She (Bama football) don’t turn heads no more. J. D. Crowe’s latest Bama funny.

J. D. Crowe is the talented editorial cartoonist for the Mobile Press Register. This jewel was in Sunday’s paper and says it all about the state of Bama football. Click over and have a look, if you’ve got the stomach for it.

With the Rich Rodriguez debacle, Athletic Director Mal Moore has, once again, embarrassed the University of Alabama. His inability is the stuff of legend. It’s time to put him out to pasture and out of our misery.

Here, in a nutshell, is the case against Mal the Aged.

• Moore made the call to keep former ‘Bama coach Mike DuBose after he copped to sexually harassing his secretary. He was kept in reward for winning the SEC and in hopes that he’d bring the national title to Tuscaloosa in 2000. When his coaching ability proved commensurate with his character, he was finally fired.
• Moore hired Mike Price who embarrassed Alabama before he could even coach a game. Apparently Coach Price has/had a drinking problem. Based on his behavior once he came South, it’s hard to believe that half the people in Washington weren’t aware of it. Obviously, however, Mal Moore wasn’t.
• Moore fired former Crimson Tide quarterback and Alabama coach Mike Shula sometime close to midnight on a Sunday, after letting him swing in the wind for a week. Never mind that Shula is one of the family. Never mind that he came to Alabama when nobody else wanted the job. Never mind that he’s a Shula for Christ’s sake. It was an utterly classless move and indicative of the state of things at Alabama.
• And now, when coaching prodigy Rich Rodriguez was poised to sign a multi-million dollar deal with the Tide, lose lips at Alabama sank their chance to close the deal. This was Moore’s deal to louse up, and he did. Alabama is again a laughing stock.

As long as Moore is around Alabama, there’s no chance Alabama will be back around the top of the college football world. He’s a disaster plain and simple.

Apparently the media in the great state of Alabama were sadly misinformed as to the the depth of Rich Rodriguez’s commitment to the University of Alabama. It’s being widely reported that Coach Rodriguez is staying put in West Virginia.

Yet another coaching search has been badly bungled by the decrepit, obviously incompetent Mal Moore. ‘Bama’s ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory is becoming more legendary than their football heroics from long ago. It’s just pitiful.

No matter who takes the job now, and no one with any name recognition is left to turn the Tide down, this is yet another public relations disaster for the Alabama football program. It’s been years since Alabama was feared. Now they’re just funny.

Well Alabama athletic director Mal Moore got his man. Nope, it’s not Steve Spurrier. It’s not even Nick Saban. It’s Rich Rodriguez of West Virginia, or so WKRG in Mobile is reporting. (Don’t bother checking the web site. Looks like they update it about once a week and it’s only been five days since the last one.)

Coach Rodriguez has built his alma mater, West Virginia University, into a national power. Last year’s Mountaineers systematically destroyed SEC champion Georgia in the Sugar Bowl, which is a pretty good indication that his philosophy and system will indeed work in the SEC.

Whether it’ll work right away, however, is another matter. Part of Rodriguez’s system is based on a highly mobile, option quarterback. Alabama has an up and coming star at quarterback in John Parker Wilson, but he’s not an option quarterback. Whether it’s curtains for John Parker, or Rodriguez’s offensive system, remains to be seen.

Additionally, Rodriguez’s West Virginia team is two deep. That’s part of his philosophy. Alabama figures to be thin for at least another year, if not two, due to scholarship losses that ran from 2003 through 2005.

Hopefully the fan base at Alabama will grasp that it’ll take at least a couple of years to get things rolling under Rodriguez. If they are a little patient, good times may very well be back in Tuscaloosa by the end of the decade.

Here are a few more posts I found interesting, amusing, whatever.

• How About Punishing The Owners
• Update on “Times says we’re getting away with murder”
• Funding Terrorist note: As far as I can tell, the title and the actual post are utterly unrelated. Nevertheless, it’s a good rant.
• Military Strength v The Will to Win
• Rodriguez playing Alabama to stay at WVU?
• Enough!!!
• Robert Plant Records in Nashville
• Brownback 2008
• Science, Skeptics, God, and Magick
• Cherokee County, GA Passes Anti-Immigrant Ordinance

Slide by and leave a comment. You don’t have to agree with ‘em. It’s just blogging.

The circus that is Alabama football is once again a source of amusement, or embarrassment, depending on your point of view. You know the numbers. ‘Bama is on its eighth coach in the past 25 years, its fifth since 2000. It’s just ridiculous.

Coach Mike Shula, brought in to restore credibility and stability to the mess in Tuscaloosa, was unceremoniously dismissed under the cover of darkness, just a few hours shy of midnight last Sunday. It was gutless and shameful, words that haven’t, until now, been associated with Alabama football. Well, shameful maybe, but not gutless. ‘Atta good ole boy, Mal Moore.

So who’s next? The faithful, tripping on crimson-sunshine, foresee Steve Spurrier or Nick Saban riding to the rescue and righting the again-teetering ship. That’s not going to happen though. In fact, it’s a safe bet that the new coach will be someone whose name most don’t recognize.

Will the new man win? Who knows? Mike Shula has left him loaded with talented sophomores and redshirt-freshmen. Another top-10 class was poised to sign with the Tide and Shula next year, but all bets are off now.

At any rate, he’ll have four years to bring the national championship back to Alabama. Won’t happen though, unless he’s the Chosen One. Smart money says ‘Bama winds up on probation again before they play for another title.

Alabama’s sports media is fixated on Mike Shula. Sports, page one, in today’s Mobile Press Register featured one story about Shula’s buyout clause, and another screed by flaccid Paul Finebaum.

The rag did note that embattled Miami Hurricane coach Larry Coker had been canned. It didn’t mention, however, that this is potentially the biggest football story in the state, in as much as Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville might figure prominently in Miami’s coaching search.

Tuberville spent nearly a decade as an assistant at Miami. He’s also much higher profile than any of the candidates for the Miami job mentioned in the Press Register article. That’s not to say he’s a candidate. I don’t know. I would think, short of a Spurrier, Tressel, or Carroll, Tuberville would be on any short-list of schools serious about winning. (Of course Tressel and Carroll aren’t going anywhere. They are  benchmarks.) Auburn, while a great job, isn’t Miami. There’s more football talent coming out of south Florida than anywhere else in the country.

Nary a word about the Miami-Tuberville connection in the Mobile paper though. The semi-literate writers working there are on jihad against Alabama coach Mike Shula, and when you’re at war, little things like the status of the coach of the state’s premier college football team aren’t on your radar.

Radio host, columnist, and Tennessee alum Paul Finebaum continues to lead the redneck-jihad for the job of Mike Shula. Finebaum blithely ignores the main fact concerning Alabama’s mediocre showing this year; that Alabama doesn’t have enough good football players to compete in the most competitive conference in the country. Nope, Finebaum’s screeds are devoid of any facts, save stats pointing out that Alabama isn’t very good, a point most fans are aware of, and that doesn’t surprise the knowledgeable in the least.

Finebaum’s disdain for Coach Shula is obviously personal. Whether it’s because Shula doesn’t want to be his pal, or doesn’t trust him because he’s a UT alum, is anybody’s guess. I find it odd that a UT alum is as immersed in Alabama football as Finebaum is, but ‘Bama is known for football, and not for brains.

Now, thanks to win-at all-costs folks like Finebaum, Alabama is as famous for cheating as for winning championships. Coach Shula, whatever else he may be, is a man of integrity that won’t condone that sort of bullshit on his watch. Could that be part of Paul Finebaum’s problem with Mike Shula?

Let me break it down for the rednecks and inbreds that make up the “fire Shula” camp. The crimson jerseys aren’t magical. If there aren’t enough high-quality, scholarship athletes filling the crimson jerseys, the Crimson Tide isn’t going to be successful. Alabama is down 21, count them, 21, scholarship athletes. That means that 21 of the crimson jerseys are filled with sub-standard football players.

If you’re mathematically challenged, and big numbers like 21 trouble you, think of it in different terms. If Alabama had two or three more quality offensive lineman, a couple more quality defensive lineman, another good back, an additional quality receiver, and a few more good athletes on defense, do you think they’d have gone six and six this year? Of course not. Do you think they’d be down 21 athletes if part of the fan base wasn’t comprised of out of control, win-at-all-costs fans? Of course not.

When, not if, Alabama is caught cheating again, it’ll mean the death penalty for one of college football’s most storied programs. It won’t happen on Coach Shula’s watch. But fire Shula now and replace him with anyone of less stature than a Steve Spurrier, and it’ll happen soon thereafter. The win-at-all-cost mindset will have prevailed. Auburn will then be the dominant football power in the state for the rest of the century, instead of the century’s first decade.

Saturday numbers one and two square off in Columbus. What’s at stake is a place in the national championship game. Or is it?

There’s more than a little chatter that if the game is a good one, then perhaps the loser deserves another shot at the winner in the title game. In theory, I don’t have a problem with that.

The only teams in the country, today, that might legitimately cry foul, are Florida and Rutgers. Unfortunately for Rutgers, they don’t play the kind of schedule that gives them much leverage. Florida does. Should the Gators manage to run the remainder of the table, they may have a gripe when, not if, they are passed by. I put the Gators chances of beating both FSU and Arkansas at less than 3 in 10.

USC will probably wind up playing for the title. They have only lost once. They haven’t played anybody, however, save for Arkansas, and Arkansas, at that point in the season, wasn’t in the top 50 percent nationally. They’ll play because they are a media darling that doesn’t have to earn it based on what they do on the field. That said, USC has as much talent as anybody. Up to this point, however, they haven’t been a very good team.

Should Michigan and Ohio State be decided by a touchdown or less, and neither team turns the ball over more than twice, then I say let them play again for all the marbles. They both have outstanding football teams.