Jumbo Package: Nate Oats talks up Jahvon Quinerly, Todd Grantham to be an analyst

Happy Monday, everyone. Outside of baseball’s unsurprising rough time in Austin against the heavily favored and top ranked Longhorns, it was a pretty phenomenal weekend.

• The Gym Tide beat Missouri
• Softball swept the weekend to remain undefeated
• Women’s basketball took down Vandy
• Track & Field brought home seven medals at the SEC Indoor Championships

And, of course, the men’s basketball team rolled over South Carolina. Nate Oats had some encouraging words for Jahvon Quinerly after his stellar performance.

“I think he’s getting back to where his mind’s right. He’s just settling in and playing, playing hard and doing whatever he can to help us win. But he looks a lot better. His shot’s dropping. But the coaching staff’s been seeing this in practice. This isn’t shocking to us that he goes 7-of-8 in a 2-game stretch. He’s been shooting it well in practice. He’s been shooting it great in workouts. I think he’s just pressing a little bit too much. I was really happy for his parents, too. They’ve been through a lot. They’ve been down here for these last two home games, and he’s played great. Hopefully, we can keep them around. Hopefully, they don’t miss any more games.”

Quinerly’s struggles outside have been baffling after watching him light it up last year, particularly down the stretch. He seems to be coming around, however. Jahvon has now shot 38% from three in his last nine games, which includes four games of 50% or better and another at 37.5%. Alabama is 5-0 in those games and 1-3 in the others, in which Quinerly shot a combined 11%. When he’s knocking down those shots and forcing the defense to extend, things get much simpler for the whole offense. Hopefully he can keep it going.

For those who were worried, Todd Grantham is just an analyst after all.

Todd Grantham, previously a defensive coordinator at a number of Power 5 schools, accepted an analyst position with the Crimson Tide, Matt Zenitz of on3.com reported Sunday. News of this possibility broke Thursday on FootballScoop.com when Grantham was considering the job in Tuscaloosa.

He now joins an analyst staff that includes former Tennessee head coach Derrick Dooley and former LSU quarterback Zach Mettenberger.

Najee Harris is hilarious.

“Boy, I come over to Alabama. Humid as hell, first of all. First practice, I’m over here running with the pads, I pass out. (Coach Nick) Saban’s over there like, ‘Damn it, 22, this isn’t the West Coast.’ I’m over there like, ‘You’re right.’ It was team run, too, so I did one run, went on the sideline. It took me about two years to get adjusted to that, if that, maybe three. It just got hotter and hotter year by year.

“Then – bang — that’s over with, and I go to Pittsburgh. Boy, that’s cold as hell over there, and they would tell me, ‘It’s not even cold yet, Najee.’ (Quarterback) Ben (Roethlisberger) over there saying, ‘It’s going to get colder than this.’ Man, that Detroit game, I got tackled one time. That was the first time I felt all the hits in the NFL was that Detroit game. It was cold as hell. Then I saw snow. It wasn’t my first time seeing snow because it snowed one time in Bama, but it was the first time I made a snowman.”

ESPN writers collaborated to discuss which head coaches have something to prove this year.

David Hale: LSU went big in landing Brian Kelly, but the early returns have been ... interesting. The public reaction to the hire has been tepid, with many critics wondering if Kelly is a cultural fit in the SEC (never mind the adopted Southern drawl). That might be a tad unfair, as Kelly has always been underrated as a coach, his successes far outpacing the credit he seems to get for them.

But if Kelly was underappreciated at Notre Dame, there’s no chance his work will fly under the radar now. The pressure to win immediately in the toughest division in college football, at a school that has fired its past two coaches, both of whom won national championships, will be immense.

Agreed, David.

Berry Tramel at the Oklahoman has a cool piece on the relationship between legendary Sooners head coach Bud Wilkinson and the Bear.

“He obviously was the longest and the most successful (rival), and I got to know Bear very, very well. We played in the Sugar Bowl game, Jan. 1, 1951. That was the 1950 season, and Bear was at Kentucky and I was at Oklahoma. We had met casually in the Navy.

“From playing each other in that game, and we were both relatively of an age, we were playing better offense than they were and they were playing better defense than we were.

“So for about the next six years or seven, Bear and I either the last week in July or the first week in August would go to a mutually-convenient town, might be Memphis or Dallas or somewhere, and we’d get a three-room hotel suite, two bedrooms and a living room with a blackboard, and we’d talk football for four to five days. We did that for six years.

Last, former TCU running back Kent Waldrep, tragically injured in a 1974 game against Alabama, has passed away at 68.

Waldrep became one of the leading advocates for the disabled, founding the American Paralysis Foundation and even earned an appointment from then-president Ronald Reagan. Both of his sons attended Alabama on Bryant scholarships. By all accounts, Kent was a fine human being and will be missed. May he rest in peace.

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

Roll Tide.