Another Bammer Arrested

[WinCrimson 61]

Surely you're joking. Surely.

I had the same opinions on JPW's 2005 DUI or Jacob Vane's 2007 arrest. A stupid mistake is a stupid mistake, whether it's made by a black or white player.

There's absolutely no room for the race card here and I think other posters will agree.

[WAR-MATT 2]

Josh Moon sums it up........

COMMENTARY: Saban must accept share of blame for UA's troubles

By Josh Moon

It's been quite a week for the Alabama football program. Two arrests. Two recruits in court. Tons of excuses. Few answers.

Nice job there, Nick Saban and Co.

Hey, here's a recruiting tip for you fellas: I hear this O.J. guy out on the West Coast has a nice 40 time.

All along we believed UA officials paid Saban $4 million because they thought he was the best coach in the land. Turns out, they were just planning ahead and figuring he'd need the extra cash for bail and attorneys' fees.

What a sad seven days for the UA faithful. Allow me, if you will, to recap this week's episode of The Crimson Tide Goes To Court.

The show started last weekend with the arrest of Jeremy Elder on two felony charges after he allegedly robbed two UA students at gunpoint.

What did the world's largest Jesse James impersonator get for his hard work? A whopping $26. That's right, four value meals and a pack of gum. For that, he traded roughly 10-20 years of his life. (Obviously, Mr. Elder was not an economics major.)

Later in the week, two UA recruits proved just how versatile this program is when it comes to the court system. These guys aren't one- or two-trick ponies sticking to disorderly conduct or robbery. No sir. They can do it all.

Take star wideout Julio Jones, for example. He was called to testify in a murder trial. During his testimony, he admitted to hanging around with a known drug dealer and running across the street just prior to that dealer being shot and killed.

And Jones wasn't the only soon-to-be-Tide player to have his name appear on a docket. According to court reports, recruit Burton Scott was also in court last week after a 44-year-old woman sued Scott in an attempt to establish child support payments.

I actually feel sort of bad for Scott. Ordinarily, this sort of thing wouldn't be mentioned anywhere. But because it happened this week, on the heels of so many other problems at Alabama, his personal issues have become statewide news.

But Scott's troubles didn't remain news for long. Instead, Tide team captain Rashad Johnson sent the week out with a bang by landing himself in handcuffs, which is exactly the way you want your team captains. He was charged with an old favorite around the Capstone -- disorderly conduct outside a club on the strip.

After the week that was, if you're scoring at home, that's eight arrests in Saban's year on the job. Eight.

And fans and supporters are in full-on spin mode, blaming everyone but Saban.

From what I can tell from listening to fans, these arrests can be blamed equally on the kids, the kids' parents, Mike Shula and the Tuscaloosa police department. But not on Saban.

As I've said before, I have a problem assessing the blame in these situations. I mean, how do you make someone do anything? How do you force a college kid not to drink and party and act like a fool? How do you get inside the head of a player who's warped enough to allegedly hold up two other students in a dorm parking lot? How do you monitor 85 players 24 hours a day?

But at the same time, one statement from fans kept ringing in my ears all week "Auburn is recruiting the same kids we are."

And you know what, that's true. Now, the UA faithful were using it in defense of their coaches, attempting to prove that AU coaches would have happily taken the same athletes. And they're right. The Auburn team is largely made up of players who had a choice between going to AU or UA, just as the UA players had the same choice.

What that means, though, is that either the Tigers coaches have been extremely lucky in signing only the trouble-free players, or there's a better system at AU for keeping these kids out of trouble. I believe it's the latter. It has to be. Auburn isn't that lucky (see: 2004).

And with that being the case, there is some blame for Saban. There is something more he and his staff could do to prevent some of this nonsense from happening.

It's time for him to get it done. He gives good lip service to accountability and respect during his press conferences and speeches -- you know, when he's demanding it from others.

It's time he started practicing what he's preaching. Whether he likes it or not, these kids are his responsibility and the image of the Alabama football program is his to elevate or destroy.

Whether they'll admit it or not, Alabama fans are embarrassed by the arrests and pitiful conduct of their players. They're tired of the jokes and jabs from rivals.

They may never come right out and say it, but they want Saban to handle this nonsense. They want him to bring the hammer down and put a stop to it. They see him deal with the media in his brash, authoritative manner. They want the same guy to handle their troubled program.

If he doesn't do something soon, they might just start believing he's part of the trouble.

Josh Moon a sports writer for the Advertiser, can be reached at jmoon@gannett.com. You can also read his blog at moonjosh.blogspot.com.

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[Whistler 0]

Surely you're joking. Surely.

I had the same opinions on JPW's 2005 DUI or Jacob Vane's 2007 arrest. A stupid mistake is a stupid mistake, whether it's made by a black or white player.

There's absolutely no room for the race card here and I think other posters will agree.

You were speaking of Bammers shortcomings and I was just making light of our past discussion of racial tension at ua.

[AUChizad 0]

The true hilarity lies in discussions with bammers a year ago.

According to them the MAIN reason Shula was fired and Saban was hired was because Shula let the players do whatever they wanted, and Saban was the gold standard of hard discipline. He was gonna put the fear of God in these kids.

Man, how I wish I had a crystal ball back then to end those arguments dead in their tracks.

Also, bammers who were around last year (BG, WinCrimson, rws) remember all those drawn out arguments in which I tried to explain to you that any of Saban's snafus if isolated wouldn't be that big of a deal, yet once it became evident that this was a consistent pattern things would begin to crumble for you?

So to briefly summarize (recapping point by point would take 10 pages), you paid $4 million for a guy to go 7-6 including a historically embarrassing loss to ULM. If there were any other reason for Shula getting fired it was for losing to MSU and keeping our streak against you alive. Whoops, Saban replicated that too. It's one thing to let MSU sneak up on you, but "fool me twice, shame on me".

So did you hire him to polish the reputation of your tarnished program? He's doing a great job at that by dog cussing reporters like they're second class citizens, aaight. Coonass. Pearl Harbor. 9/11. Various top spot awards for "Turkey of The Year", "Biggest Loser Of The Year" by virtually every national media outlet in the country.

So back to that #1 justification for paying a head coach an unprecedented $4 million where only he has no buyout clause; Discipline.

Armed robbery, fighting police, headbutting through the back of a cop car. Eight Arrests in thirteen months on the job. That's got to be some kind of a record. And then some of you guys have the gall to demand Fulmer lose his job. I'm pretty sure even he can't touch an overall percentage like that. And Saban's barely had the equivalent of one full off-season. And don't forget we're not including the Textbook Five or the two recruits in court as we speak, one of which admitted to regularly hanging out with a drug dealer and running across the street just in time to witness his execution.

"Well what can Saban do to control these guys?" "Boys will be boys."

Give me a break. Why aren't Auburn guys getting in trouble like this? Because Tuberville actually does put the fear of God in these kids. Again, I'm amazed by bammers who can still bring up the Tray Blackmon incident from two years ago as not being punished enough by missing 6 games, half of a full season, for underage possession of alcohol. Pretty damn tame in comparison to these charges. Yet we get almighty Saban's idea of strong discipline. We'll wait a few weeks until we play a patsy cupcake like Louisiana Monroe. You can sit out that game. Of course we all know, come halftime, when you're actually losing to LA Mon-freakin-Roe, it's "Did I say this whole game? I meant the first half. It is what it is, aaight?" That's his most severe punishment to date, excluding Elder, who can't play too many games from the slammer anyway. How about this novel idea. Five arrests on the strip in a year ought to tell anyone with half a brain cell to keep them the hell away from that particular area. Make them wish they never stepped foot near there. You telling me I thought of that and the guy you're paying $4 million can't come up with something at least half as effective?

So what the hell are you paying this guy for? Oh, of course, the 'Cruitin' Nashnul Champeenship. Possibly the least tangible achievement just above Mascot of the Year.

You guys sure can pick that gold speck out of a turd and display it proudly on the mantle.

[auwallace 6]

i'd like to ask the resident bammers what happened to the "cleansing" that was to occur following the bowl game? So many on here were sure that Saban was going to clear out the bad seeds, well?

[Tigermike 3,046]

i'd like to ask the resident bammers what happened to the "cleansing" that was to occur following the bowl game? So many on here were sure that Saban was going to clear out the bad seeds, well?

St. Nick has had the local police and bouncers at the clubs on the strip arrest most all of those guys. But then when you listen to sports radio in B'ham most of the Bama fans are blaming the police and bouncers for "picking on the athletes" for singling out the athletes so the police officer or the bouncer can get a rep. Or they just have an agenda against Bama.

But so far that has not be the MO of our resident bammers, for which I have to say good for them.

[AUesquire 1]

Bring back the dorms and institute a curfew and bed checks. Thanks NCAA. Not deflecting blame in Bammer's situation. It is what it is. But cutting out dorms and basically more the control of these kids was a mistake by the NCAA.

[The Prowler 1]

Bring back the dorms and institute a curfew and bed checks. Thanks NCAA. Not deflecting blame in Bammer's situation. It is what it is. But cutting out dorms and basically more the control of these kids was a mistake by the NCAA.

I didn't know that Rashad Johnson was a leader of the bammer peer group...Now That's funny. I guess he learned everything he knew from S. Castille. Wow, those bammers are walling around in their own excrement.