The people's voice of reason
The people's voice of reason
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During the course of a lifetime, one will encounter someone who has character, conviction, determination and a sense of purpose that influences your life more than most. Such a man is admired, respected, loved and imitated in word and deed. Such a man was Coach Raymond Boykin. He was the same as a player, as a coach and as an educator. His personality was always the same. He made time for others. He was interested in your successes, your failures and your pain when life was difficult. He was...
Freshman Quarterback Tua Tagovailoa Delivers for BAMA! Nick Saban may have done the best coaching job of his career at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta on the night of January 8, 2018. Trailing for the entire game, Saban made a tough decision at halftime down 13-0. He pulled Jalen Hurts and started Tua Tagnovailoa in the second half. Hurts has been the quarterback for 25 wins and only two losses in two years. However, those losses were devastating. One was in the national championship game last...
Defense has always been the tool that brought Alabama to the pinnacle of the college football world. Coach Paul Bryant used this tool to win six national championships. Coach Gene Stallings used it to win one. Coach Nick Saban uses this tool probably better than anybody ever has. He played for his sixth national championship on Monday, January 8th. Never has defense been so demonstrative as Alabama's was in the demolition of Clemson in the semi-final game on New Years night. The Tide's Defense d...
PLEASE NOTE THIS WAS WRITTEN BEFORE THE AUBURN/GEORGIA GAME. HISTORY CONTINUES TO UNFOLD IN NATIONAL COLLEGE FOOTBALL. IT IS NEVER ENDING...ESPECIALLY WITH THE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP UPCOMING. Auburn has a direct line to the 2017 National Championship. But, the path goes through the state of Georgia. First there is the SEC Championship in Atlanta’s brand new Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Saturday, December 2nd. Another win over the Georgia Bulldogs locks up a date for Auburn in the NCAA top four footb...
In the August issue of the Alabama Gazette, my column was entitled: "1st Coach to Fall". This story was about the demise of Coach Hugh Freeze at Ole Miss. The full story of the Ole Miss debacle has not been revealed, but enough was known by June to force Freeze to resign. Because of the short time left before the season started, Ole Miss officials had no time to search for a new head coach. Therefore, they did the only thing possible by naming a member if the present staff to be "Interim...
Picking the top football teams in the country for the 2017 season was very difficult. There are more good teams this year than in other years it seems. There will be more ten win seasons this year than ever as far as my calculations are concerned. It is my belief that there will also be no undefeated teams as we end the regular season. The Alabama - Florida State game on September 2nd in Atlanta will not determine who wins the national championship, but it will give the winner a little cushion...
In the era of “million dollar coaches”, a lot is given and a lot is expected. In the SEC the average salaries, benefits and bonuses of coaches is around $5,000,000.00 PER YEAR. With a maximum of the 15 games it takes to play for the national championship, this works out to an approximate $420,000.00 PER MONTH. Most of us looking at this page have never been fortunate, or good enough to be worth that much to our employer. I know a few bankers that have earned that much, maybe a few lawyers, may...
Football in the Southeastern Conference is not just a game, it is a right of passage from one generation to another. Inter-marriages are not recommended. This writer has been to many stadiums over the years. The crowds at Ohio State and Notre Dame were almost as fanatical as a game in Bryant-Denny Stadium or in Jordan-Hare Stadium. The SEC is really where the action is. The following is a brief sketch of the players that must excel in order for their teams to make it to the SEC Championship....
Maybe people will figure out why Alabama has had a definitive dominance over Auburn during the Saban years. No matter how hard one pulls for Auburn, no matter what the pre-season prognostications are, no matter how many Heisman Trophy candidates Coach Gus Malzahn has at his disposal, no matter how many new coaches Malzahn hires, no matter how many coaches Nick Saban loses, no matter what the schedule difficulty is, in ten years Coach Nick Saban has lost only three games to Auburn, one to Tommy...
Every football fan wants to know who the quarterback will be. Nobody seems to care who the center and the two guards are. If the interior offensive line is not excellent, the quarterback will not matter. We sometimes forget that the center touches the football on every play. That makes the center the primary focus when building a successful offense at all levels of football except for professional football. Because of the high percentage of passes in the NFL it is much easier to move a guard to...
When Crum Foshee was running through, over and around players at Red Level High School, neither he nor the citizens of Covington County realized that one day Crum would be the most powerful legislator in the Alabama Legislature. All Crum really wanted to do was help his daddy and his brother run one of the largest ginning operations in the south. The daddy, Wheeler G. Foshee had built quite a dynasty in Covington County. He was raising cotton, processing peanuts and shipping all over the...
Starting with the football season of 2014, a four team play-off was initiated by the NCAA to determine the real national champion on the football field, replacing the original two team BCS. The SEC has won or played in the last eleven play-offs. This four team play-off will not satisfy the football fans of American very long. Many are interested in an eight team play-off. Mark my word! That is the next step for the NCAA and the American Football Coaches Association. It won't be far away! Let's...
It has been heartbreaking to me as a football fan to watch some of the teams in the south who have moved up to Division I football over the last decade. Teams like Troy, UAB, South Alabama and Georgia State were probably correct in the assessment of moving into the top class of college football with the plethora of bowl games available, the promise of more money in the coffers due to expanded crowds and fan bases. Also the alumni were stuck in what they considered the oblivion of Division 1-AA...
Coach Paul Bryant had many “sayings” as he called them. One of them was “the harder you work, the luckier you get.” So, using this little bit of wisdom from The Coach, it is my belief that Alabama and Clemson playing in a rematch of the national championship game last year is not even remotely a result of luck. Coach Nick Saban learned the basics to coaching football from Coach Don James at Kent State. Saban played for James and later coached for James at Kent State. Don James, who was an assi...
Most of the pundits had Alabama as a prohibitive favorite in the first bowl game of the year, the Iron Bowl. The Vegas line was 17 - 18 points. Many Auburn and Alabama friends of mine wanted to know what I thought would happen Saturday, November 26. My reaction never waivered. I believed that Auburn could make it close if Alabama had at least two turnovers in the game. If not, then I saw Alabama winning by 14 points. They had two turnovers in the first half and Auburn only trailed by four...
Auburn Head Coach Gus Malzahn has been coaching for over twenty-five years. He has been a head coach in college for four and one-half seasons, one at Arkansas State and three and one-half at Auburn. This year, after losses to Clemson and Texas A&M in the friendly confines of Jordan-Hare Stadium, Coach Malzahn announced to the world that he would be giving up his play calling duties to Offensive Coordinator Rhett Lashlee. Lashlee has been with Malzahn for all of his college career and during...
It has been a weakness of mine over the years to give people second chances, and sometimes third chances. That may be admirable, but it is not good for your reputation, if one is keeping track of your winning percentage. Some second chances work out, third chances hardly ever. Nevertheless, I will probably not change. For fifteen years, I have been publishing my “Top 40” college pre-season football teams. It’s kind of like drawing to an inside straight in another game of chance. If you want...
Contrary to popular belief, soccer is not the fastest growing sport in America. College football is. In the last four years, thirty-six football programs have been started or re-started at NCAA, NAIA or independent institutions. There are now almost 130 Division I teams competing among NCAA member institutions alone. The success of professional football is also at an all-time high. This includes the National Football League, the Canadian Football League and the Arena Football League. In the sout...
The following is an in-depth look at the pre-season positions of the fourteen teams that make up the Eastern and Western Divisions of the SEC, and where we think they will stack up at the end of the regular season: Western Conference ALABAMA - It is hard not to put Nick Saban’s team at the top of the West again. Even though the quarterback situation is still unsettled, fear not! In Saban’s system, a great quarterback is not required. He is only looking for the guy that can lead the team, mak...
In December, 2014, my column was devoted to the concept of certain college football teams moving their NCAA classification from Division IAA to Division I. The reasons that these schools make this move is based on a false premise that by playing the "Big Boys" it will bring them prestige, thereby attracting more students from more locations in the country. This is not a totally incorrect theory because the names of these former IAA teams will be in the news more. This could possibly attract some...
We entered the “hallowed halls” of Lanier in September, 1953 with some trepidation. The massive structure looked more like a college than a high school. There were approximately 2,000 of us milling around, trying to find the right place to be. We had come from smaller junior high schools which served certain sections of Montgomery. But this? This was out of our comfort zone. This was an amalgamation of all sections of Montgomery; Baldwin area, Cloverdale area, Capitol Heights area, Dal...
The 60th reunion of the class of '56 enjoyed a wonderful meal at a great facility inside the Wynn Lakes Country Club April 16, 2016. It was so special to see 78 year old friends acting like teenagers, that is, those who could stand up without assistance. Some even tried to dance to the sounds of the '50's'. Not many danced very long. There were no oxygen tanks in the room. After me and my wife Betty tried to dance "The Panama City Bop", we were glad to hear the end of Chuck Berry's "Long Distanc...
Alabama fans are in a state of anxiety again this spring. “Who will be our quarterback?” This question is asked of me almost every day. Everybody loved Blake Sims two years ago, but he could not deliver the prize. Nobody wanted Jake Coker last year. All he did was go 14-0 as Alabama’s starting quarterback and hand the unbelieving Tide fans another national championship. “Really, who will be our quarterback this year?” As long as Nick Saban is the coach, there will be an adequate quarterback! Bef...
A 6'-5", 235 lb. quarterback that never lost a game in college (14-0) did not receive an invitation to compete in the NFL Scouting Combine. He also led his team to the 2015 NCAA National Championship. From my vantage point, he was the MVP of the championship game. So, what's the problem? It is that Alabama's Jake Coker was not on any scouting lists in 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012. Why? He had never started a game since his senior year in high school, that's why. The chemistry on this 2015 team was...
Levi Stadium in San Fransisco could be "Peyton's Place" on February 7, 2016. Two months shy of his 40th birthday, Peyton Manning will start the 50th Super Bowl with a determination to end his remarkable career with a win for the Denver Broncos over Cam Newton and the Carolina Panthers. This is a contrast between the past of one of the greatest quarterbacks in history (Manning) and the new breed of quarterback (Newton) which may define the future. Peyton will be the oldest quarterback to start a...