Jumbo Package: USC WR wanted Bama once he knew he wasn’t getting them

Happy Monday, everyone. The most amusing note of the weekend came from USC WR Amon-Ra St. Brown, who all of a sudden has a little trash to talk.

Look, I’m all about players wanting to play the best competition. That’s a good character trait. The problem here is that he didn’t make a peep about playing Bama until the game was cancelled, and talked a little trash as soon as he knew it was.

Well, today is the big SEC meeting where they will discuss, but not decide, what to do about the football season.

The SEC shouldn’t be announcing any drastic decisions on Monday, and I don’t think it will. It’s time to be smart, and consider the long-term health of collegiate athletics and how best to preserve as many athletic scholarships across as many non-revenue sports as possible.

That might sound like a backwards, backwoods perspective during a pandemic, but I’m fine with the blowback on this one. If SEC football has to cut games this fall, or cancel the entire season, then other sports will suffer more than the moneymakers.

“We put a medical advisory group together in early April with the question, ‘What do we have to do to get back to activity?’ and they’ve been a big part of the conversation,” Sankey said according to an ESPN story. “But the direct reality is not good and the notion that we’ve politicized medical guidance of distancing, and breathing masks, and hand sanitization, ventilation of being outside, being careful where you are in buildings. There’s some very clear advice about — you can’t mitigate and eliminate every risk, but how do you minimize the risk? ... We are running out of time to correct and get things right, and as a society we owe it to each other to be as healthy as we can be.”

“It’s premature,” one Big 12 source said. “We have 60 days to see where things are.”

A second Big 12 source said, “We need to have patience and a cautious approach. Continue to be nimble, and hopefully gain more education related to the virus.”

“Perception can sway this without a doubt,” a third Big 12 source said. “But all our schools have worked hard to come up with plans to ensure the safety of our student-athletes and staff and feel like there’s more time before a decision like that needs to be made.”

A fourth Big 12 source told Horns247, “You’re not hearing anything like that coming out of the Big 12 or SEC.”

New Mexico State’s games against Florida and UCLA alone were set to pay more than $2.7 million. Moccia said he believes the Aggies’ only option if they lose their guarantees may be to take out a loan and then play more guarantee games in future years in hopes of paying it back.

“There are no more sports to discontinue. We’re down to 16 (the minimum for FBS schools),” Moccia said. “So, we’re going to have to wait and see what happens in the next few days with other leagues — if they’re going to do the same thing, if they’re going to be looking for replacement opponents, maybe we could slide in. … If ($2.7 million) comes off the board and there are no sports to discontinue, you could, in theory lay off the entire athletic department and it wouldn’t equal ($2.7 million).”

This sums it up. If there is no football then a lot of kids will lose athletic scholarships in other sports. If no paycheck games are played, a lot of kids will lose athletic scholarships in other sports. Also, kudos to whoever the Big 12 source is for bringing up perception, which is driving a lot of the overreaction. I’ll say again, the idea that the players are significantly more likely to get the virus playing football than doing whatever they will be doing otherwise is ludicrous, and if asymptomatic cases are going to be treated as disastrous then there won’t be any football. A bunch of non-revenue sports will subsequently die a swift death and may not return any time soon, all over a virus that causes hospitalization in fewer than 1% of college aged people it infects and death in such negligible numbers for that age group that it’s barely worth mentioning.

Surveys have shown that players overwhelmingly want to play despite the virus, just as they want to play with all of the information available about CTE, etc. Now we just have to see if those who think they know what’s best for them will allow it.

Alabama WR commit Agiye Hall is teasing another commit.

These players make plenty of friends from all over the place through the recruiting process so there is no way to know who he’s referencing, but he was high school teammates with Ohio State SDE commit Tunmise Adeleye, and there has been some speculation that Alabama could swipe him.

Massice DL Damon Payne out of Michigan has trended Bama all along. Check out this power.

Fisher is headed to Notre Dame, so this makes all kinds of sense.

Last, Marlon Humphrey participated in a Celebrity Family Feud that aired last night but taped sometime before this mess. You can see him below, laughing with everyone else at Michael Irvin’s reaction.

Yep, that’s the Irvin I remember.

That’s about it for today. Have a great week.

Roll Tide.