A NIL Manifesto!

First of all, I’d like to note that I’m not an old fogey or a male version of a ‘Karen’. I fully believe that College players of all sports should be paid. After all, their appearances make all of the networks a ton of money, as well as the schools who are ‘in partnership with the networks’, as well as the businesses who want to be associated with their school, because thanks to their talent, they are always in a National Championship or March Madness shout. But this thing has become a cluster-f**k, and we all know it. First of all, the NCAA can’t work out what to do. They’ve been throwing out this idea that every school should pay

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Has the ‘Alabama mystique’ gone?

The news that safety sensation Caleb Downs and starting offensive lineman Kadyn Proctor put themselves into the transfer portal a few days after the retirement of Nick Saban and the rehiring of Kalen DeBoer has made a lot of people ask the question: ‘Has the Alabama mystique gone?” Saban had the mystique – in the same way as any long-tenured, high-winning head coach (see Mssrs Bryant, Paterno, Spurrier, Meyer, Hayes, Schembechler and Smart for details) – does. When a team wins and wins and wins and wins and wins in the way that Alabama did under Saban’s time, it gets the reputation as a development factory for the NFL. Saban dined out on this while recruiting (He used to say:

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Alabama hires Kalen DeBoer as new head coach

Alabama has hired former Washington head coach Kalen DeBoer as head coach. Under DeBoer’s tutelage, the Huskies made the National Championship Game after an unbeaten regular season and beating Texas in the semi-final, where they were hammered by Michigan (after playing zero defense in the first quarter). News of DeBoer’s contract aren’t out yet, but it should be a pretty seamless offensive move. DeBoer’s team averaged 36 points per game last year, and 39.7 the year before in his two years in Seattle, en route to an overall 25-3 record. He has an overall coaching record of an astonishing 104-12 – although some of this was at the University of Sioux Falls in South Dakota, a NAIA school. Alabama will

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The King is dead: Who’s gonna be the King?

Nick Saban is gone. No, not ‘gone gone’, but just retired. But it felt like a death. Especially in Tuscaloosa where they laid cokes and biscuits at the foot of their saviour’s statue (but not at Auburn, where trees were toilet-papered in celebration). So who’s going to come on board? Here are your runners and riders (in our opinion) THE FAVORITES Dan Lanning (Oregon): Oregon head coach. Brilliant DC at Georgia, which meant that he’s good at recruiting in the SEC. Young, fresh-faced, and has the Sabanesque qualities of extreme focus and being a damn good recruiter. Lane Kiffin (Ole Miss): Been there before in terms of working in Tuscaloosa, and is pretty well-liked in those parts. Even though he’s

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A very quick SEC Bowl Preview

It’s Christmas-time. You and I have a ton of stuff to do, so here are my one-paragrah takes on the non-play-off bowl games, in order of our interest.   Dec 29: COTTON BOWL (DALLAS) – Missouri (-1) v Ohio State (JerryWorld): Ohio State is going to be missing starting QB Kyle McCord (transfer portal), WR Julian Fleming (Portal), and one of its best RBs in Miyan Williams (NFL) Ryan Day has said that WR extraordinaire Marvin Harrison Jr, RB TreVeyon Henderson, TE Cade Stover, DE J.T. Tuimoloau and a number of other defensive players have been practicising and haven’t made their decision on whether to go pro or not. WR Emeka Egbuka has opted in as well as some other draft-eligible

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SEC SCHEDULE FOR 2024 RELEASED

The SEC released their new, Texas and OU-expanded schedule. There are a lot of interesting games, and a lot of dullards. A lot of SEC fans have talked about Texas v Oklahoma being an exiting game because it’s now a S-E-C game, but if you weren’t excited about that match-up every year anyway, then you’re probably ignorant. The great thing about this schedule is that there are some cracker non-conference match-ups, including Texas going to Michigan, Florida v Miami, LSU v USC, Georgia v Clemson and Alabama’s trip to Wisconsin, as well as and an underrated monster in Arkansas going to Oklahoma State. There are a lot of non-conference match-ups we hate that the SEC produces every week, but in

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SEC Preview Week 2: Who wins the old-SWC war?

  Last week I finished 12-2 straight-up, with the losses from LSU and – you guessed it- Vanderbilt. It’s easy to look at the SEC schedule and think: “Dear Lord, what a trainwreck of a day. There is NOTHING to watch. My team’s gonna win by 400, so I might watch a quarter of it and then go and watch something else.” But…. Then if you’re a college football historian, there’s one match-up that you should love: Texas (-7, O/U 56.5) at Arkansas. The Longhorns and Razorbacks have played 78 times when rooted in the old Southwest Conference, including a stretch when they played every year from 1932 to 1991. The Longhorns have owned the rivalry 56-22, but since 2000

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Dawgs on Top: Week 1 SEC Rankings

Week 1 in the SEC was fun. Georgia shut down Clemson with a defense that was absolutely frightening. Alabama rolled – and we mean ROLLED – against Miami, and LSU lost at UCLA. Everyone else? Auburn, Kentucky, South Carolina and Texas A&M all christened their series in style, while Missouri, Arkansas and Mississippi State survived despite playing dreadfully, and Vanderbilt’s loss to ETSU was so bad that it had us questioning whether they should play football. Anyway, here are our rankings for the 11 SEC teams that we’ve seen this season. Ole Miss play Louisville on Monday (and we’ll adjust them then, but here’s now!).  Georgia (1-0): OK, we get that Alabama’s victory over Miami was really impressive. Totally understand

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SEC Predictions for Week 1

Last week was Week 0. Yeah, we saw a B1G match-up between Nebraska and Illinois, as well as UCLA putting a beating on Hawaii, but that was about it. But this week is where the big guns come in, and every team comes and flexes their muscles. As usual, we’re going by games that interest us the most. And weirdly Alabama – is in the Top 3. No.5 Georgia vs No.3 Clemson (-3, O/U 51.5) (Charlotte): This is a game that everyone’s been excited about since it came on the schedule last year. And although Georgia’s ranked No.5 and Clemson’s ranked No.3, these are two bona fide National Championship favorites. And both have the chance to run the table if

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SEC Preview: Can Alabama repeat this season?

Alabama’s National Championship last season was a beauty. They buried defenses on offense, and after the Ole Miss near-debacle, they buried defenses too. But the NFL scourged a team like we’ve never team. The Crimson Tide had SIX first round picks (WRs Jaylen Waddle, DeVonta Smith, CB Patrick Surtain, QB Mac Jones, OT Alex Leatherwood, RB Najee Harris), plus second rounder C Lance Dickerson and DT Christian Barmore and OG Deonte Brown (6th round) and LS Thomas Fletcher (6th round). LB Dylan Moses, TE Miller Forristall, TE Carl Tucker and LB Josh McMillon. To put in in ‘Bama terms, that’s a Heisman winner (Smith), a Heisman finalist (Jones), a possible Heisman-finalist-if-he-hadn’t-gotten-injured (Waddle), one of the best CBs in the country

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