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Alright, folks. It is that time of the week again. Let's do another round of Roll Bama Roll mailbag.
As always, we remind you that this series is driven by you and your questions, so be sure to keep the questions coming. If you have any questions that you'd like to submit for future mailbags, just shoot us an email at RBRmailbag@gmail.com. Let us know if you'd like us to use your first name, username, or be anonymous.
Now on to the questions!
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'Bama has marque out of conference games scheduled in the near future such as the two Atlanta openers Virginia Tech (2013) and West Virginia (2014), Wisconsin in Dallas in 2015 and a home-and-home series with Michigan State in 2016-2017. Assuming the SEC stays with an 8 game conference schedule and 'Bama feels pressured by the new football playoff committee to strengthen its schedule, what other home-and-home series would you anticipate being scheduled against so called big-time programs in the future? For me personally, I would like to see series scheduled with Oklahoma, Florida State, and Nebraska. I would rather see our annual game against an FCS program be switched to a marquee BCS game against another team from the Group of Five. Yes, 'Bama's schedule would be harder, but even with a loss (or maybe 2) we should still have a better than average chance of reaching the 4 team playoff. What are your thoughts? - Dukeman
I'm familiar with the refrain about how schedule strength will be a major consideration in the new system. I don't buy it. Will it be an important consideration when you need a tie-breaker? Sure. But I don't believe a one loss Oregon, for example, will ever get in over an undefeated Alabama simply because they played a harder schedule.
In my mind, there's no reason to make the schedule any harder than it is currently. And there certainly is no reason to be doing home and home series. We get plenty enough exposure and added difficulty by doing these marquee neutral site games.
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Under what conditions does the clock not stop when the ball carrier goes out of bounds? Also, if a QB is now "defenseless" after an INT, is he untouchable for the rest of the play? Are there any restrictions on what he can do as a defender? (Did the idiots who came up with this idea give any of this any thought?) - dw64
First off, here's the link to the NCAA rule book.
The pertinent rules for clock stopping are 3-3-2d-2 and 3-3-2e-3. Here's the gist: if it's more than two minutes left in the half, the clock stops when the player goes out of bounds and restarts at the referee's signal. If there are less than two minutes left in the half, the clock stops when the player goes out of bounds and restarts at the next snap.
As far as the defenseless QB's go, I haven't seen any clarifications on this rule specifically, but yes, he should still be able to make tackles. He can also still be blocked. It's just that if he's blocked above the shoulders (or just too violently in general, I suppose, as it is really up to the discretion of the official), the offendingplayer will be ejected immediately from the game. In addition to the ejection, the player will be ineligible for the first half of the next game.
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And one on a less related note:
Name a main character that gets wacked in the upcoming season of Walking Dead? -John
I'm going to say that Herschel will die. Honestly I wouldn't be surprised for this to be a character-purging season, where we see multiple main characters bite the big one. If you guys haven't seen the trailer for season four, it looks amazing.
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Well, that will wrap up this week's Roll Bama Roll mailbag. Feel free to give your responses in the comments and/or let me know why I'm completely right/wrong about my responses. And remember to send in your questions for future editions of Roll Bama Roll mailbag to RBRmailbag@gmail.com.