Alabiker

He’s gonna commute.

They can’t postpone spring practice. Right now CKD is talking to the boys about having half of them play both offense and defense and then take turns kicking and punting.

Trying to compare what is happening at Alabama with anything else, anytime else, is a fool’s game.

You can rank coaches 1 to whatever but there can be only one GOAT. Coach Saban is the GOAT. Downs and Sayin would never have been in Tuscaloosa were it not for Coach Saban. They didn’t sign with Kiffin or Smart or Sark or …. they came because of Nick. It’s no big surprise that without Coach Saban there is no reason for them to stay.

If current NIL and portal rules had been in effect when Coach Bryant retired how many recruits/players would have left the team? Dunno, but maybe a lot. They came to Bama to play for the GOAT.

I hate hate hate losing Downs and Sayin. I do. But I am a big fan of CKD and love the staff that he is putting together. For the long term, the best possible staff is more important that whatever players take this opportunity to leave.

Sunshine pumper? Maybe. But my first memories of Alabama football include Joe Namath so I’ve been a fan for a long time. The staff that CKD is putting together might be the best we’ve had in a long time.

Coach Saban was perhaps the best recruiter in the history of college football and that will certainly be missed. Recruiting, however, isn’t as important now as it was even a few years ago. The ease with which a heavily recruited player, on which a university spends so much time, effort and money, can move to any other team and the fact that each player is actually an item up for auction negates a lot of the need for the recruitment and development of high school kids.

I do not like the portal as it now exists and preferred the restrictions on transfers of the past. I don’t like the NIL in its current form. I don’t like a lot of things about the state and future of college football. Aight? But it is what it is.

I’ve always believed that any other team could do or be anything they wanted but that at the end of the day we are still the Crimson Tide of Alabama and they ain’t. Still feel that way.

TL/dr: Roll Motherfricking Tide.

What violation? I never said that their $150M was for paying players. I said that at the same time they needed to buy out a coach, a donor threw them a check. And this wasn’t some behind the scenes, business as usual donation; a facsimile check was presented during a game.

Well said.

The new playoff system means you don’t have to be one of the 2 or 4 best teams anymore, you can get in if you’re one of the top 11. For a while, at least, being Top 11 is gonna have to be the target.

bullshite. Coach might have “plenty of time” but this ain’t about time it’s about money and apparently we can’t match what some other schools are willing to pay.

None of this is due to failure by CKD or his staff. Period. This is the Mecum Auction version of college football. It doesn’t matter how much you want the player if someone else is willing to outbid you. There’s crazy money being thrown around right now and it would seem that our pockets aren’t as deep as some of the other bidders.

Yeah, we’ve lost a couple that hurt but most of that is processing. We’re still at around 80 scholarships so we may need to actually shed a few more before fall. If you want to bring in 30 you gots to lose 30.

Anything on the team meeting? Saw where someone on X posted that Downs attended.

There are a bunch of stupid takes on this board lately so let me perhaps add another.

If you place the blame on the HC for rich teenagers jumping ship, you might be an idiot. Some of these players are making as much as the people charged with developing them. I don’t know who our highest paid player is but it wouldn’t surprise me if Downs hits a million, wherever he ends up. And what’s the bidding up to on Ryan Williams? Surely somewhere north of half a mil.

We used to be able to get the top recruits with a new Charger and now Texas is handing out Lambo’s. This kind of money is fricking the game up with a quickness.