saban Page 5 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Two takeaways from college football on Saturday
There wasn’t much surprising about the results from Saturday. Oklahoma continued its free fall, getting shut out by Texas, 49-0. Even though Jimbo Fisher gave Nick Saban a game in Bryce Young’s absence, the Crimson Tide pulled through. None of the top 10 lost despite Oklahoma State playing with its ...
Alabama’s gridiron clash with Texas A&M becomes a dud
It was dubbed the most anticipated college football game of the season. The narrative of a College Football Playoff-ready Texas A&M invading Tuscaloosa to truly see how strong its armor was against the impenetrable fortress of Bryant-Denny Stadium. Alabama held up its end of the bargain. The Crimson...
There’s a reason Mike Leach’s quarterbacks have never cost him his job
The next time a pundit says “Missing on such-and-such QB cost coach X his job” will be my next visit to the psych ward. You know why Spencer Rattler didn’t cost Lincoln Riley his job, and Paul Chryst couldn’t survive Graham Mertz? One looks at a chalkboard as a place to draw plays, and the other see...
Jim Harbaugh and Jimbo Fisher are kindred spirits
Jim Harbaugh and Jimbo Fisher are two identical strangers on similar paths. Both were top-notch quarterback gurus who haven’t been able to find a consistent spark behind center. This season, Texas A&M is on its second quarterback while Harbaugh has been deploying a platoon system featuring J.J. McCa...
College Football Week 5: A veritable smorgasbord of appetizing games
There’s no more hiding for college football teams. The tune-ups are over, and now conference foes are getting thrown together like peanut butter and jelly. Don’t like that? How about Bell pepper, meet onion? Cereal, meet milk. Alabama, meet Arkansas. NC State, meet Clemson. Oklahoma State, meet a po...
These are the top 10 unbeaten college football teams through Week 5
A quarter of the way through the college football season, you start to get a sense of which teams are for real, and which teams are not....
Saturday was a perfect example of why the best college football coaches are coveted like Infinity Stones
Oklahoma getting caught by Kansas State is an annual tradition for the Sooners, and it happened again Saturday night, with the visiting team pulling out a 41-34 upset in Norman. Running back Deuce Vaughn and quarterback Adrian Martinez combined for 264 yards on the ground, with Martinez adding anoth...
Delusional Donald: Trump thinks miraculous Jets win makes Robert Saleh 'greater than Vince Lombardi'
For most of his life, former President Donald Trump has been obsessed with football. There are failed bids to become the owner of an NFL team, taking control of the New Jersey Generals in a past version of the USFL, and calling players like Colin Kaepernick who knelt during the national anthem to pr...
Auburn vs. Mizzou: The hot seat will get even hotter for the losing coach
Auburn head coach Bryan Harsin and Missouri head coach Eli Drinkwitz are on a collision course, pushing their Southeastern Conference squads into the most important game of their respective coaching careers. The former mentor and pupil have yet to partake in a battle of wits as head coaches. Missour...
Don’t celebrate just yet, SEC fans, there’s another independent who could claim a CFP bid
For the segment of college football fans who blackout with anger every time Notre Dame makes the College Football Playoff, this season could not have started better. Marcus Freeman’s team came up short against Ohio State and then stumbled trying to get back up against Marshall, and there’s really no...
The College Football Marty McFly Rankings for Week 2: USC is the most back of any team that’s ever been gone
It was a pretty good week for teams still working their way back to the arbitrary standards that their fans set for them, and the rate at which ranked schools and heavy favorites were going down Saturday, I was a little nervous. I’m not quite sure what this list will look like once all of these team...
There’s losing to Kentucky and Marshall, and then there’s losing to App State and Georgia Southern
The unassuming weeks are always the most dangerous for college football, but especially so early in the season when the rankings are more guesses than earned distinctions. Still though, when you schedule an FCS school and pay them to come play non-conference patsy during homecoming or whatever else,...
Alabama-Texas was drunk, I mean like drunk drunk
This is why people can’t quit Texas. They have all the talent to hang with and beat the best teams in the country even with a backup QB, and like Mikey with a number in Swingers, fuck it up. The rest of the SEC watching wishes that version of Alabama shows up to conference play, but still someone ha...
Beware the YouTube footage of the transfer quarterback
A change of scenery doesn’t change a player’s DNA. Coaching staffs can alter the way a quarterback is used and improve his production, but the flaws will surface under intense stress. It’s like Tim Tebow’s throwing motion. The guy could have the footwork of Peyton Manning and the accuracy of Drew Br...
The Marty McFly Rankings Week 1: Which college football program is most on its way to being ‘back’?
It feels like an abundance of college football programs are “back” this season more so than in recent iterations. USC beat Rice 66-7, and they’re already the Pac-12’s best hope of making the College Football Playoff. Florida State topped LSU (who’s still a candidate to make this list if Brian Kelly ...
Alabama’s gonna pulverize Utah State — that’ll give Nick Saban more time to stew over NIL
Nick, stop pocket-watching....
Is any college coach under more pressure than Jimbo?
There’s a different brand of pressure mounting around Texas A&M head coach Jimbo Fisher. It’s not the-hot-seat-reaching-an-inferno temperature coaches like Nebraska’s Scott Frost are facing. This isn’t a battle to stay relevant on a national scale like the Deion Sanders-led charge from Jackson State...
College football’s non-conference schedule never fails to out a few frauds
Whether you’re in school or graduated, we’re conditioned from a young age to circle June through August with a big red sharpie and write “HAVE FUN” in big, bold letters, so when September hits, the dopamine from just seeing July before a date subsides. There is a consolation prize for summer ending ...
The AP preseason poll is in! College football is almost here
People, we are less than two weeks away from real football. In 12 days, games will be on television, and will be played in various parts of America — not just Birmingham — and I assume players can keep their scholarships if they don’t want to eat chicken salad at the hotel....
Predicting college football’s New Year’s Six teams
College football starts in a little more than two weeks. And for 135 days, the jostling to become a national champion will be ongoing. Obviously, only four teams will compete in the College Football Playoff but a dozen teams will be selected to the most lucrative bowls, otherwise known as the New Ye...