One of the biggest challenges for teams during the COVID-19 pandemic is keeping each other safe while still being able to practice and do group activities. One of the other challenges has been back-tracing people who have possibility come into contact with someone who has. It was a big scare when New England Patriot Stephon Gilmore tested positive for the virus a day after the Patriot played the Kansas City Chiefs, where Gilmore was spotted having a conversation with Super Bowl MVP Patri…
Vanderbilt has a long, interesting history behind the university, but it is what the Commodores are doing on Saturday that will shake up history books forever with a crossover that has been years in the making.
Before Auburn’s six-game win streak or Nick Saban cementing himself as an all-time great, both Alabama and Auburn’s football programs were mediocre.
Before the University of Alabama and Auburn University meet on the gridiron, student veterans support groups from both universities will walk together to bring awareness to veteran suicide.
I know Alabama is once again No. 1 in the country. I know Mac Jones, Najee Harris and Devonta Smith are all possible award winners at their respective positions. I know there are many reasons to be thrilled college football has navigated the 2020 hellscape about as well as it could.
A few odd and end thoughts and questions from college football…
This week, I respond to more (fictional) letters sent to my mailbag.
The Auburn Tigers continue to cement their reputation as one of the most wildly unpredictable football teams in the Southeastern Conference, if not the entire country.
Offensive MVP: Mac Jones, Alabama
The NFL and college football seasons are underway, giving Southerners our favorite time of year full of football and friends.
If you watch any long-running TV show, you’ll see most of the protagonists complete a character arch. An initial villain will slowly begin to show heroic traits or a story’s hero will eventually have you guessing if he is really the bad guy after all. That’s what makes the show great and lon…
In every single college football game, there is always some amount of good news and some amount of bad news. The proportions can be overwhelmingly one-sided, but there is most assuredly a silver lining among the refuse if you really, really want to see it.
The college football coaching profession has been evolving rapidly over the last 30 years. It used to be the norm for a good head coach to spend 20 years at a school with varying degrees of success. However, when salaries started to skyrocket, fans and administrations began to lose patience …
If a football game is played in a practically empty forest, will anyone notice? Well, after attending the ’Bama/Texas A&M game Saturday, I can definitively say, “yes.”
It seemed like every talking head on every sports channel was picking the trendy upset of Kentucky over Auburn. I was told repeatedly that this 2020 Wildcat team was probably the best Mark Stoops has produced in the Bluegrass. The offensive line was well represented among the All-SEC teams …
SEC football is back. Therefore, so is this edition of “Right, Wrong or TBD”: The article where I review the previous week and determine which predictions I had right, which I had wrong and which are still to be determined.
Due to time constraints and overall lack of interest in recent years, I haven’t followed SEC football like I did during its heyday of several years back.
Everyone give yourselves a hand.
I write and talk about sports for a living. It’s what I do and I enjoy it. So, it might come as a bit of a surprise this is actually my favorite week of the year. It’s when all the talk can actually stop and the action can begin. There comes a point when all the bases are covered and no more…
Hi, my name is Ryne and I am a football addict.
When the SEC Basketball Tournament was canceled along with the college baseball season in mid-March, it was an incredibly odd and unsettling feeling. To experience the month of March without any Madness in the form of a buzzer beater or Cinderella story was definitely disheartening.
As the season approaches, it seems like now is as good of a time as ever to reach back into my (imaginary) bag of (nonexistent) fan mail and answer several of the (completely fabricated by me) hard-hitting questions my (grand total of zero) avid readers have:
There will be no on-campus tailgating and the largest college stadiums in Alabama will be only one-fifth full, but the hope is the play on the field will be at the top-tier level that Alabama and Auburn fans have come to expect and enjoy.
The 2020 football schedules are set for Alabama, Auburn and all other SEC teams, along with COVID-19 attendance guidelines as the conference seeks to have a season in the face of an unending pandemic.
An asterisk is never good.
The Auburn Tigers took the first step Monday in what will undoubtedly be a very long journey by conducting the first organized practice in preparation for the 2020 college football season. There will be bumps in the road, unavoidable detours and even a few pitfalls along the way, but every j…
You look for patterns and themes in your daily life, really in the world around you. For as much of a craptastic carnival of that 2020 has become once you parse down through the political rhetoric, the rising coronavirus numbers and deaths, the perpetually offended and the “peaceful protests…
I’ll admit it: 2020 has landed its share of body blows on my poor torso and, quite frankly, done some damage. I’ve been beaten, battered and even staggered a time or two, but I’m still standing — well, proverbially of course.
By the time you read this, it may already be too late.
You know those horror stories about individuals who hit the lottery? The ones where a guy strikes it rich on Mega Millions but ultimately loses it all because of horrible investments, mismanaged savings and greedy, opportunist family members. Well, I am beginning to see a parallel to that sc…
Years from now when we look back on the year 2020, we’ll undoubtedly remember it with an unprecedented range of emotions. I think it’s safe to say some aspects of our lives will forever be changed. That’s probably a good thing concerning many circumstances and it could very well be a bad thi…
The Southeastern Conference has established Sept. 26 as the new kickoff for its 2020 football season to allow its universities to focus on the healthy return of their campus communities and the gradual re-introduction of athletics. The 14 members of the SEC continue to monitor developments r…
Because college football’s availability for the fall is still in limbo, I am beginning to run low on stories. Usually this time of year, sportswriters are throwing out their top 25 rankings or best quarterback rankings or best tailgating campuses rankings. Therefore, I think I will begin a s…
When Elizabeth Lyon Burns received a call from Alabama High School Athletic Association director Steve Saverese her late father, Samuel ‘Hamp’ Lyon, was being inducted this year into Alabama High School Athletic Association Sports Hall of Fame, she didn’t believe him.
It’s very rare around here for a college basketball article to be written in early July. Of course, it is also rare our entire country is overwhelmed with a new virus which essentially puts a stop to all sports, so, here we are.
Here’s just a random assortment of thoughts for the Fourth of July week.
I would estimate during an average week I’m asked whether or not I believe there will be college football this fall at least 10 times. You probably have that same discussion amongst your friends on a routine basis.
Last week, Alabama got a huge commitment from one of the best high school wide receivers in the nation, Christian Leary from Florida.
It is universally described by Auburn people with a little mileage as the most important game in program history.
“Alabama fans only know two emotions when it comes to the Auburn game; relief or sadness” is a quote from a random resident in the Twitter world.
Whether it’s been obvious or not, I haven’t unveiled my list of greatest games attended in any particular order. I’m sure I could come up with some definitive scale if I had to, but all eight games I’ve talked about so far are incredibly special in their own right.
I’ve got a random idea, question, wish and thought for your enjoyment.
As I have gone through my list of greatest games, I’ve reached as far back as 1990 and as recently as 2004.
Before 2010 BCS championship game gave Alabama its 13th (or eighth or 24th or whatever you want to call it) national championship, the last Crimson Tide team to be crowned was done so Jan. 1, 1993. It was the Nokia Sugar Bowl that year and ’Bama defeated a celebrated and unbelievably arrogan…
For my next trip down Memory Lane, which intersects with Best Alabama Games I Have Attended Avenue, I am going to harken all the way back to 2012’s SEC Championship Game.
Heading into the 2005 Florida game, I think most ’Bama fans were pretty confident. However, that is nothing new. ’Bama fans always think we should beat anybody and everybody every time no matter unrealistic the circumstances.
When I rolled over to check the time on my phone in my Louisville, Kentucky, hotel room last Tuesday night, I already knew it had to be about 1 a.m. Of course, it was that exact time. After all, it’s always about 1 a.m. when I first mildly wake during the night.
With all the mayhem going on around the world it’s hard to remember what football season was like just a few short months ago.
Spring football was canceled, but the “transfer portal” (insert cool sound effect) is still functioning at maximum capacity. Hundreds of student-athletes have already or will soon find a new home and suit up for a different team in 2020.
Every Alabama fan old enough to have used a rotary phone remembers the 1992 season. the stifling defense, Derrick Lassic, Gene Stalling’s coat (although that was the same for every year he coached) were all integral threads in a rich tapestry of perfection.
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