I saw that article, and the presence of the picture of the football player and discussion of events committed by football players is almost extraneous and just a sorry attempt to get key clicks.

The investigation is about sexual assault in general, not by the athletes, and the article points out that over 100 universities have received similar complaints. 

There were concerns about sexual assault at UT when I was there in the late 80s, and unfortunately there probably always will be those concerns at public and even private universities.  Whenever a bunch of 18 to 22 year olds are away from home and have access to alcohol, look out. 

Back to the point TnPhil, I know that you meant we could have multiple events.  But ... again not to be insensitive...it's five people. How many lone wolves do you think are actually out there?  What if they get 5 people a week?  That's about 2500 a year.  Will that bleed us dry?  

They won't ever come anywhere near that.  I was just in France for two weeks and the day left, literally about 5 hours after my flight took off, a lone nut killed someone at an American company not far from where i was.  There are 60 million people in France.  My odds of dying were about 1 in 60 million!  During my entire stay there, I never even came close to worrying about terrorism.

So my point is this..the panicky 45 year old housewife reaction that I might get killed anytime I go to the grocery store is exactly what they want, and I refuse to kow tow to it.  Maybe they can get through and kill a few dozen Americans in our own country a year, but it won't phase me.  There are about 330 million folks in this country.  I am far more likely to get hit by a bus or even die young of a heart attack (and I have a very healthy heart).

And folks, this is far from an isolated event.  I went to the OU game last year and my OU fan buddy told me there had been a bombing attempt at an OU game that got little publicity.

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2005/10/bomb-blast-at-university-of-oklahoma/


And my friend and his two OU buddies were talking about how they were worried about terrorism in Ok and Texas (my friend actually lives in Dallas while the other two attendees are from OK City) and i kind of scoffed.  Well guess what?
This happened within a couple weeks of my visit:

http://nypost.com/2014/09/26/woman-beheaded-by-co-worker-in-oklahoma/

That particular coward killed one defenseless woman and injured another and .... relevant to some of the above, he was killed by a rifle the boss kept in his office.  

Honestly I don't GAS.  I mean, definitely I feel for the families and victims.  What a ridiculous and horrible way to die.  But if little stupid shizzle attacks like this can "bring us to our knees" then our country is a sad shell of what it used to be.

I know some that believe that, but I don't.  

Seriously...we whipped the Nazis and commies. These guys are pikers!  

Well I do like seeing this, because there are some who think Saban is "honorable".   

I even heard a bammer fan say Saban left Miami "with class" in comparison to how Petrino left Atlanta.

This just drives home that he has flat out lied to players and an organization more than once, and that he will do anything to win.  He learned from the master at this, Bellichick.   

One day soon we will defeat him while he is wearing crimson (we won a game against him while he was at LSU, though unfortunately not the one that counted.  )

[a fan base that would build a pyramid by hand if he demanded it.]

Love this line

e's got every advantage imaginable – location, facilities, staff, administrative support, a fan base that would build a pyramid by hand if he demanded it.

It's very true!   

I swear...I was in Birmingham Wednesday and I stopped at a convenience store to get a coke.  A man in his late 50s or early 60s, very distinguished looking and driving a nice SUV, spent a couple extra minutes jawing with the clerk about whatever smartass remark Saban may have made to the media that day.  I was annoyed cause I wanted to pay for my coke, dammit.   

But even as he was leaving he turned around at the door and said he couldn't wait to hear Saban's comments on the evening news.  He sounded like a 5 year old kid at Christmas.

For chrisakes he was about 60!  He likely has grandchildren.  WTF is wrong with these people!   

Sad...sad...sad. Prayers to the families.

I've said it many times.......when they start hitting small town USA it can and will bring America to its knees. It's starting and it will continue. Book it.

Hm, well my take may be different than many.  This is in no way to understate the tragedy to those who lost their lives and their families, and I think this is a horrible thing.

But I hardly think it will bring us to our knees.  It will likely scare some middle aged and elderly women and a couple weak-kneed male friends of mine, but come on.  Four people.

Our country survived a civil war in which 620,000 died on both sides, but that ended slavery.  We defeated the Nazis and Imperial Japanese at a cost of 278,000 dead.  We helped defeat the Germans in WW1 at a cost of about 117,000 dead.  We outlasted the nuclear-armed Soviet Union.

Is this all they got?   fizzle em anyway.   

So I am going to respectfully suggest that this will be far from bringing us to our knees.  If this sort of thing increases, it will only unite us like we were briefly after 911. 

Well, I don't consider requiring a player, even with the problems Aaron Douglas had, to go to a school "no closer than 7 hours away" a very good reason, but that's what the powers that be at UT signed off on. 

Like I said, that glass houses saying comes in to play here. 

If that was to deliberately exclude any other SEC team, then it made perfect sense.

It if was to deliberately exclude bammer, then I actually give Hammy an "attaboy" on that.  Which is the only attaboy he'll ever get from me.     Well, that and the one for resigning.   

Punks 

We are a year away.  If we flame out next season, there will be tremendous pressure on Butch.  We should be one of the favorites, if not the favorite to win the East and our expectations should be in the 10-2/11-1 range and be met.  If we don't win the East next year, it should be by a close loss to the really good team that does win it.  Nothing else is acceptable.

This year I am happy just to be in the mix.  Those were my expectations when Butch was hired, so IMO he is on track so far. 

It might be okay to expect big things in the third seasons for a normal transition such as if Butch had taken over in 2009 instead of Kiffin.  But given how beaten down we were, I think 4th season is about right. 

It is correct that the OL is by far the biggest concern.  We are solid to outstanding at every skill position on offense.  Dobbs was inconsistent, but I am pretty sure another year of practice under his belt where he is the prime will help.

OL simply can't be worse, I don't think that's even possible. FWIW, they looked better at the end of the season last year. Even an average line will be a big improvement this year.  Hopefully they gell by the end of the season and we flat out start whipping people at the LOS.

This will be an average to above average year, but if Dobbs comes on strong this year, the line improves, and the D plugs a few holes at DB and DL over the course of this season and with the incoming recruits, we have the chance to be a top tier team in 2016.   

One thing missing from the discussion of Cut is his recent performance at Duke.  That was not apparent in 2010 but IMO carries a lot of weight now.  Duke had not won more than 2 games in many years and now they actually compete for the title (even if it is the ACC).

I also cannot forget the tremendous difference between 2006-07 when compared with 05 and 08. 

Cut might not have had us at the top tier but we would have been competitive.  I think the problem was that he likely would have been about like Fulmer from 2002-2004 and that was just not good enough for many.  I found our performance during those years (as well as 2006-07) to be at the lower end of what I expect.  Barely acceptable, but still meeting the minimum requirement that we win 9-10 games and occasionally go to the SECC (which did take place in 2007 and 2004).  Would have liked to have won in 2007, but at least we were there.  Have not sniffed that since   

the Florida loss....we had a terrible offense at that time (OL and QB ring a bell?) and if not for Florida having an equally bad offense we wouldn't have been in the game. I think we'll have better info with which to gauge Butch as a coach after this year and not fully IMO until 2 more years (when we should be on a fairly equal talent level with most teams).   

This is also what I think.  We just had not arrived yet, and UF got a lucky break from the refs IIRC.   

In the parking lot, of course 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWiKmyzDJx8

I managed to read all the way through that. Quite a bit of revelations in there for me.  Such as, Dooley did not enjoy doing media and often avoided it.  Given his "winning the press conference" and quick quips, I would have thought the opposite.  Also I had forgotten that he went 38 days without commenting on the Kentucky loss (or speaking to the media at all!).  There were quite a few other nuggets in there as well.  More than I can comment on now.

I will say this on a "non-Dooley" note.  I knew Kippy Brown was unhappy and left, but I did not know that he had been considered as a one-year interim coach and I also didn't know he was interviewed AFTER Dooley was hired.  No wonder he left!  My God, Hamilton was an even bigger idjut than I thought, which hardly seems possible, but there it is.   

Something like this was my preferred route.  Ease Fulmer out, let an old hand like Cut take over and have a transition that is much less painful, if nothing else.

I am a bit more optimistic than you on what Cut could have accomplished.  You are describing his level of performance at Ole Miss, but when he took over there, they were at a much lower level than UT even when Fulmer left.  And as you point out, he would have kept Boyd which definitely would have helped.  I think he might have gotten to 11 wins once and maybe even won one SECC, but I agree that for the most part we would have been in the 8-9 win category.

What still amazes me is the expectations that some had for getting rid of Fulmer.  There were some, mostly younger and very vocal fans that apparently thought we could jettison Fulmer and just immediately start winning 11-12 games a year.  Saban is often cited in that argument, but Saban is a very unique situation and definitely not the norm.  And my views on his recruiting are well known as well.

The bottom line is that we definitely would have been better off.  I just wonder if he would have kept Chavis. 

Lake Secession on the 4th of July. Hmmmm. 

[UPDATE: Urban Meyer has allowed transfer kicker Jack Willoughby to go home.]

If you read the last line on that site

UPDATE: Urban Meyer has allowed transfer kicker Jack Willoughby to go home.

That was the person who parked there.  So it seems likely he kicked him off the team?  Holy shizzle...

No, no you don't.  Over the past five recruiting cycles, only one team has been in the top 5 every year.  I'll give you three guesses who that is, and the first two don't count.  Hooray for roster management.  

We probably only have about 20 schollys (at most) to give this year, so even if we get every target on our board, we're not likely to end up in the top 5.  The quantity isn't going to be like the past two years, but I'm sure we'll all be satisfied with the quality when all is said and done.

that just means we can be more selective.  Hopefully the average star rating is up and we address needs.

I know of another flag that offends me.  Just in the past few years, vandalism has been committed in the name of this flag.  Destruction of historic landmarks.  Assault.  Sexual battery.  Even murder.  And yet it's still flown over state-sanctioned events...

 

Well for the record I have always liked Chief, and hated to see him go to LSU.  I was just

surprised at how much he collapsed late in games at LSU.  It was far more than I thought.

I agree he would have been better than pretty much anyone since, though i am sure we all would have been disappointed with late game collapses with, as the link says, players playing 15 yards off the ball pre-snap. 

As for Jancek, all I will say is that I was pleasantly surprised by our D last year.  They were far from perfect, but much, much better than I expected them to be.  Given the talent we have coming back, I expect good things this year.  The DEs will be the strength of the team and the LBs should be solid in spite of the loss of AJ.  We all know DT is a bit soft and we really struggled at DB at times last year.  If we can have a couple more DBs step up and shore up the DTs, this could be a really good year defensively.

Florida has such a rebuilding effort on offense that this may well be the year we break the streak.  That, and I think our offense will be much better against them than last year.  Last year's offensive performance against UF was quite painful to watch.   

Back in the USA, eh?  I went through Heathrow on my way back from France.  Is that place the size of a small country or what? 

Nothing new here, but he apparently has not yet learned how to handle a lead late 

http://www.secrant.com/rant/sec-football/addressing-the-attacking-style-chavis-defense-claims---gulf-war-edition/57507647/

We have nearly beaten uga two years in a row when we had low talent.  Just think what we can do now. 

Seriously?  After everything that's happened, they are still running that smack?  Unreal.

I recently got the Samasung Galaxy Tab S 10.1".  It's a little pricier than some, but it's awesome.  At the time it came out, it was the thinnest on the market.  I think a couple now are thinner, but it's still really thin and light.  And it has the best display I've ever seen on a mobile device, bar none.

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Galaxy-10-5-Inch-Tablet-Titanium/dp/B00KHA5G6G

Cool.  I want one tomorrow.  I had an Acer Icona and it got swiped.