soon.
The 70-year-old wasn't asked directly about it during his numerous interview in Atlanta, but took advantage of being lobbed a question on the SEC Network set about what he liked about his job:
“I wish you all would ask all the other coaches that come up here, because they tell all the recruits that I’m going to retire," Saban said. "Why don’t you ask them how they know I’m going to retire?”
The difference between this rumor and all of the previous versions, about how Saban would go back to the NFL, or could be hired away by another school, is this one will eventually be true. Just no one should hold his or breath waiting for it to happen.
SEC Scheduling
While the SEC sent a strong signal that the East and West divisions are about to go by the wayside as soon as it can figure out final details like tiebreakers for the SEC Championship Game, one scheduling idea that's picking up steam is the three-team model, where each school plays three teams every year, with the rest of the schedule using a yearly rotation.
A big advantage of doing so is that teams wouldn't go long stretches without facing certain opponents in the league.
“The model of three is much better, because it gives you more consistency and helps keep traditional rivalries,” Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher said. “That’s the one thing we’re trying to do in college football and to me makes college football special, the rivalries of college football and trying to keep as many traditions as you can with the expanding world.”
As for which three teams he would like Texas A&M to play every year in that scenario, he said Texas (obviously), LSU and Arkansas. However, Fisher seemed to let slip who the SEC would give Texas A&M as its third team and it's not Texas.
“I think the third team in our gamut was Mississippi State,” he said.
If so, geography isn't a major part of the equation, or as least isn't as much as it should be, as the next closest school to College Station is Oklahoma. However, having Texas, LSU and Oklahoma as a permanent three would be a little on the brutal side.
The two closest schools in the conference in terms of distance are Alabama and Mississippi State, about 90 minutes apart depending on the speed traps on 82. But the Bulldogs could be getting Ole Miss, LSU and Texas A&M.
For the Crimson Tide, Auburn would be a given. Preserving the Tennessee rivalry makes sense as well. That leaves Ole Miss as the likely third team. The next closest is one of the schools it has the least strongest ties with, Vanderbilt.
This Didn't Get Near the Attention it Deserved
From former Alabama softball player Kaylee Tow on Twitter, and worth a read:
"My open letter to sports fans who believe social media is a good place to scrutinize athletes:
"Dear "fans" or anyone that this shoe might fit,
"I've been thinking back to the times that we've recently seen athletes take their own lives. Social media was filled with people offering their condolences and pleading for the system to change. What if I told you that it could actually be YOU, the fans, that needs to change?
"My sophomore year of college, I was in the darkest place I've ever been in my life. I turned to social media, online forums, and such to read the comments that people were writing about me out of curiosity. I remember seeing the most hateful words I had ever seen written about myself, and the worst part is, I believed it. So much so that I began to fantasize about taking my own life. I wondered how much better it would be if I could just fall asleep and never wake up to avoid the shame I felt to have been a disappointment to so many people.
"Thankfully, I turned to God, family, coaches and friends to know that I was loved and appreciated. I turned to the people who actually knew Kaylee, the person, and not just Kaylee, the athlete. You all criticize a person's character like you know them, but you've never walked a mile in their shows. You wonder why more and more athletes struggled with mental health, and yet you use your words to spread hatred. I can speak from experience, what you see in athletics is never what you get. You don't know the inside of the program, you don't know the athletes like you think you do, so your negative opinion is simply mean, and most of the time wrong.
"In my experience, most athletes I've played with are people pleasers. That's why they do so well with coaching because they love to please people. It doesn't stop there; athletes, much like myself, want to please the fans as well. We want to make you happy, we want you to enjoy our games, and we want to hear your words of affirmation. When you offer up nasty, hateful comments, we see them and as an impressionable young adult, these words are never forgotten and they often became a lens through which we view ourselves.
"I know there are people out there who will never stop criticizing and being hateful, that's fine. But if you're gonna do that, I urge you to please BLOCK the athletes you're talking about about so they can't see your words. You already clearly don't like them so it won't hurt to just block them. You have absolutely no idea what people are going through, and words really do hurt.
"I believe it's time to self-reflect and realize that the athlete you're speaking about is really just a person. A person who wants love, appreciation, and acceptance. If you can't offer that, you don't have to offer anything. I promise you becoming less hateful will even help you feel better about yourself, too.
"Thank you for coming to my unwarranted ted talk, but I really felt like this needed to be said.
"Respectively,
"Kaylee Tow"
5 Things That Got Our Attention This Week
• SEC commissioner Greg Sankey was pretty candid when he got away from the podium and television cameras at media days, including flat-out stating that the SEC did better by adding Texas and Oklahoma than the Big Ten did with USC and UCLA. He and took exception to all the heat the SEC took when it made that move last year. ["There was] a lot of finger-pointing about how the SEC conducts itself. I would simply say our reality in decision-making is a very clear representation that people called us speaks for itself and how we operate.” Additionally, he noted on a podcast that the Big Ten has recently added members from the Big East, ACC, Big 12 and now the Pac-12.
• Abe Madkour, the well-know executive editor of the SportsBusiness Journal/Daily, says no one should look for a new leader of the NCAA anytime soon. "Recruitment of potential candidates is not likely to begin until late fall, after the Board of Governors forms a selection committee. The search is not directly impacted by realignment or the NCAA’s Transformation Committee efforts, but sources acknowledge the search committee wants a clear sense as to what college sports could look like in the future and what the role of NCAA president would encompass and oversee."
• On Monday, Dennis Dodd of CBS Sports reported that Notre Dame would like to earn $75 million a year from its next football TV contract, up from the $22 million it'll get this season from NBC. SBJ's Michael Smith argued the school should ask for even more. "Take the SEC’s most recent deal as an example. ESPN took CBS’s package and will pay the conference $300 million annually for 15 football games and eight men’s basketball games. Those aren’t just any games -- they are the first pick of games each week throughout the football season. That’s an average of close to $20 million for each of 15 top-shelf games. If Notre Dame got the $75 million it seeks, that would be a little over $10 million each telecast as part of a seven-game home games. The Fighting Irish should be asking for more."
• The Mercury News’ Jon Wilner, who broke the story that USC and UCLA were leaving for the Big Ten, noted that with a Big 12 merger reportedly off the table, the Pac-12 is left with three options for survival: linking up with the ACC under an ESPN media rights umbrella, moving forward with its current 10 teams, or expanding. If the league chooses the latter, Wilner posits that San Diego State is the “obvious addition,” noting the “Aztecs have been preparing for this opportunity for a decade and borrowed from the expansion blueprint used by Utah, which spent years readying itself for the moment the Pac-12 called.” SDSU is 6-1 against Pac-12 teams since 2017. Wilner: “San Diego has 1.1 million TV homes and is the No. 27 market in the country, larger than the likes of Kansas City, Cincinnati and Oklahoma City, according to Nielsen DMA data for 2021. In fact, San Diego has more TV homes than all but three markets in the Big 12’s future footprint (Dallas, Houston and Orlando).
• Per The Athletic and other outlets, Clemson coach Dabo Swinney is using a baseball analogy to describe the growing revenue gap that is projected to leave football programs outside the Big Ten and SEC from annually competing on an even playing field. “Where we are right now, it’s kind of like rounding second base and there’s a line drive and everybody’s kind of holding halfway to see if it got through, right? And we either get on home or go back to second and go from there. I think it’s it’s a bigger question than just the ACC. I think the biggest thing, and I’m not concerned at all, I’m just kind of like everybody else: Where are we going to be in two years or five years? Because as I’ve said, a couple of times, I think most people know where college football’s heading. Is it next week? Is it five years from now? Is it three years from now? I don’t really know. But I think most people that are really a part of this game agree that ultimately there’s going to be a restructuring of college football. There’s gonna be a new governance structure at some point. I don’t think there’s any doubt of that.”
Tide-Bits
• News broke on Friday that the NCAA slammed Tennessee under former coach Jeremy Pruitt, with all of the allegations Level I, considered the most egregious on the NCAA’s infractions scale. The 51-page document, was obtained by Sports Illustrated, outlines 18 separate allegations of blatant recruiting misconduct from Pruitt and his staff transpiring as early as September 2018, his 10th month on the job, and extending through the COVID-19 recruiting dead period of 2020.
Here's how many people were surprised in the Alabama football complex after losing out to some of those prospects: None.
• Sports Illustrated published a behind-the-scenes look at the 12-hour day it spent with Trevon Diggs and his brother Stefon, including all the time they spent in front of photographer Simon Bruty. One of the highlights was a photo of the two of them jumping for the ball in a classic cornerback-vs.-wide receiver battle.
“During the portrait shoot, that was the thing we looked for … but throughout the day, it wasn’t really so football oriented. It was just two brothers,” said Erick Rasco, the director of photo operations at SI. “They’re normal brothers that have their own dynamic and own personalities.”
• Tulane Sports Law Professor, and host of the Between the Lines podcast, Gabe Feldman took notice of what he called a “potentially industry-shifting legal decision” by a federal judge in Pennsylvania. “In a case involving the ‘Penn State’ trademark on merchandise, the court held that a symbol or phrase does not serve as a trademark if it ‘merely creates an association between it and the trademark holder.’
PSU had sued Varsity Brand under TM law for selling merchandise using ‘Penn State’ and the lion. Varsity countersued and sought to cancel ‘Penn State’ and the lion as trademarks. PSU moved to dismiss on the grounds that... of course ‘Penn State’ and the lion are valid trademarks. The court denied the motion to dismiss holding that PSU had to prove consumers view ‘Penn State’ and the lion as identifying the source of the product and not just as ‘ornamental,’ i.e, it's not enough to just show that people associate ‘Penn State’ and the lion with the school.
This could have huge implications for Alabama (which at one point tried to trademark the houndstooth design) and every other athletic department. Feldman called the following the billion dollar quote: "The modern collegiate trademark and licensing regime has grown into a multibillion-dollar industry. But that a house is large is of little matter if it's been built on sand.’”
• This was bound to happen eventually ...
Wouldn't Julio Jones look good on there too?
The latest on the free agent is that he has numerous options in terms of signing with a new team and it's just a matter of time/picking the best one. He has all the leverage, so there's no reason to rush to sign even with training camps opening around the league.
This Week's Don't Poke The Bear Moment
The Alabama players at SEC Media Days knew they were going to get asked about the whole Saban-Fisher spat, and they had a fairly obvious answer ready to go:
“We note it. We don’t have to speak on it too much,” Anderson said. “We see what’s going on. When the pads get on, when the game gets going, we’ll address it then.”
That's the kind of answer he should give, supportive to his coach without making it more of an issue. But apparently that wasn't good enough for one former Texas A&M player, safety Leon O'Neal Jr.:
Yes, the SEC Defensive Player of the year did only have one solo tackle, but racked up five assists as well for a total of six tackles at Kyle Field. Some of the that had to do with a really good game plan that Jimbo Fisher and his coaching staff devised, which keyed on one thing especially, the quarterback getting rid of the ball quickly.
So O'Neal's talking about the player the game plan was built around, who went on to win the Bronko Nagurski Trophy and play in the National Championship Game. He could end up being the first-overall selection in the 2023 NFL Draft.
Meanwhile, Texas A&M went 4-4 in conference play. It backed out of its bowl game. It hadn't defeated Alabama since 2012.
To give credit, O'Neal had a pretty good game against the Crimson Tide, with nine tackles, a sack and a fumble recovery (his only turnover in SEC play last season). Bryce Young still threw for 369 yards and three touchdowns as Alabama out-gained the home team 522-379.
Here's his draft profile by Lance Zierlein of NFL.com:
"Safety prospect with good size and field recognition but major deficiencies that could be tough to overcome. O'Neal puts the work in and it shows with the way he locates routes and rushes on top of them as a zone defender. While he has some success playing forward, he's missing the hips and speed to hold up as a last line of defense against NFL speed. To make the situation muddier, O'Neal was an inconsistent tackler throughout his time at Texas A&M, which could add to the challenge of making a roster in 2022."
O'Neal went undrafted and signed a free-agent deal with the San Francisco 49ers.
We're guessing he won't be getting a Christmas card from Texas A&M's new left tackle this season.
A Poignant Moment
Kudos to the Big Ten for the successful first installment of its Big Life Series, which sent a delegation of students and coach to Alabama over the summer to visit some of the key centers of the civil rights movement, including the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, the site of the 1965 Bloody Sunday attack.
The visit included hearing firsthand accounts from individuals who were on the Edmund Pettus Bridge when police started violently attacking peaceful protesters.
“It really landed with me in that it was a reminder that it was not that long ago and it helps put things into perspective right now," Michigan State head coach Mel Tucker said. "This is recent history. Even when you talk about slavery, that wasn’t long ago. There were people there whose great-grandparents were born slaves. Things that are happening in the present day, for me, make more sense. There’s more understanding, more clarity, more focus, like why are these things happening?
"It was from anger to disbelief to pride to inspiration to disgust, frustration, amazement, fear, devastation, hopefulness … really, it was this whole gamut of every emotion you could have in that short period of time. I was emotionally drained.”
Tucker, who was the assistant head coach/defensive backs at Alabama in 2015, encourages those from all racial and ethnic backgrounds to make the trip.
“You need to see it, White and Black, because whatever you learned in school does not do it justice.”
Did You Notice?
The Dominant Will Anderson Jr. Is Ready for His Encore
Tennessee Fans Got Their Way. Now the Chickens Have Fully Come Home to Roost
Kirby Smart Admits He Was ‘Ready to Step Down’ Last Summer
Along For the Ride As a Cuban Baseball Prospect Defects to the U.S.
Christopher Walsh's notes column appears every week on BamaCentral.
