Jumbo Package: Tide rolls into Washington

Happy Gump Day, everyone.

There is plenty of gumping to do today, as the players thoroughly enjoyed yesterday’s trip to the White House that had absolutely nothing to do with anyone’s politics (imagine that!) USA Today has a nice two minute highlight video of the president’s speech here, if you are so inclined. There is the inevitable self-aggrandizement mixed in with humor and praise, and even an invocation of #MTAQ, only without the profanity, to which Trump quipped about the turnover in his administration.

Christian Miller and Derek Kief got a selfie that will undoubtedly hang on their walls forever.

As you can imagine, the replies to the tweet are littered with #MAGA folks ignorantly assuming that the tweet constitutes an endorsement of the president’s policies, as well as some virtue signaling “woke” white folks telling the players how they should feel and behave as black men, but let’s just look past all the ways that people suck for now, shall we?

Those who have followed J.K. Scott know that he defines himself by his faith, so this had to be a surreal moment for him.

Very cool, indeed.

Hey, guess what Saban was doing?

He. Never. Stops.

BamaOnline has plenty of photos of the event for you here.

Hey, while Alabama was at the White House, Auburn’s kicker was on Finebaum.

Bless their hearts.

Some notes from spring practice:

“Mac Jones took a couple bangs,” he said with a laugh about the third-string redshirt freshman quarterback.

How’d that go?

”There was one play he got hit by like three people,” Lewis said, grin intact. “One person hit him and banged into the other person. It was like a pinball machine or something.”

Sounds like young Mac is getting an initiation.

With Bo Scarbrough declaring for the 2018 NFL Draft and rising junior Josh Jacobs sidelined by an ankle injury, rising sophomore Brian Robinson has shown continued improvement.

“I think he’s improved tremendously,” rising senior tailback Damien Harris said Monday. “Just trying to perfect his craft just like everybody else. We’ve got a lot of young guys that are stepping up and playing really well right now, they’re practicing hard, so it’s good to see a lot of young guys stepping up to that role and kind of embracing the challenge.”

Robinson is that overshadowed local kid who bleeds Crimson and has far more ability than the casual fans realize. Keep an eye on him.

The Tuscaloosa campus has seen the number of foreign students more than double over the span of a decade. (Numbers are down slightly this academic year, with 1,154 foreign students, compared to a high of 1,670 three years ago.) But how much of that growth has to do with the football team?

“It’s very difficult to say whether they came because of the football game, or because of the scholarship or because of our academics,” said economist Ahmad Ijaz, director the University of Alabama’s Center for Business and Economic Research.

Let’s ask Coach Burns what he believes to be the driving factor:

We need an updated photo, Coach.

That’s about it for today. Gump early and often, my friends.

Roll Tide.