I also hope that this doesn’t become a trend at UA where if someone gets stuck down the totem pole that they just leave and transfer.

I’m afraid that’s going to be the case. The harsh truth of the matter is that the guys we are bringing in now are much better prospects than many of the guys we brought in during 2006 and 2007. It’s just a harsh reality that the more these guys see their prospects for meaningful playing time grow dim, the more likely they are to transfer.

Zach Schreiber saw it last September, Tremayne Coger saw it this Spring, and Tarence Farmer apparently saw it this summer. Those three most certainly won’t be the last.

...I have to give Cook credit for his music tastes. When Schembechler died, he used Sufjan Stevens’ “Seven Swans” as a tribute (a beautiful song) and now he currently has “Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Blogging in Space” at the top of his blog which is a reference to one of the most awesome Spiritualized songs ever written (and probably one of my top 10 tracks of the 1990s.)

That bunch is obsessed with our signing class, simple as that.

As for the scholarship numbers, I think the departure of Lionell Mitchell put us at 63. Now the departure of Farmer will put us at 62, and as long as Zeke Knight doesn’t return, that gives us 61. With that said, given Neighbors’ flexibility, 61 could work.

Still, though, I think we’ll probably end up with more room than that. I wouldn’t be surprised to see another guy go on medical scholarship, we’ll probably have another guy or two quit, and Colin Peek might not go on scholarship until 2009. Moreover, Prince Hall might not return. All of that could combine to open up a lot more space than we think.

I have a great deal of respect for Brian, who, on his best days, is a remarkably intelligent and articulate football fan with a nuanced, insightful approach to the sport. He also has a genuine devotion to encouraging fellow bloggers and the BlogPoll he founded and administers is among the most credible and long-lived products of the blogosphere.

That said, Brian sometimes gets his teeth into something and won’t let it go, and he’s decided that this is his thing. That’s fine when he has a point to make--and, as the much more impartial Sunday Morning Quarterback found when he examined the issue, Brian is not without a point when he condemns the practice of oversigning—but, in a case like this, he’s just grinding axes.

After initially demonizing Nick Saban in an effort to deflect criticisms of Rich Rodriguez which did not come from anywhere near Alabama, Brian backpedaled before turning one kid’s departure from Tuscaloosa into a front-page story which carried implications his readers clearly understood but which he could not make explicit because he had just finished excoriating a newspaper columnist for drawing critical conclusions about coaches on the basis of scant evidence, and turning right around and doing the same thing to Coach Saban would have been too obviously hypocritical, particularly after the recent well-maybe-he’s-not-pure-evil-but-he’s-still-kind-of-evil concession.

Again, I have a lot of respect for Brian--there’s a reason why I dubbed him “The Lawgiver”—but, sometimes, stuff just sticks with him and there’s no changing his mind. It’s just one of those things, like the time Brian criticized me for voting four S.E.C. teams in the top ten on my BlogPoll ballot and, when I politely pointed out that I had done no such thing, I received no response . . . no apology, no recanting, not even an acknowledgment, even though he was plainly wrong and I was plainly right.

As with his about-faces on Les Miles and the 2006 national title game, it’s just one of those things. You just have to throw up your hands, shake your head sadly with regret, overlook the fact that he’s a closet Auburn fan (I hate Auburn), and let it go so you can get back to focusing on the rest of what Brian does, which is exceptional, deserving of praise, and more than sufficient to overcome these occasional frustrating forays into contrarianism.

On a happier note, I received my copy of Yea Alabama and I have read much of it. Y’all did fine work, indeed. Congratulations and kudos.

As far as I know the comments haven’t been closed today. Maybe Nico thought things were getting out of hand (though I don’t see how that might be the case) and did so, but I’m sure he would have said something about it.