Jumbo Package: Saban fears that Uncle Tommy will derail the season

Happy Thursday, everyone. Ed Orgeron spoke about the decision to reschedule the Alabama game, and he insists he wants it rescheduled.

“At the beginning of the week, we were going full bore on Arkansas,” Orgeron said. “We didn’t think the Alabama game was going to happen and then maybe thought it could happen, so we went back to Alabama. And then we found out for sure yesterday we weren’t playing but I want to commend the SEC for doing the right thing for the safety of our players.”

I think I’ll let Lane Kiffin weigh in for me.

That just about says it all, doesn’t it?

Saban says that Alabama has only one positive test this week, but damn Uncle Tommy needs to get it together.

“Everybody trusts their family and I trust my family,” Saban said. “But nobody knows where Uncle Tommy has been, either. So, you still have to be careful. That’s why we try to do the best possible educational program. I mean, the options were to not let the players go any place, which is really kind of a punishment.

Don’t be an asshole, Tommy.

Greg Sankey weighed in on the challenges.

“Candidly, the numbers around contact tracing — and I think you’ve heard from some of what I’ve learned from our coaches’ comments — have emerged as one of our biggest challenges to playing,” SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said Wednesday.

Contact tracing involves finding people who have had close contact with someone who has had a recent positive test for the virus. People who have potentially been exposed are told to quarantine for 14 days.

I find it absurd that we are quarantining players who are testing negative every single day because of contact tracing. The daily tests were supposed to mitigate the need for that. If a player is testing negative every day, and is still negative the day of practice or a game, then seems to me he ain’t sick and ain’t going to make anyone else sick. Maybe I’m just silly.

Anyhow, Nick seems happy with the team’s bye week practice effort.

“We just came off an open date, and I thought we made a lot of progress, had good practices, got some guys healthy. We were certainly looking forward to playing a game, but I think that we kind of expect disruptions during this season. How we handle them is probably the most important thing right now. What we’d like to try to do is try to keep our team in some kind of rhythm relative to how we practice and we continue to try to improve to finish this season.”

Saban also shared Alabama’s practice plan for the rest of what is now a second bye week.

“We’re trying to stay in the same rhythm that we would,” Saban said. “We usually have a light practice on Monday, practice Tuesday and Wednesday, a little bit of a light practice on Thursday, no practice on Friday and play a game on Saturday. So, we’ll probably do the same thing. Obviously, we don’t have a game, but to keep the rhythm, probably have some kind of practice Saturday.”

“I think Pat’s done a great job,” head coach Nick Saban said. “He leads by example. He always practices the way you’re supposed to practice, takes coaching the way you’re supposed to take coaching. I think he respects the critical eye. He wants to be a good player. He wants you to tell him how he could do things better. He’s very committed to being a good player.

“I think he’s not really a vocal guy but in a quiet way, impacts everybody in a very, very positive way because of the example that he sets. He is somebody that I wish every guy on our team would try to emulate in terms of the character that he has as a person and the competitive character he demonstrates every day in preparing for a game, as well as how he plays in a game.”

Surtain is looking like a surefire top ten, and possibly even top 5, pick at this point.

Last, in case you didn’t hear about it, there was an incident involving LSU player Koy Moore and the Baton Rouge Police last weekend. Well, it turns out that an Alabama player was also involved.

“They asked them, ‘where’s the gun, where’s the gun,’ is there any drugs,’” Ryan Thompson, the attorney representing the two players, told BET.com. “Koy tried to inform the officers that there was no gun, that they were just going to eat. After they were searched several times — in our opinion they were searched more than the norm — Koy informed them that they were football players and that he was going to tell Coach [Ed Orgeron].”

It is kind of weird that Holden was visiting with a player from the team who is next up on the schedule, but there he was. The officers have been placed on administrative leave. We will keep an eye on this one as it unfolds.

That’s about it for now. Have a great day.

Roll Tide.