The Alabama Hypocrisy

[ScotsAU 1,343]

For weeks, Bama fans have been all over social media saying this game is a bigger deal to us because we have nothing to be excited about. We’ve been criticized for rushing the field during iron bowl wins, and laughed at for calling wins in this game a big deal. Bama finally wins on a last minute play, and their narrative has flipped completely. Instead of “we don’t really care about the iron bowl,” they are trying to put this game up as their kick six. The extra irony of this is that the kick six was a winner take all iron bowl where one player made an elite play to win the game. This year’s game was a joke where neither team played well, and we happened to straight up crap the bed. There’s no similarity. And if Bama fans really don’t think winning the iron bowl is worth celebrating, they’re certainly now creating a reason to celebrate this one. They were slightly less crappy than a team with substantial talent deficits.

Edited November 27, 2023 by ScotsAU

[gman87 398]

$puat fans have been at a point for a while where they don't enjoy winning as much as they hate losing. Let them have their cornbread. Personally I'm a little embarrassed for them that it was so close.

[PUB78 1,362]

90% of bammer fans never attended UA a day in their lifes.  50% of them never attended college, much less  a community college, so they are mostly just  redneck, blue collar  and  uneducated  folks who get their thrills out of following UA football like a religion. That is why I hate them so much. On the other hand, 75% of their alumni are pretty good folks when it comes to sports.

Unfortunately, this game is their Kick-Six. One in a thousand chance to  make a score, but they did. I wonder what the odds were on the Kick-Six being successful for a TD?

Edited November 30, 2023 by PUB78
typos

[JuscAUse! 1,443]

Exactly. We can't have it both ways. Uat fans were sick of the kick 6, and I'm sick and tired of fourth and forever already. 

Comes with the territory, though. 

If the turds beat uga this weekend, it will be MUCH worse than right now. If Kirby beats Saban, it will not mean as much to most bammers.

I'm still rooting for the meteor for that game.

[WillMunny 1,383]

Nick Saban is 497 dog years old, and will soon retire.  Then Bama fans will know/remember what it was like before Saban came to save them from 15 years of mediocrity and losing to the likes of Moo State and worse.

They are headed for cliff with a very steep drop, they just don't know it yet.  Heck, they are already in decline.  They have a couple "last hurrah years" remaining, but then...hahahahaha.

Edited November 27, 2023 by WillMunny

[PUB78 1,362]

12 minutes ago, WillMunny said:

Nick Saban is 497 dog years old, and will soon retire.  Then Bama fans will know/remember what it was like before Saban came to save them from 15 years of mediocrity and losing to the likes of Moo State and worse.

They are headed for cliff with a very steep drop, they just don't know it yet.  Heck, they are already in decline.  They have a couple "last hurrah years" remaining, but then...hahahahaha.

I can't wait for this to happen. There is a lot of payback coming to the Bammer nation.

[gabo4au 228]

Yea, unfortunately in the days of NIL, bammer is like a few other schools (including AU) in that they aren't the top  of the heap when it comes to wealth. Yea, both of us can put together some pretty good money because we have a lot of fans that care about football. When bammer loses Saban and can't outright pay players as much as some other places, it's going to be difficult.

Compared to the wealth of Texas, USC, A&M, Notre Dame, MI, OH ST, and a few others we're way behind. I've heard that we're all giddy that we have something close to 30mil in NIL money, way ahead of the projected amount. But schools like Oregon... Phil Knight will write a single check for that amount! He's spent far more there on facilities and other things and Nike basically gets advertising off his contributions.

If you go look up the number of "billionaire alumni" from schools. You'll see that most of the top 10 are ivy league schools, the only traditional football powers in the top 10 are USC, Texas, and Notre Dame. A single billionaire could donate 10+ million every year and not even miss it. I don't think AL or AU is anywhere in the top 100 for billionaires.

As time moves on it's going to become more and more about getting paid for the players. It's a travesty, there are even a few schools that have traditionally not been that great that could become power houses. Northwestern, Rutgers, Rice, Stanford, or any Ivy league school that decides they want to do that.

The next 10 years will be interesting to see how it shakes out. I think we need to be aligning with a Pro team! Do a partnership with a pro team where the pro team selects our coaches, defines our schemes, and pays us money to get players. Basically become a "minor league" team for a pro team. Or corporate sponsors, or some tie in to big business. Things like that could keep enough money flowing to offset not having outright "sugar daddy" donors. I believe tomorrows top teams will be the ones who do this the best and can raise enough money. It's now another league of pro ball, we haven't yet seen enough cycles to really show the impact. Although we already see TX, USC, and a few others rising higher than they have in many years with just a couple of recruiting classes. Problem is, once someone does the corporate affiliation thing, the wealthier schools will join in and just have more money. I don't know, but to me it doesn't look great for either AU or AL. Although not as bad as it does for most "group of 5" schools. It's going to become harder for those schools to pick a couple of really good players and keep them if they can't pay them. They find a gem, they lose them in the portal to someone with money.

We might also see colleges doing what some pro teams have done. Spend a bunch for a bit to see if they can win a championship and if they do, sell it all off. That will actually would be easier in college because you don't have to sell it off, just stop paying for the next batch. It's all short term contracts. 

Crazy times..

Edited November 27, 2023 by gabo4au

[auburnatl1 5,006]

6 hours ago, WillMunny said:

Nick Saban is 497 dog years old, and will soon retire.  Then Bama fans will know/remember what it was like before Saban came to save them from 15 years of mediocrity and losing to the likes of Moo State and worse.

They are headed for cliff with a very steep drop, they just don't know it yet.  Heck, they are already in decline.  They have a couple "last hurrah years" remaining, but then...hahahahaha.

I think any coaching change is a risk but Bama has many brand and momentum advantages. However, imo what impacted them, us, Clemson, ect more than anything was the Kirby-driven recruiting dominance  of UGA.  It destabilized the shared recruiting area. And that’s not going away.

[JerryAU 1,681]

Bottom line, Auburn has been on a self-imposed roller coaster for nearly 20 years.  And wallowed all over mediocrity to the point that we yearn for the days when our team could stand toe to toe and consistently compete in this league.  I've seen many of our fans claim Auburn has forgotten how to win, and that's depressing as hell.  

[CoffeeTiger 5,159]

5 hours ago, gabo4au said:

As time moves on it's going to become more and more about getting paid for the players. It's a travesty, there are even a few schools that have traditionally not been that great that could become power houses. Northwestern, Rutgers, Rice, Stanford, or any Ivy league school that decides they want to do that.

 

I don't see this happening.  The thing is that the billionaires and donors from these types of schools don't give a lick about football or college athletics in general. If they are donating, it's to build new academic buildings, establish new research programs, towards scholarships or whatever. This is stuff that gets their names in the paper, gets buildings named after them, gets them invited to  really fancy luncheons etc. They don't care anything about paying large salaries to 5* college football players every year to come to the school to win a sports championship. Much of the time the leadership and student bodies of these schools don't even care about their football programs much, and wouldn't even WANT their top donors to be pouring a bunch of money into their athletics programs vs other things. Success to them is research dollars, big endowments, and top academic ratings. They don't need nor want athletic dominance. 

 

If you want to see if a program can be built up just from having a lot of money poured into it then watch SMU. Their donors basically "purchased" their new spot into the ACC by agreeing not to take much of a share from the ACC for almost a decade and having donors simply fund the athletics department in the meantime. SMU has a ton of money behind it and has some very motivated rich alumni who want to win in football (they are even somewhat historically famous for it). According to 247, SMU currently has the 77th ranked recruiting class today....and it's "legal" to buy players. 

 

 

[Hank2020 3,215]

3 minutes ago, JerryAU said:

Bottom line, Auburn has been on a self-imposed roller coaster for nearly 20 years.  And wallowed all over mediocrity to the point that we yearn for the days when our team could stand toe to toe and consistently compete in this league.  I've seen many of our fans claim Auburn has forgotten how to win, and that's depressing as hell.  

Last 20 year results may have been disappointing, but the idea a different team each year has forgotten how to win is a ludicrous assumption IMO. We just need a coach that brings a good competitive system on both sides of the ball, and compete in the recruiting realm ( the mIn part we haven’t accomplished), IMO.

[gabo4au 228]

2 hours ago, CoffeeTiger said:

I don't see this happening.  The thing is that the billionaires and donors from these types of schools don't give a lick about football or college athletics in general. If they are donating, it's to build new academic buildings, establish new research programs, towards scholarships or whatever. This is stuff that gets their names in the paper, gets buildings named after them, gets them invited to  really fancy luncheons etc. They don't care anything about paying large salaries to 5* college football players every year to come to the school to win a sports championship. Much of the time the leadership and student bodies of these schools don't even care about their football programs much, and wouldn't even WANT their top donors to be pouring a bunch of money into their athletics programs vs other things. Success to them is research dollars, big endowments, and top academic ratings. They don't need nor want athletic dominance. 

 

If you want to see if a program can be built up just from having a lot of money poured into it then watch SMU. Their donors basically "purchased" their new spot into the ACC by agreeing not to take much of a share from the ACC for almost a decade and having donors simply fund the athletics department in the meantime. SMU has a ton of money behind it and has some very motivated rich alumni who want to win in football (they are even somewhat historically famous for it). According to 247, SMU currently has the 77th ranked recruiting class today....and it's "legal" to buy players. 

I'm sure you're right about those Universities. However, it only takes one billionaire sports fan and if you've got more billionaire's there's a chance you find your Phil Knight. Like SMU.. USC, Texas, Miami, MI, OR, and a few others do have a lot of rich alumni who will pour their money in. It's going to be a challenge to compete with them. Another thought is that schools with larger enrollments, hence a larger alumni pool, can get more donations. Schools like A&M, Texas, FL, OH St, Rutgers have more than twice as many students as AU. Which means they have more than twice as many alums. If each of them gives $1, they have twice as much money as we do.

But on the bright side, there are enough good athletes coming out of high school to support quite a few good teams. Can we maintain top 20 NIL $'s or top 30? Time will tell. We've always been near the top of what I would call the 2nd tier in Football. We're not quite in the top tier, but we're close. If our NIL administration is creative and works at it, we should be able to stay there.

[Bro Johnny Mac 1,399]

Bammers gonna Bam...

[AuburnEagle79 2,169]

Alabama has this issue where a large percentage of their fans are not what I’d call a critical thinker. Maybe not even a thinker. 

[aubiefifty 16,873]

i popped off some remarks at some bammers a few years back and one cat in particular said he was gonna get me. he was so nasty i got worried. a couple of days later i had a loud knocking on my front door. i answered the door holding my handgun and scared the hell out of the postman........grins. for the record i did NOT point it at him. the turd fan never showed up.

Edited November 28, 2023 by aubiefifty

[aubiefifty 16,873]

39 minutes ago, aubiefifty said:

i popped off some remarks at some bammers a few years back and one cat in particular said he was gonna get me. he was so nasty i got worried. a couple of days later i had a loud knocking on my front door. i answered the door holding my handgun and scared the hell out of the postman........grins. for the record i did NOT point it at him. the turd fan never showed up.

i made that up for the record.

[AU9377 5,024]

On 11/27/2023 at 11:21 AM, gabo4au said:

Yea, unfortunately in the days of NIL, bammer is like a few other schools (including AU) in that they aren't the top  of the heap when it comes to wealth. Yea, both of us can put together some pretty good money because we have a lot of fans that care about football. When bammer loses Saban and can't outright pay players as much as some other places, it's going to be difficult.

Compared to the wealth of Texas, USC, A&M, Notre Dame, MI, OH ST, and a few others we're way behind. I've heard that we're all giddy that we have something close to 30mil in NIL money, way ahead of the projected amount. But schools like Oregon... Phil Knight will write a single check for that amount! He's spent far more there on facilities and other things and Nike basically gets advertising off his contributions.

If you go look up the number of "billionaire alumni" from schools. You'll see that most of the top 10 are ivy league schools, the only traditional football powers in the top 10 are USC, Texas, and Notre Dame. A single billionaire could donate 10+ million every year and not even miss it. I don't think AL or AU is anywhere in the top 100 for billionaires.

As time moves on it's going to become more and more about getting paid for the players. It's a travesty, there are even a few schools that have traditionally not been that great that could become power houses. Northwestern, Rutgers, Rice, Stanford, or any Ivy league school that decides they want to do that.

The next 10 years will be interesting to see how it shakes out. I think we need to be aligning with a Pro team! Do a partnership with a pro team where the pro team selects our coaches, defines our schemes, and pays us money to get players. Basically become a "minor league" team for a pro team. Or corporate sponsors, or some tie in to big business. Things like that could keep enough money flowing to offset not having outright "sugar daddy" donors. I believe tomorrows top teams will be the ones who do this the best and can raise enough money. It's now another league of pro ball, we haven't yet seen enough cycles to really show the impact. Although we already see TX, USC, and a few others rising higher than they have in many years with just a couple of recruiting classes. Problem is, once someone does the corporate affiliation thing, the wealthier schools will join in and just have more money. I don't know, but to me it doesn't look great for either AU or AL. Although not as bad as it does for most "group of 5" schools. It's going to become harder for those schools to pick a couple of really good players and keep them if they can't pay them. They find a gem, they lose them in the portal to someone with money.

We might also see colleges doing what some pro teams have done. Spend a bunch for a bit to see if they can win a championship and if they do, sell it all off. That will actually would be easier in college because you don't have to sell it off, just stop paying for the next batch. It's all short term contracts. 

Crazy times..

This is true.

[tigeraddikt 1,616]

On 11/27/2023 at 4:59 PM, CoffeeTiger said:

I don't see this happening.  The thing is that the billionaires and donors from these types of schools don't give a lick about football or college athletics in general. If they are donating, it's to build new academic buildings, establish new research programs, towards scholarships or whatever. This is stuff that gets their names in the paper, gets buildings named after them, gets them invited to  really fancy luncheons etc. They don't care anything about paying large salaries to 5* college football players every year to come to the school to win a sports championship. Much of the time the leadership and student bodies of these schools don't even care about their football programs much, and wouldn't even WANT their top donors to be pouring a bunch of money into their athletics programs vs other things. Success to them is research dollars, big endowments, and top academic ratings. They don't need nor want athletic dominance. 

 

If you want to see if a program can be built up just from having a lot of money poured into it then watch SMU. Their donors basically "purchased" their new spot into the ACC by agreeing not to take much of a share from the ACC for almost a decade and having donors simply fund the athletics department in the meantime. SMU has a ton of money behind it and has some very motivated rich alumni who want to win in football (they are even somewhat historically famous for it). According to 247, SMU currently has the 77th ranked recruiting class today....and it's "legal" to buy players. 

 

 

I think Phil Knight is an exception to your “billionaires don’t care to pay 5* football players” belief. It boosts his brand image and increases exposure and profitability to be in the NIL market. But that’s all primarily due to the type of business he runs.

[bishoptf 686]

On 11/27/2023 at 10:21 AM, gabo4au said:

Yea, unfortunately in the days of NIL, bammer is like a few other schools (including AU) in that they aren't the top  of the heap when it comes to wealth. Yea, both of us can put together some pretty good money because we have a lot of fans that care about football. When bammer loses Saban and can't outright pay players as much as some other places, it's going to be difficult.

Compared to the wealth of Texas, USC, A&M, Notre Dame, MI, OH ST, and a few others we're way behind. I've heard that we're all giddy that we have something close to 30mil in NIL money, way ahead of the projected amount. But schools like Oregon... Phil Knight will write a single check for that amount! He's spent far more there on facilities and other things and Nike basically gets advertising off his contributions.

If you go look up the number of "billionaire alumni" from schools. You'll see that most of the top 10 are ivy league schools, the only traditional football powers in the top 10 are USC, Texas, and Notre Dame. A single billionaire could donate 10+ million every year and not even miss it. I don't think AL or AU is anywhere in the top 100 for billionaires.

As time moves on it's going to become more and more about getting paid for the players. It's a travesty, there are even a few schools that have traditionally not been that great that could become power houses. Northwestern, Rutgers, Rice, Stanford, or any Ivy league school that decides they want to do that.

The next 10 years will be interesting to see how it shakes out. I think we need to be aligning with a Pro team! Do a partnership with a pro team where the pro team selects our coaches, defines our schemes, and pays us money to get players. Basically become a "minor league" team for a pro team. Or corporate sponsors, or some tie in to big business. Things like that could keep enough money flowing to offset not having outright "sugar daddy" donors. I believe tomorrows top teams will be the ones who do this the best and can raise enough money. It's now another league of pro ball, we haven't yet seen enough cycles to really show the impact. Although we already see TX, USC, and a few others rising higher than they have in many years with just a couple of recruiting classes. Problem is, once someone does the corporate affiliation thing, the wealthier schools will join in and just have more money. I don't know, but to me it doesn't look great for either AU or AL. Although not as bad as it does for most "group of 5" schools. It's going to become harder for those schools to pick a couple of really good players and keep them if they can't pay them. They find a gem, they lose them in the portal to someone with money.

We might also see colleges doing what some pro teams have done. Spend a bunch for a bit to see if they can win a championship and if they do, sell it all off. That will actually would be easier in college because you don't have to sell it off, just stop paying for the next batch. It's all short term contracts. 

Crazy times..

Eh I disagree with most of what you are saying, there are only so many players you can have on a team, and it still takes a coach that can coach the players. I mean there are plenty examples out there, dumbo fisher had top 5* recruits and didnt win much, so while there are programs with more money that doesnt always translate to more wins, it helps but its about getting the right players for your type of football, being able to identify talent etc...so I know lots of folks think its the end of a era but truth be told IMHO it just levels the playing fields, the likes of bama and others have been paying player for years so it just levels that out...Having a lot of money doesnt mean your going to be on top, good coaches that can coach and evaluate talent will be able to compete

I'm for paying the kids, its their life and body they are running out there, and why should the universities and media companies make $$$$ and not the players, so yeah I agree its going to hurt smaller schools but really they never had much chance as it was today. It think it will be fine but the way the treat players will be different than in the past since the players have more leverage these days but again good for them.

[bishoptf 686]

On 11/28/2023 at 8:41 AM, aubiefifty said:

i made that up for the record.

Remind me to not go knocking on @aubiefiftydoor...lmao

[aubaseball 2,648]

On 11/27/2023 at 4:55 PM, JerryAU said:

Bottom line, Auburn has been on a self-imposed roller coaster for nearly 20 years.  And wallowed all over mediocrity to the point that we yearn for the days when our team could stand toe to toe and consistently compete in this league.  I've seen many of our fans claim Auburn has forgotten how to win, and that's depressing as hell.  

I’m afraid that you didn’t extend that period long enough.   Throughout the history of Auburn football, it has been a roller coaster ride.   I believe the only back to back 10 win seasons were 87 & 88.    Auburn has always seemed to self destruct after a short term run of excellence.    Just once in my lifetime, I would love to see a 10 year run of being in the top ten every year 

[gabo4au 228]

1 hour ago, bishoptf said:

Eh I disagree with most of what you are saying, there are only so many players you can have on a team, and it still takes a coach that can coach the players. I mean there are plenty examples out there, dumbo fisher had top 5* recruits and didnt win much, so while there are programs with more money that doesnt always translate to more wins, it helps but its about getting the right players for your type of football, being able to identify talent etc...so I know lots of folks think its the end of a era but truth be told IMHO it just levels the playing fields, the likes of bama and others have been paying player for years so it just levels that out...Having a lot of money doesnt mean your going to be on top, good coaches that can coach and evaluate talent will be able to compete

I'm for paying the kids, its their life and body they are running out there, and why should the universities and media companies make $$$$ and not the players, so yeah I agree its going to hurt smaller schools but really they never had much chance as it was today. It think it will be fine but the way the treat players will be different than in the past since the players have more leverage these days but again good for them.

 

I hope you're right. Personally I only see a couple of examples of schools with 5* recruits that haven't won, YET. And I don't see any schools without 5* recruits that are winning. Is there one national champion in the past 20 years that didn't have 5* recruits, AU in 2010 might be as close as you get and they had consistent top 10 to top 15 classes back then. And Cam was a JC transfer which wasn't included in the team rankings.

 

The top recruiting schools are always the ones in the playoffs, been that way for as long as I've watched college FB.  Go to 247 sports and look back as far as their history can go. Every team that's been in the playoffs has been a top 10 recruiting school, and not just for one year but for many years. I'm all for kids getting some money, but I'm not for them getting as much as the pros. And I'm certainly not for a free for all without any caps. Even pro football has a salary cap.

[JDUBB4AU 5,121]

I know 3 good bama fans. The rest , well I won’t say. 

[keesler 5,928]

4 hours ago, gabo4au said:

. I'm all for kids getting some money, but I'm not for them getting as much as the pros. And I'm certainly not for a free for all without any caps. Even pro football has a salary cap.

Sure the NFL has salary caps, but the NFL doesn’t have any authority to cap or regulate what an NFL player can make on his NIL.  Professional athletes can make as much money as someone will pay them for endorsement deals.  They can do all the State Farm, Wendy’s, Hanes commercials and marketing they want with no restrictions or regulations from the NFL. 

[Hank2020 3,215]

3 minutes ago, keesler said:

Sure the NFL has salary caps, but the NFL doesn’t have any authority to cap or regulate what an NFL player can make on his NIL.  Professional athletes can make as much money as someone will pay them for endorsement deals.  They can do all the State Farm, Wendy’s, Hanes commercials and marketing they want with no restrictions or regulations from the NFL. 

College NIL is mostly not really NiL though.