The Brian Cook Head Aspolsion Watch
by PeteHoliday on Feb 5, 2009 5:00 PM CST
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Print"I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of Big Ten fans suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened." -Brian Cook, Feb 4, 2009
Upon hearing the news that Ole Miss signed 37 recruits, I was conflicted. On one had, surely I can expect that an SEC head coach knows more about his recruiting class than I do. On the other, a very wise man said last year: "Around six guys who are playing for Alabama now or expect to be in the fall are going to be told to get bent by the time fall practice rolls around," and since Ole Miss signed even more this year than we did last year, man, there must be a whole lot of "truly filthy" things going on in Oxford.
That's when I realized: damn. I'm just an idiot Alabama fan who doesn't "get" it. If I really want to see the light, I need to seek out Brian Cook, who will almost certainly have something very insightful to say about this situation.
So I checked FanHouse and, lo, found nothing. Considering the gravity of the offense, and Mr. Cook's fabulous vocabulary, I thought maybe his analysis was too salty for the PG-13 blog, and headed over to MGoBlog where I found... more nothing.
It turns out that Brian is on vacation and has yet to say anything about this very pressing issue of oversiging.
So we plebes are left to ponder... when Brian returns from his vacation, what will his reaction be?
FanPosts are just that; posts created by the fans. They are in no way indicative of the opinions of SBN and the authors of Roll Bama Roll.
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How on earth could any sports blogger..
…worth his salt take a vacation on the week of National Signing Day? That is beyond bizarre. Oh, wait, this is Brian Cook we’re talking about.
"I hate everything orange"
It's all about Crimson - ROLL TIDE!!!
Yay!
You just answered your own question :p
What Would Don Draper Do?
by BamaReturns07 on Feb 6, 2009 8:55 AM CST up reply actions
A year later, and you still can't even keep the terms of the argument straight
Here, let me quote Matt Hinton quoting Brian:
The issue is not 32 > 25. The issue is that 70 + 32 > 85.
Brian had a gripe with the recruitnik rankings of the Tide’s 2008 class, but he never really cared about the size of the class itself. He repeated that position in regards to some Dewayne Walker comments just a couple of weeks ago. I can’t speak for him, but based on those positions, if Ole Miss has 25 scholarships to give this year, gives out 25, and grayshirts the rest, then he’s probably not going to say anything, is he?
Of course, what he very well might have something to say about is that even when Saban’s 2009 class comes in under 25, even your side’s own bloggers and this site’s own commenters can’t come up with a better explanation for how they’ll squeeze into the 11 available spaces other than “Um, I sure hope a lot of guys get injured or decide to transfer.”
So maybe you should have used that example instead of the Ole Miss thing, huh?
Worked out fine last year
even after all the bitching. I’m sure Saban has a plan. I wouldn’t be surprised to see several transfers. We’re way overloaded at running back. With two #1 recruiting classes in a row, some people are going to be down on the depth chart.
So cute that y’all are still erecting straw men to hide the simple facts of life:
1. This terrible mess that Cook claimed was guaranteed to happen not only never came to pass but, better, Alabama had extra scholarships to hand out to walk ons.
2. The whole argument was predicated on barely-educated guesses made by beat reporters
3. The argument presumes that its authors and supporters know more about the Alabama football program’s players than Nick Saban does.
In short, it was a hastily put-together, and poorly conceived article, the stated purpose of which was to draw attention away from Rodriguez. Nevertheless, it has attracted a long list of dim-witted supporters crying about all manners of “truly filthy” things going on at various schools around the country despite the fact that we have yet to see a single shred of evidence — not even one — that a single player had something taken from him that he was either entitled to or that Cook thought he deserved.
In short, Brian Cook was Chicken Little with an Agenda and when he realized he was losing the argument, he retreated to MGoBlog for a nice round of ad hominem to take the focus off of the fact that he had no idea what the hell he was talking about. See, e.g., his bitching about the Bryant Scholarship.
You can't reason with people on this topic
Rival fans know all about who is really injured and all the “suspicious” medical scholarships.
There is one fact they won’t ever acknowledge, the power of the recruiting marketplace.
A coach can’t fool people forever thanks to the negative recruiting environment in today’s SEC. You can’t for one minute tell me Lane Kiffin or Gene Chizik or Urban Meyer or any coach wouldn’t use NIck Saban taking scholarships away from players as a tool to lure recruits away from the Great Satan.
The only problem for Cook and his ilk, there is not one shred of evidence Saban did that last year or will do it this year.
But when did a rival fan ever let facts get in the way of a good smear?
by capstonereport on Feb 5, 2009 10:20 PM CST up reply actions
Wow, way to not respond to what I actually wrote at all
Me: You’re saying Brian said something he didn’t and misunderstanding his argument.
You: POINTLESS REHASH OF THE ENTIRE KERFUFFLE. Also, I’m going to accuse you of using a straw man without actually pointing out what straw man I’m referring to.
Like I said, you can't reason with rival fans...
Jerry is purposefully ignoring the key point in your argument—the fact that Nick Saban knows how many recruits he can sign because he knows who is injured and who is likely to transfer.
Attrition happens to every program, but it is only evil in this case because Nick Saban is the Great Satan.
I challenge him to produce one player as evidence they lost a scholarship last season to make way for the new recruits. Got any evidence? I’m guessing no…or he would have posted it by now.
by capstonereport on Feb 5, 2009 10:49 PM CST up reply actions
You're almost right, capstone
You can’t reason with (most) of your rival’s fans when you’re an Auburn fan. That’s a pretty important qualifier you left out, as you and Pete are ably demonstrating by missing my point by a mile and a half.
You are missing the point....
The point is you don’t know anything about Alabama’s numbers.
You can pretend you do…but you don’t.
Nick Saban is obsessive about things like that. He knows who is injured and out of the injured who is likely to not play another down. He knows more than you…and only because he is coach of your chief rival do you impute evil to him.
by capstonereport on Feb 5, 2009 11:31 PM CST up reply actions
Wow, way to not possess the correct genitalia for someone named Jerry
Me: You’re saying something like, “Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.”
You: POINTLESS REHASH OF YOUR OWN FARTING IN THE WIND. Also, I’m going to accuse you of using a douche while actually being the douche I’m referring to.
by NiceLittleSaturday on Feb 5, 2009 10:52 PM CST up reply actions
The issue is not 32 > 25. The issue is that 70 + 32 > 85.
The issue is neither, actually, and that’s why it’s such a bullshit argument. Not only are the numbers completely made up, but we have no idea what understandings, agreements, or other circumstances exist on the roster.
The real issue is that 82 < 85, and that’s what happened come fall practice.
The real issue...
…is that Auburn < Alabama, and (verb) that’s what’s happening.
by NiceLittleSaturday on Feb 6, 2009 11:52 AM CST up reply actions
Never cared about the size of the class itself?
From his original fanhouse posting:
"That’s irritating, but Tim Gayle’s piece on the massive ’Bama oversigning is disturbing. Gayle crunches the numbers and comes to these conclusions:
- Four to six guys are not going to qualify.
- Four more guys who are marginally useful can plausibly be given medical scholarships and removed from the team.
- Six more scholarships need to be forcibly extracted from somewhere.
Around six guys who are playing for Alabama now or expect to be in the fall are going to be told to get bent by the time fall practice rolls around. But let’s all complain about how nasty Rich Rodriguez is, why don’t we?"
Sorry, Todd, but no
Where does Brian say Alabama shouldn’t have signed 32 people because 32 people in a class is fundamentally wrong? The bottom line is that bottom line: by the math at the time, six more schollies still had to be found somewhere after the class of 32 had been whittled down. If Alabama had cut their class down via non-qualifiers or whatever to 25 and had had 25 slots open, this entire conversation never would have taken place. The full quote that Matt sliced up above:
The point is not that violating the NCAA’s made-up limit is evil. The NCAA limit is there because the NCAA would like you to not kick kids off the [bleep]ing team, but for various reasons the rule’s pretty easy to skate around. The issue is not 32 > 25. The issue is that 70 + 32 > 85. (emphasis mine)
One of the frequent criticisms lobbed at Brian in the wake of that Fanhouse posting was that he was going exclusively after Saban when Miami had signed 33 guys. This is, in essence, the exact same thing Pete’s complaining about above. But Miami (as Matt later showed) had room to sign 25 guys after the first eight had non-qualified or whatever. It wasn’t the same kind of situation, and this Ole Miss situation isn’t either.
But—and I do mean this sincerely—thank you for at least responding to the point I was actually making.
"by the math at the time"
I think that’s what the scientists said after they crashed the billion dollar satellite because of a metric/english unit error.
No, people are complaining that you and Brian don't know what the hell you are talking about.
NO existing scholarship was given away last year.
Your whole argument is…..hot air….
by capstonereport on Feb 5, 2009 11:35 PM CST up reply actions
I don't care
what your point is. The bottom line of the original argument was this:
“Around six guys who are playing for Alabama now or expect to be in the fall are going to be told to get bent by the time fall practice rolls around.”
That never happened AFAIK. Now it might be possible that in theory this could happen if things don’t work out like Saban expects. I hope it doesn’t, but we trust that Saban is going to plan & recruit responsibly based on the information that HE has. And he has more information than any of us or Brian Cook or whoever else. If it does happen then it’s unfortunate but not the end of the world.
No proof? LOL
I’m still waiting on you to PROVE someone got screwed…..not that in theory someone could be screwed.
In theory Gene Chizik doesn’t suck….but we won’t have proof of that until his record isn’t 5-19.
by capstonereport on Feb 6, 2009 12:15 AM CST up reply actions
The conference was tough, yes...
and I love that argument very much, however he also lost 5 of his 8 non-conference games:
Kent St
N. Iowa
Toledo
Iowa (the only legitimate one)
UNLV
"There's a lot of blood, sweat, and guts between dreams and success" - Coach Bryant
I think you are being sarcastic...
What Would Don Draper Do?
by BamaReturns07 on Feb 6, 2009 8:53 AM CST up reply actions
I know, I was just pointing that out...
to all the Barner trolls that come over here and like to use that as an excuse…
"There's a lot of blood, sweat, and guts between dreams and success" - Coach Bryant
I really like how 25 is a “made-up limit” but 85 is… what? The 11th Commandment Moses brought down the mount?
And I have yet to see a single whiner actually come out with a reason why someone who is slacking, has a poor attitude, or just plain isn’t good enough for the team should keep four years worth of scholarship to ride the pine.
Exactly.
And its the same for academic schollies, you don’t keep your GPA up, you lose your ride.
Thirty-Six to Nothing
At my law school they gave almost 2/3rds of each incoming class a merit-based scholarship, the terms of which dictate that you have to keep above a 3.00. Problem is, the grades are curved so that exactly half of the class is above a 3.00 and exactly half is below… which means that 1/6th of the class was initially given a scholarship that they couldn’t possibly keep.
Nobody cried about our terrible misfortune to have been given money to attend school.
how dare grades curve! This is obviously a plot to thin out the weakest students for next year's freshmen!
I want the name of the dean and president of your school. I intend to blog about how unfair this practice is, and how it screws people.
by capstonereport on Feb 6, 2009 9:56 AM CST up reply actions
Just
be sure to speak only in generalities and “worst case scenario” assumptions with absolutely no specific cases from which to base your article on.
Thirty-Six to Nothing
Of course you haven't. Neither have I
I’m speaking in generalities here. Have a good day Sister.
What Would Don Draper Do?
by BamaReturns07 on Feb 6, 2009 10:37 AM CST up reply actions
I was in fact, in that boat in L.S...
Free ride first year, predicated on a 3.0 thereafter. Guess what: The curve is 2.5. No, no one complained. They were glad to be given the opportunity, and thereafter the opportunity had to be maintained through hustle and ass-busting. Same. Thing.
Perfect analogy Pete.
"penis fish"…google that, and the candiru is the first thing that pops up
by Stuck in the Plains on Feb 6, 2009 11:35 AM CST up reply actions
If you really don't see the difference in those two numbers ... that explains a lot, actually
You can sign a “recruiting class” larger than the allotted 25 by back-counting early enrollees and grayshirting. But there’s no way (aside from the Bryant) to give out more than 85 scholarships. It’s not that complicated a point.
Again, from his fanhouse post...
“And it’s time to limit the number of LOIs schools can accept, and do away with these fictional classes of 30+ that do nothing but prop up egos and damage the careers of kids at the bottom of them.”
Sounds like he’s saying we shouldn’t have oversigned because it hurts the kids without all the shiny stars, doesn’t it? Also, the whole “Jesus, that’s filthy” bit gives it away.
That's still not his main point, though
The “snake oil” accusation comes, again, from the six leftover kids without schollies. Brian doesn’t think highly of 30+ classes, sure. But that’s not what caused the head asplosion. (Or, I guess, “aspolsion.”) And “Jesus, that’s filthy” looks to me that it refers speficially to the academic hijniks he mentions, though admittedly that’s not the logically clearest part of the post.
Regardless, the point is that Pete’s trying to equate 2009 Ole Miss with 2008 Alabama. They’re not the same situation. Or at least, they’re not the same based on the size of Ole Miss’s class alone.
We
get it. The problem is its irresponsible to write something based on “worst case scenario” assumptions. What happened to those six kids? Names? Thats the problem. He should’ve framed the post in a “look, we all need to look at this” way and not a “hey look at that scub bag at Alabama, he eats babies for breakfast” way.
Thirty-Six to Nothing
Are you actually suggesting that the size of the signed class has nothing to do with the number of total scholarships?
How many returning scholarships does Ole Miss have? How many of those 37 are grayshirting? What’s the situation?
We don’t know. Nobody’s taken the time to do the “math,” and that’s part of the point of the original post — if Cook’s concern was really these kids’ scholarships, this would seem like a situation ripe for a little investigation.
Hey, now we're getting somewhere
I agree—it’s ripe for some investigation, and maybe Brian will get there, and maybe you’ll get the head asplosion you’re looking for. Actually, to judge by the DeWayne Walker post above, it’s more likely to be UNC and Butch Davis, who’s been oversigned for a month now.
But that’s not what you said in your original post. You never mentioned Ole Miss’s returning scholarships or the “situation.” What you said was, in essence: Ole Miss signed 37 guys; ergo, Brian will be pissed. And leaving it as a simple issue of “37 is a lot” misrepresents why Brian was pissed last year, and misrepresents it as identical to ’Bama’s 2008 situation when—as you now point out—we’d have to have more information to make those parallels.
Just because you made some inferences doesn’t mean that’s what was implied by the post. Frankly, I think you just assumed that I was making the same “mistake” that a lot of people made after Cook’s first post, and it was an easy mistake to make because…
Cook wasn’t ONLY concerned about the 85. He was pissed about a lot of stuff. He was pissed about classes of more than 25. He was pissed about the recruiting rankings. He was pissed about academic qualification being used to skirt the rules. To suggest that the only thing he ever cared about was how Alabama was going to get down under 85 total is far more misrepresentative because it’s exactly the opposite of the truth, and that’s before we even talk about whether or not he went over the top for effect to deflect from Rodriguez’s legal battle.
But you managed to fly right by the point I’ve been trying to make since the very first minute of this whole blow-up: we know nothing. We have absolutely no idea what the scholarship situation is. We can guess, but we sure as hell don’t have enough to go making allegations of “truly filthy” behavior. Hell, for all we know, Alabama actually only has 30 guys on scholarship, they pick randomly which 30 every year, and 55 scholarships worth of money goes to buy Nick Saban Oatmeal Cream Pies. Likely? No, but entirely possible.
Yes, that's right, I assumed you were making that mistake ...
… because there’s nothing in your post that suggests you weren’t. You’re didn’t ever mention Ole Miss’s current scholly situation, didn’t explain that you expect Brian to make “an investigation” before popping off. Don’t blame me for responding to what you actually wrote instead of what you think you did.
I agree that Brian’s initial Fanhouse post was kind of all over the place, and I agree that he has more than one ax to grind with the signing process. But he refined his stance in his later assessments, as I’ve quoted, and it’s your post that simplifies what he argued to “37 is bad.”
And lastly, I’m not flying right past that point, I’m consciously ignoring it all over this thread because it’s NOT what I’m trying to argue here. You’re right; we don’t know anything. When in this thread did I ever say we did? If you can point out where on this page I accused Saban of cutting anyone, I’d love to see it. (Yes, I brought up the current Tide scholarship situation, because until someone investigates the Rebels’ math I think it’s a closer analogy to last year’s Tide scholarship situation than 2009 Ole Miss. But I’m just using it as an example.) Yes, I think Saban shouldn’t oversign and all that blah blah blah , but we hashed all that out last year and I couldn’t be less interested in hashing out again. All I’m arguing is that your post’s representation of this year’s Ole Miss class as identical to last year’s ‘Bama class by virtue of its size alone, and representation of Brian’s argument regarding the latter, is false. That’s it. That’s all I’m interested in discussing, and Todd’s the only person in this entire thread who’s managed to grasp that.
You’re usually really good at this whole reading thing, Jerry. Not sure what the problem is this time.
Q. Where did I actually say the situations were identical?
A. I didn’t. Hell, I didn’t even say that they were similar!
What I think we have here is a case of an assumption you made very early in the post (probably at the “37 recruits” link) and looked for evidence to accept it as a fact.
The most accurate reading would have lead an objective person to realize that the whole damn post was basically a satirical narrative setting up a poll question. Of course, you went and got all serious about it…
“A year later, and you still can’t even keep the terms of the argument straight”
…so we might as well analyze the satire more seriously. Here we go…
On one had, surely I can expect that an SEC head coach knows more about his recruiting class than I do.
Here we have a reference to my original argument, which was: we have no idea what’s going on, and the coaches do, so we might want to give them the benefit of the doubt.
On the other, a very wise man said last year: “Around six guys who are playing for Alabama now or expect to be in the fall are going to be told to get bent by the time fall practice rolls around,”
Reference to one of Cook’s original arguments. In fact, not just one of them, but the very one you claim I don’t understand. Weird!
and since Ole Miss signed even more this year than we did last year,
Objective fact. Unstated, but still factual: as the number of recruits in one class goes up, so does the likelihood of running into problems with the 85-scholarship cap.
man, there must be a whole lot of “truly filthy” things going on in Oxford.
Pure sarcasm — given the tone of the post, I’m not sure why you’d assume it was anything else. It’s a tongue-in-cheek allusion to the fact that none of the things that Cook swore would happen actually came to pass in Tuscaloosa last year. A thinking man should have read this and thought: “But nothing bad happened at Alabama last year… this paragraph is based on a faulty premise!!”
Or, I guess, if you were looking for a way to dismiss the whole thing as uninformed, you could take this as “proof” that what you originally assumed was correct.
So, yeah, you made a bad assumption based on a lazy and overly-serious reading of the post.
Totally my fault. (Note for the overly dense: This is sarcasm, do not take literally)
Honestly, Pete
If you’d just responded the first time with “I know that Ole Miss signing 37 recruits isn’t exactly the same thing Brian was angry about; I left unstated that it depends on whether they’ve signed too many to fit under the 85-scholarship cap,” you could have saved us both a lot of time. You’re not ignorant; your post just made it sound that way. There, see, easy!
Of course, that wasn’t your first response. Your first response was to accuse me of propping up a straw man (what you’re referring to there, you never did specify) and blither through your argument from last summer, which I hadn’t said a word about. But I’m the one with reading comprehension issues, right?
You lose. Good day, sir.
Sounds an awful lot like . . . “If only you had explained it to me in a way even an idiot would understand from the very beginning, I wouldn’t have wasted a lot of time on my own poor assumptions.”
But, hey, if you need to tell yourself you won to feel better, go right ahead. While you’re at it, might at as well give the Barn a win for Novembers whipping as well.
PeteHoliday
You’re epic.
I hadn’t read this thread all day, and now- my after-dinner RBR read was A SWELL ONE for sure thanks to you and your writing.
My only relevant comment to this post and most of the replies/comments is this:
EXACTLY WHAT YOU SAID. (that was easy?)
"I was INVERTED!" -Maverick in Top Gun
by BixBeiderbecke on Feb 6, 2009 10:14 PM CST up reply actions
I
think what Pete meant was lets say, for example, that Saban didn’t have enough room for everyone even after gray shirting. So how did he make it work? The point is you don’t know. The article is insinuating that Saban had to break some promises in order to make it work. The problem is, again, there is no evidence. So unless you or someone else can produce said evidence, you just look like a bunch of homers with an axe to gind. I didn’t major in journalism but I would think the first thing they teach is if you don’t have evidence to support your premise, don’t write the article. Credibility lost.
Thirty-Six to Nothing
Hey Jerry...
Trying to use a question of mine does not make your point more valid. I asked the referenced question above due to the fact that I know just as much as you do about the condition of every player on Bama’s team, and to what toll natural attrition will take on this team coming up (transfers, PUP, etc.) However, there are some people on here who are much more “in the know” than I am, thus the reason I presented the question openly. No, I, nor anyone else, knows how Saban is going to make the numbers work, but the beauty of it is… we don’t have to know. We don’t get paid to juggle the numbers and “balance the checkbook”. All we know is that Saban has a plan. He recruited this many guys for a reason, and I can guarantee you that he’s not going to strip scholarships away in order to make the numbers work. But the bottom line here is, just because I don’t know how the numbers work (which you thought was a pretty vital piece to your arguement, which is flattering) doesn’t mean they won’t. If your so worried about kids getting scholarships stripped, or not getting money promised to them, go raise a fuss about your punter.
"There's a lot of blood, sweat, and guts between dreams and success" - Coach Bryant
i believe
justin durst is back on the team. not sure if he received his scholly but our local paper reported his return.
2008 Iron Bowl Bumper Sticker: Shut DOWN, Shut OUT, now SHUT UP!
Alabama 36 - Auburn 0
He did, but only because he raised a fuss and it got printed...
how many kids have the nads to bring it public. Not many. Durst was just supposed to fade into the horizon like every other kid with a broken promise. But let’s not talk about that…
"There's a lot of blood, sweat, and guts between dreams and success" - Coach Bryant
If I read your blog...
…I’ll notice you twice slammed Chizik…in the sphincter.
by NiceLittleSaturday on Feb 6, 2009 11:57 AM CST up reply actions
I got nothing
seriously, nothin. I mean, it’s cook. I have more vested interest in the dump I took this morning than I have anything that idiot spits out.
What Would Don Draper Do?
dear lord people, let it go.
the practice of oversigning – why programs do it and how they find ways to make it work is ripe for discussion. the danger of ethical overlapses in the already-sketchy practice of recruiting is even moreso. i’d LOVE to see in depth pieces about any of those topics but, i’m sorry, bitching about brian cook a year after the fact is just lame.
by kleph on Feb 6, 2009 8:09 AM CST reply actions 1 recs
Because, really, what difference does it make to anyone? Don’t like the topic? Don’t read the post.
Some of us are still interested in having this discussion or, at the very least, poking idiots with sticks. Not your cup of tea? Move along.
Shame
because I really like Jerry’s blog. I separate him from the Jay Coulter/Jay Tate/Philip Marshall’s of the AU universe.
Thirty-Six to Nothing
Yeah, Jerry is good people
even if he is dead wrong on this subject
What Would Don Draper Do?
by BamaReturns07 on Feb 6, 2009 10:44 AM CST up reply actions
and, he is. Dead. Wrong.
"penis fish"…google that, and the candiru is the first thing that pops up
by Stuck in the Plains on Feb 6, 2009 11:38 AM CST up reply actions
I suppose the answer to your question would be:
RBR is a unique community within the Crimson Tide fanbase (in that it’s not full of internet rumors and “i have a source” asshats), and each poster is like a member-owner. Each poster has a right to contribute to the direction this community goes in. If Kelph, a member senior to you in this community in both posting content and contributions feels like this is not the direction he would like to see RBR go, then he can express it and we should consider it.
Personally, I’d hate to see some of the more professional, productive, interesting posters on the site simply “move along”.
So
you’re saying you don’t think the topic is worthy of discussing. I disagree. And here we are…
Thirty-Six to Nothing
Let's not turn this into a....
….“direction of RBR” kind of thing, ok? Kleph doesn’t care, Pete (and I apparently, since I bumped it to the main page) does. Whether we like it or not it’s a relevant issue.
I’m not saying that they should stop reading RBR . . . but I’m going to say the same thing about this that I said the last time someone complained about too much of one thing and not enough of something else:
FanPosts are one of the best things about RBR (and the SB Nation blogs) . . . be the change you want to see. If you don’t like griping about Cook or Hello Kiffykins, by all means, post something more interesting.
Also? Geez, people, it’s officially the OFF SEASON. We’re going to be grasping at straws for football-related posts most weeks for about the next four or five months, we really shouldn’t be closing off entire topics of conversation this early in the game.
It is a lot like the occassional readers
who get upset when we have things like “random Ten” or “Sweetheart”. Yeah, first and foremost RBR is a sports blog, but damn, there are off seasons, and I would much rather get entertainment from hearing posters tell it like it is. I mean, a little controversy and heated debate gets the blood a pumping. Keeps things interested. As long as we all follow the rules and guidelines that Nico and Todd have put into place to keep RBR a place that prides itself on not becoming like some of the other blogs. Kelph is a great contributor to the site, but it doesn’t mean everyone here has to agree with everything everyone says all the time.
Jerry is a good guy, it just so happens that the majority of us strongly disagree with him on this topic, and that is fine.
Brian Cook, however, is the epitome of douche.
What Would Don Draper Do?
by BamaReturns07 on Feb 6, 2009 10:41 AM CST up reply actions
Someone say, Asshat?
What Would Don Draper Do?
by BamaReturns07 on Feb 6, 2009 10:45 AM CST up reply actions
just to be clear, i sometimes disagree with pete on specific issues but i always appreciate his point of view and actively read his posts to glean his insight. the hallmark of his posting is the substanitive argument not cheap shots and i certainly didn’t take his comment here as the latter.
but to address his criticism, i’m here because i agree with todd, i think oversigning is a relevant issue – not just to Alabama but college football as a whole. i believe it needs to be looked at in detail and i am very interested in reading posts from people with more information about the subject than myself. and i am keeping up with this topic because some of the comments here do touch on that.
on the other hand, i disagree with pete that the brouhaha with cook is a topic worth further discussion. i’m just a little baffled by the insistance of rehashing what was essentially a pissing match that’s now a year old. as the saying goes, you are just letting an asshole live rent free on your brain at this point.
and for the record, i thought peter’s comments on the cook fracas over at fanhouse were the most on point and insightful offered by anyone on the issue at the time.
I probably could’ve been more clear in my original post but occasionally I have to be snarky. The reader’s digest version is this:
“37 players? That’s crazy talk! I wonder how that’s going to shake out. Speaking of shaking out… where are all of those people who had coronaries about Nick Saban’s over-signing last year?”
With a small side of “If Cook had any integrity whatsoever, this issue would be of interest to him.”
Not suggesting, as Jerry assumed that “37 > 25 = Bad,” but that the more recruits you sign in a given year, the more likely you are to run up against the 85 cap (fact) and 37 is a large number, so if we’re looking for schools in the “danger zone” of telling players to “get bent”, this should be one we take a look at. But, frankly, I count on the NCAA to police the scholarships.
you are just letting an asshole live rent free on your brain at this point.
It’s alright. There’s a lot of free space in there I wasn’t using anyhow, and if I start running out, I’ll just evict some song lyrics.
What’s the most amazing to me, though, is that if Cook had come out once fall practice rolled around and ‘Bama was handing out schollies to walk-ons and said: “Well, I guess I jumped the gun a little bit about Alabama — my bad on that, but I still think we ought to keep an eye on over-signing since it has the potential to go horribly wrong.” He probably wouldn’t be a running joke around here and I think we’d all have gained at least a little respect for the guy, he just wasn’t man enough to do it.
and i’m just asking for all this insight sans cook, that’s all.
i’d like to hear more about how you expect the NCAA to police this, though. they pretty much stayed on the sideline in reference to this last year and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of leeway for them to interfere since there isn’t an actual infraction of the rules at this point.
I expect them to police this by giving sanctions to teams who actually give out more than 85 scholarships.
Frankly, I don’t even care how a team arrives at that number. Kick the slackers off the team? Fine. Drop a Junior because he’s not good enough and we need the scholarship? Fine. (Although that’s going to kick your ass when recruiting rolls around)
The only thing I don’t think is fine is reneging on promises and I don’t believe that, at least with respect to things like scholarships, that actually happens very often (if at all) because, let’s be honest, if it did there’d be lawyers all over it given the amount of potential future money there is at stake.
Agreed
It’s a little too much of a circle-jerk when we take easy shots at some poor idiot Michigan fan who obviously has some sort of cataclysmic mental handicap.
this Cook person: meh.
Recruiting controversy: I like it.
It wouldn’t be impossible to separate the two.
wow
i just now read (most) of this thread for the first time. let’s see…the people getting all up in bama’s shit are an auburn fan and a michigan fan…i’m glad both of their programs are in such great shape they have time to figure out what is wrong with bama’s.
hey auburn and michigan fan(s)…crunch these numbers…michigan’s wins (3) + auburn’s wins (5) < (and its not even really close) bama’s wins (12). give me saban’s over signing, cruel ways.
thank you for your concern.
Cook needs to hurry up and toss some of his profanity around to keep up the entertainment. ;-)
by capstonereport on Feb 6, 2009 2:41 PM CST up reply actions
yeah I am starting to feel...cheated!
What Would Don Draper Do?
by BamaReturns07 on Feb 6, 2009 2:51 PM CST up reply actions
I'd do it, but I don't wanna get banned.
by capstonereport on Feb 6, 2009 3:21 PM CST up reply actions
Yeah it might happen
Todd, while horribly terrible at NCAA 09, is pretty exceptional as an admin.
What Would Don Draper Do?
by BamaReturns07 on Feb 6, 2009 3:54 PM CST up reply actions
You cannot possibly hope to contain my genius melding....
….of the spread option, air raid, and west coast offenses! Or my enviable technique at DE, which will blow you up as soon as the ball is snapped!
Is there going to be an official RBR Tailgate for A-Day?
We should make that happen. I haven’t gotten a chance to drink with internet weirdos friends in a while.
We really need to...
For Saban’s first A-Day we had a woefully inadequate blogger get together, but last year I couldn’t make it and I don’t think Nico did either. We DEFINITELY have to get a good gathering going this year though.
...more.
There. Now we’re at 100. We can shut this one down.
by NiceLittleSaturday on Feb 6, 2009 4:37 PM CST up reply actions
Wow
Wasn’t a member for the original article or the ensuing controversy, but it must have been one hell of a well-written article! Maybe the content was upsetting/inaccurate, but how else could it have stood the test of time like this?
I might actually have to read this now….nah, sounds like it would only upset me according to all of these posts! I think this is enough attention for this guy and his article.
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