You see these rankings where they put our coach behind Kirby Smart and some of these other guys and I just laugh. Back in the 1992 season we went 13-0 and won it all with a defense that didn't need five-star transfers every year. Now we are patching together an offensive line ...
Just saw ESPN's top coaches rankng and I already know where our guy landed. Probably behind Kirby Smart again, maybe behind some flavor-of-the-month coach who won 9 games with somebody else's recruits. You know what I remember? When Bear Bryant was the standard and nobody even bothered making these lists because it was obvious who the best coach in the country was every single year from 1971 to 1982. Now we got reporters arguing over who they'd "want to lead their team" like it's a fantasy draft. NIL has turned coaching into a rental car business. You spend two years developing a kid and he leaves for an extra 50 grand somewhere else. The portal killed continuity and these rankings are a joke because nobody stays anywhere long enough to build what Coach Bryant built. We used to have a pipeline. Now we have a revolving door. I miss the days when a coach's legacy meant something more than how many five-stars he could buy in December.
Bill Connelly's conference previews drop and I scroll past all that SP+ nonsense. You know what matters? NIL destroyed the soul of this program. I remember when a kid committed to Alabama because of what the block A meant, not because some collective promised him a truck and a signing bonus. Now we are plugging holes in the offensive line with portal mercenaries who will leave for the next highest bidder next winter. Coach Bryant would have thrown his houndstooth hat across the room if he saw...
ESPN drops their top coaches ranking for 2026 and I already know where this is going. They will put Kirby Smart at number one and maybe squeeze our guy into the top five if we are lucky. You know what I remember? I remember when Bear Bryant was the coach and nobody even bothered ranking coaches because the record spoke for itself. The 1979 Sugar Bowl against Penn State when we shut them down 14-7 and Bear walked off that field with his sixth national title. That was coaching. That was building a program from the ground up with discipline and toughness and players who staayed four years and bled crimson.
These modern lists are all about who has the flashiest offense or the best NIL collective. They do not measure what matters. Can your coach win a game in the fourth quarter when the field is muddy and the crowd is screaming and your quarterback has to make a play? Can your coach develop a walk-on into an All-SEC performer like we used to do every single year? I remember watching Coach Stallings in 1992 when we shut down Miami in the Sugar Bowl and Derrick Lassic ran all over those Hurricanes. That team had no business winning a national title on paper but Coach Stallings had them believing. That is coaching.
I do not care where ESPN ranks our head coach. I care about what happens when we line up against LSU in Death Valley on a Saturday night in November. I care about the Iron Bowl. I care about whether this offensive line can open holes in the fourth quarter when we need to run the clock out. These rankings are just filler content for the offseason and I refuse to get worked up about them. Fall camp is here and we have work to do. Let the talking heads talk. We will settle it on the field like we always have.
Fall camp is here and all I hear is Bill Connelly's SEC preview with us behind Texas and Georgia again. You know what built this program? The Iron Bowl. I remember sitting in Legion Field in 1985 when Van Tiffin kicked that 52-yard field goal to beat Auburn 25-23. The whole stadium shook. That was real football. Not this nonsense where half the roster transfers out every winter.
These kids today will never understand what the Third Saturday in October used to mean when Tennessee actually mattered. I remember the 1990s when we traded blows with the Vols and every single game decided who went to the SEC Championship. Now Tennessee thinks they are back because they had one good season. Please. You want to be Alabama? Beat us for a decade straight like they did in the 50s under Coach Bryant. One game does not make a rivalry.
The Iron Bowl is the only thing left that still means something in this sport. Everything else got destroyed by conference realignment and the portal. Auburn is down this year and I still do not care. You show up, you strap it on, and you play for the state. That is what matters. Not Bill Connelly's projections. Not the 23 five-stars in the 2027 class. The Iron Bowl is the only game that still feels like coollege football used to feel.
You see Bill Connelly drop his SEC preview and he's got us behind Texas and Georgia again. Same song every year since 2020. I remember the 1992 season when we went 13-0 and nobody gave us credit until we shut down Miami in the Sugar Bowl for the national title. These computers and formulas do not know what this program is built on.
Fall camp is starting and I keep thinking about how Coach Stallings used to have us grinding two-a-days in the August heat with zero water breaks. No sports drinks, no ice baths, no recovery smoothies. You earned your spot through sweat and pain. Now we got 23 five-stars in the 2027 class and ESPN telling us how each one "fits" somewhere. Fits what? A roster that changes every year because of the portal? You cannot build chemistry when half the team shows up in January.
The portal killed everything we built. I do not care how many five-stars we sign. Give me a kid from Mississippi who grew up dreaming of playing in Bryant-Denny and will bleed crimson fo...
Twenty three five stars in the 2027 class and I am supposed to get excited about ESPN scouting how each one "fits" somewhere. You know what a five star used to mean back in the 80s? It meant you watched film on a kid from Mississippi or Georgia who ran a 4.4 and you hoped like crazy Coach Bryant or Coach Stallings could keep him away from Auburn and Tennessee. That was it. That was the whole recruiting battle. Now we got 23 of these kids and half of them are probably going to commit to Oregon or Texas or Colorado because of NIL packages and promises of early playing time before they even step foot on a college campus for fall camp.
I remember when we signed the 1990 class and we thought we had something special because we landed five Parade All Americans. Five. Now programs are stacking five stars like they are collecting baseball cards and half of them will be in the portal by their sophomore year aanyway. The whole system is broken. You cannot build a program the way Coach Bryant built this one with three star kids from Alabama who stayed four years and developed into All Americans. These kids today want a highlight reel and a bag of cash before they even enroll.
Fall camp is starting and I guarantee you half these five stars in the 2027 class have never run a full practice in August heat without air conditioning. Good luck with that.
Wait so ESPN is running that piece on 23 five-stars in the 2027 class and I scroll down to see us mentioned for a receiver named Monshun Sales and Yahoo is already saying we might be running a race we can't win. That about sums up where we are now doesn't it. We used to be the place every five-star wanted to come. You remember the 2009 recruiting class when we just went out and took whoever we wanted. Now we are fighting Oregon and Texas and whoever else has the biggest NIL bag for every single kid.
You want to know what bothers me more than anything. It isnt that we might miss on a recruit. It is that these kids are picking programs based on who cuts the biggest check instead of who develops them best. I have been watching this program since the late 70s and I have never seen anything like this. We used to build teams through the high school ranks. You recruited a kid as a sophomore and you watched him grow into a man. Now you just shop the portal every winter and hope the chemistry works out.
Fall camp is starting and I am supposed to get excited about a roster that has more transfers than homegrown players. The portal has completely destroyed what made college football special. You cannot build a program on rented talent. Coach Bryant would roll over in his grave if he saw what this sport has become.
You watch these spread offenses running RPOs out of the shotgun on every snap and I just shake my head. Nobody runs a true option anymore. I miss the old Wishbone days from the 70s when Coach Bryant had us running that triple option and you could see defenses completely lost. Three backs in the backfield, the fullback diving up the middle, the quarterback reading the end man on the line, and then pitching it to the halfback sweping outside. It was a thing of beauty. You could control the clock, wear down a defense, and impose your will in the fourth quarter. These kids today have no idea what they are missing. The option was football the way it was meant to be played.
I remember when walk ons had to earn every single rep in fall camp. No promises, no NIL deals, no guarantees. You showed up, you kept your mouth shut, you learned the system and you fought for a spot on special teams. We had a kid in the early 90s that walked on and ended up starting for two years at linebacker. That kind of story does not happen anymore because now every freshman shows up expecting a bag of money and a starting job. This fall camp we have some new faces on the offensive line...
Fall camp starting and I keep thinking about the old days at Bryant-Denny before they added all those luxury boxes. Remember when you could feel the stadium shake during the 1992 season and the Third Saturday in October actually meant something. Now the place is half corporate...
Just saw Bill Connelly's conference previews dropping and I had to laugh. He's got us behind Texas and Oklahoma in the SEC projections. Reminds me of 1992 when we joined the SEC and everybody thought Florida would run the league. We know how that turned out. These numbers guys never factor in what happens when the pads pop in August.
You see Bill Connelly's conference previews dropping and I just think about the 1992 seson when the SEC expanded to add Arkansas and South Carolina and we all thought that was a big deal. Now look at this mess. The SEC and Big Ten are basically two super leagues hoarding all the money and the traditions that made this sport special are just gone. I remember when we played Tennessee every year and it meant something because we were both in the same division and we both cared about the same history. Now we have Texas and Oklahoma in our conference and I still cannot look at them as SEC teams no matter what the schedule says. The whole thing feels like a corporate merger not a football league.
The portal is the biggest farce in college football history and I will die on that hill. You see Colorado bringing in 43 transfers and Oklahoma State grabbing 50 new faces and tell me that is still the same sport we grew up watching. I remember when Coach Bryant built the 1979 championship team with homegrown kids who bled crison from the day they stepped on campus. Now we have mercenaries jumping from school to school every winter like it is a free agency auction. NIL killed the soul of this game. The transfer portal turned every roster into a revolving door and I am supposed to get excited about fall camp when half the depth chart was not even here last spring.
What happened to earning your stripes? I remember when you sat on the bench for two years and learned the system before you ever saw the field. Now a kid has one bad spring practice and he is in the portal before the sun goes down. The loyalty is gone. The brotherhood is gone. We used to build dynasties on culture and development and now it is all about who has the biggest NIL collective writing checks. I love this program more than anything but I will never accept what college football has become.
Just saw ESPN call Osani Gayles a "needed jolt" for our 2027 class and I almost threw my phone across the room. A needed jolt. That is where we are now. We used to build classes over years, relationships, watching a kid grow from a sophomore in high school into a man who bled crimson. Coach Bryant would walk into a living room and shake a father's hand and that was the commitment. Now we are celebratiing a four-star receiver like he is the answer to some desperate prayer because our class rankings are thin. You know what was thin about the 1992 class? Nothing. We had 15 guys who all became starters on a national title team. No portal, no bidding war, no "needed jolt" language. Just football players who wanted to be here. The whole sport has turned into a transaction and I hate it.
Just saw ESPN spent months on that all-time best players by jersey number list and I guarantee you they had some intern pulling names off Wikipedia. They got a few right for the old school numbers but when you get to the 80s and 90s they completely whiffed on the Alabama guys who actually earned those jerseys. I remember when you had to earn the right to wear a certain number at Alabama, it meant something. Coach Stallings would never have let some of those picks slide.
I remember when the Iron Bowl meant something real. When we walked into Jordan-Hare and you could feel the hate in the air before kickoff. Now they want me to care about Oklahoma coming to Tuscaloosa in November. I got nothing against the Sooners but that is not a rivalry. You cannot manufacture history with a conference realignment spreadsheet.
The SEC we grew up with is gone. Texas and Oklahoma joining the league just to collect a paycheck while we lost the annual wars with Tennessee and A...
ESPN spent months on that jersey number list and I guarantee you they had some intern pulling names off Wikipedia. They picked the right guys for a few numbers but missed on so many of ours. I remember when we had a receiver wearing number 2 in the early 90s who could run routes that would make these modern kids cry. David Palmer was doing things with the ball in his hands that the ESPN staff probably never even saw on tape. That 1993 team had playmakers all over the field and nobody needed to call it a "needed jolt" when we landed a four-star kid. You either had it or you didnt. Palmer had it. This new kid Gayles might be good but I want to see him earn it first.
That ESPN piece calling Osani Gayles a "needed jolt" for our 2027 class just rubs me the wrong way. I remember back in the 1992 season when we won it all and Coach Stallings built that roster with kids who committed in the spring and stuck through thick and thin. Now we are scrambling for one four-star receiver while Oregon stacks five-stars like they are collecting baseball cards. NIL and this portal culture have completely changed how kids pick schools. There was a time when a kid from Alab...
Scrolling through that ESPN list of the best player by every jesey number and I had to stop when I got to the mid-90s. You know what that list is missing? Any sense of what it actually took to wear that number back when we played real football. I remember the 1992 defense, that unit would have eaten half those modern picks for breakfast and asked for seconds. Coach Stallings built teams on toughness, not on highlight reels. You had to earn the right to put on that crimson jersey, let alone a specific number. Now they hand out jersey numbers like participation trophies and ESPN spends months trying to convince us some flashy receiver from 2024 is the best to ever wear number whatever. I guarantee you the guys who actually played in the 70s and 80s are laughing at half these selections. The game was built on grit and hitting, not on what looks good on Instagram. That list is a perfect example of everything wrong with how people talk about college football today.