Alabama Crimson Tide

[Dr. Strangelove]

It is abject nonsense and downright chicanery to declare that playing Michigan in Dallas is just as tough as playing them in Ann Arbor or playing VA Tech in Blacksburg. It is a falsehood, sir, a rank and vile one.

I was doubtless one of the countless amongst us to criticize UF's complete refusal to play outside the state of Florida except when forced to by SEC rules. A policy begun by Steve Spurrier and continued by Ron Zook, Will Muschamp, and, shamefully, Urban Meyer. All good-hearted people everywhere recognize this as a policy of cowardice.

[AlabamAlum]

I did not say a neutral site is the same as a road game. I said that playing your big game at a neutral site every year is the same as a home and home. Playing at home is worth 3 positive. Playing on the road is a negative 3. A neutral game is 0.

Your Florida screed was ridiculous. Your anti-big-game-neutral-site screed is even sillier. Let Alabama or Florida or Ohio State's SoS drop outta the top 50 and you'll have something. Until then, not so much.

[Jungle Rat]

DSL still thinks Ohio State matters. Heh.

[AlabamAlum]

I remember DSL taking Urban to task for his ooc scheduling a few years back. This year Urban hosts Miami(Oh), UCF, California, and UAB (heh). Next year it's Vandy, California, Florida A&M and Buffalo. A veritable killer's row.

And, yes, one of those 8 non-cons is on the road. Mighty impressive. I can see why you'd lampoon Bama playing Clemson, VaTech, and Michigan at a neutral site.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Hey Pawwwwwwwwl,

Cal is at least the equal of the Mighty Paw. And we at least have the temerity to play them in their own building and not insist upon a "neutral site" game in Cleveland instead.

Oh and we HAVE played Texas, USC, and Miami all on the road in the last 6 years as well. Where has Bama played? Penn State...and Duke? Very nice. And the Penn State game should have happened 7 years ago but for their over-generosity in re-scheduling thanks to total cowardice on the part of Bama during the 19 straight of probation.

And anyone who would defend Florida's scheduling practices clearly cannot be made to feel shame over anything. It's a total disgrace that they haven't played an OOC game outside Florida since 1991. But then, I'm speaking to someone who thinks Bama was railroaded three times by the NCAA, thinks oversigning is good for the sport, and cannot acknowledge Mike Price was ever the football coach at the University of Alabama.

Roll damn Tahd, Pawwwwl!

[Dr. Strangelove]

Oh and Florida's SOS being in the Top 50 is something to crow about?

Mississippi State's SOS was ranked Top 30 by Sagarin despite playing LA Tech, UAB, Memphis, and UT-Martin. The SEC was the first to learn how to game the system. Play garbage OOC games, all at home if possible. This will inflate everyone's records. That will drive up everyone's SOS. Which will create justification for scheduling progressively weaker OOC games because "The SEC is tough enough as it is".

So Florida could safely play Stetson, Rollins, Florida-Gulf Coast, and the Coast Guard and it probably wouldn't force them out of the Top 50. That wouldn't make their OOC any less shameful or disgraceful.

Some schools have pride and care about providing an education for their athletes and good home games for their fans. Then there are schools like Alabama and Florida.

Yew know it's tru, Pawwwwwl!

[AlabamAlum]

California has a worse winning percentage than Hawaii, LaTech, SoMiss and Bowling Green.

And you play them at home one year along with UAB, UCF, and Miami (Oh) and on the road the next which makes the Buffalo, Vandy, and FAMU games that much more meaningful!

But don't let that fool you. California is a team that would win the NFC if those cowardly poseurs allowed the rugged men from Berkeley entrance!

Oh, I know that playing in Berkeley is a veritable snake pit which makes the labors of Hercules pale in comparison. Sometimes, when I close my eyes, I believe I can hear Urban exclaim, "Here be dragons!" No, kind sir, there can be no doubt that the rugged man-beasts from Berkeley are the Scylla and Memorial Stadium is the Charybdis! Thank the gods that you have the fortune of playing those demons at home this year to provide needed salve for the journey next.

Godspeed, good sir! Godspeed!

[AlabamAlum]

Oh and Florida's SOS being in the Top 50 is something to crow about?

Not what I said. The year that you complained about Florida's OOC sched not leaving the state, their SoS was top 5, iirc.

When it drops significantly, call me.

[Jungle Rat]

I sorta feel sorry for DSL but not really that much considering he's a fucking moron.

[Professor Tiger]

Hey AA, I finally got that job in Aliceville. Can I hang out at your place 'til I get established? Shouldn't be but a month or two.

[AlabamAlum]

Play garbage OOC games, all at home if possible. This will inflate everyone's records. That will drive up everyone's SOS

Just now saw this. Playing bad teams OOC lowers your SOS. They usually have a formula that derives a number from your opponents' record and your opponents opponents' record.


Playing trash teams will lower it.

[AlabamAlum]

Hey AA, I finally got that job in Aliceville. Can I hang out at your place 'til I get established? Shouldn't be but a month or two.

Congrats. Although, Aliceville is in the middle of nowhere. I do know a back way to the Sliverstar Casino from Tuscaloosa that way, though. Hmmmm.....


And, yes, you can stay with me.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Ladies and Gentlemen, Alabama will play only two true OOC road games between 2004 and 2016. One of them was Duke. And AlabamAlum, a man who defends over-signing as vociferously as he defends Mike Price's tenure as Head Alabama Football Coach, says there is no shame in that. And there will be no shame so long as Alabama's SOS does not drop out of the Top 50. Something he knows is nearly impossible so long as everyone in the SEC continues to inflate their records through schedule padding.

I am not here to judge Mr. Alum. But he oversees the likes of bumpkin country doctors and is paid handsomely for his efforts. He can afford to travel to Atlanta three times a year to see Bama play and then to a bowl or playoffs. But your average Bama fan cannot. Alabama's AD and The Nick do not care about that kind of Alabama fan. They want more luxury boxes, more games in sterile NFL environments, and fewer games amongst the (ugh) locals.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Play garbage OOC games, all at home if possible. This will inflate everyone's records. That will drive up everyone's SOS

Just now saw this. Playing bad teams OOC lowers your SOS. They usually have a formula that derives a number from your opponents' record and your opponents opponents' record.


Playing trash teams will lower it.

Incorrect. Your opponents' record is always weighted more heavily than your opponents' opponents. And some formulations for SOS do not consider the latter at all. Including the official SOS numbers that the NCAA itself releases. Their version is the record of your opponents, nothing more. So it benefits the league to have easy OOC games from a schedule strength standpoint.

[Professor Tiger]

Congrats. Although, Aliceville is in the middle of nowhere. I do know a back way to the Sliverstar Casino from Tuscaloosa that way, though. Hmmmm.....

Heh. "Middle of Nowhere" is putting it mildly. I visited there in June. What a pathetic little town. Virtually the whole downtown is boarded up. You can see why they decided to build a new federal prison there.

I originally thought I'd live in Tuscaloosa (irony of ironies), but that turned out to be about an hour away. I'll probably live in Columbus MS, which is only about 30 minutes drive away.

But thanks for the offer. Tell Maria, your domestic, that she won't have to clean up after me after all.

[AlabamAlum]

(1) Alabama plays fewer games at home than Ohio State over the next two seasons (2014 and beyond are in pencil).

(2) We do this not because it's easy, but because it exposes the unwashed masses from the land of Nod to The Crimson Truth.

(3) I submit to you that Michigan in Dallas this year and VaTech in Atlanta next year is MUCH tougher than a home-and-home with the Boys from Berkeley.

(4) Scheduling crap teams LOWERS your SoS. Check Ohio State's SoS before and after you play Buffalo or UAB (I don't think it is affected for FCS FAMU).

(5) What are the odds that Ohio State will have to forfeit that game with Vandy due to cheating. Wasn't that what happened the last time you played a SEC team?

(6) Any comment on hiring the win-at-all-cost SEC coach who would not leave the state to play an OOC game?

[AlabamAlum]

Your opponents' record is always weighted more heavily than your opponents' opponents

There is no way to say this other than this: Playing bad teams makes your SoS worse. Not better. Worse.
If the entirety of the SEC plays crap games, the entire SEC has a bad SoS.

[Dr. Strangelove]

I could retort to that, but I decided to look up Aliceville, Alabama instead. It would seem it served as a WWII POW camp for captured Nazis? So there's a long, proud tradition of imprisonment, the feeling that you're trapped, going nowhere.

Prime real estate is available downtown, Prof

[AlabamAlum]

Prof,


I absolutely hate Columbus. I would live in Eutaw before moving there. Decent enough town on the interstate which makes it "close" to Tuscaloosa and Meridian.

[AlabamAlum]

Eutaw is a city in Greene County, Alabama, United States. At the 2010 census the population was 2,934. The city is the county seat of Greene County and was named in honor of the Battle of Eutaw Springs, the last engagement of the American Revolutionary War in the Carolinas. It is a part of the Tuscaloosa, Alabama Metropolitan Statistical Area.


Eutaw has twenty-seven antebellum structures on the National Register of Historic Places. Twenty-three of these are included in the Antebellum Homes in Eutaw multiple property submission. The Coleman-Banks House, Old Greene County Courthouse, First Presbyterian Church, and Kirkwood are listed individually. Additionally, the Greene County Courthouse Square District is a historic district in the heart of downtown. A nearby property, Everhope Plantation, is also listed in the register.[2]

The main strategist and architect of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, James Bevel, was buried in Eutaw on December 29, 2008.

Eutaw is home to the Roman Catholic Convent of Our Lady of Consolata, the Consolata Sisters, a small monastery for nuns in West Alabama; they are known throughout Greene County for their humanitarian efforts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eutaw,_Alabama