Alabama, SEC trying to climb back to college football summit
Alabama and the Southeastern Conference are trying to climb back atop the college football mountain. The SEC was toppled— at least temporarily — from that summit by the Atlantic Coast Conference last season. A powerhouse Crimson Tide team has a much shorter climb back after a down-to-the-last-breath loss to the ACC’s Clemson in the national championship game . ‘Bama has won 17 consecutive SEC games by an average of 21 points but coach Nick Saban insists “there’s a lot of parity in our league.” Despite Saban’s perspective, there’s no debating that the battle for No. 2 has been more heated than the competition for the top spot the past few seasons. Exhibit A: Alabama’s 54-16 win over Florida in the last SEC championship game. Alabama remains the decisive favorite to win a fourth consecutive SEC title despite losing four first-round NFL draft picks. No team has won the league four times in a row — or three for that matter before the Tide’s run — since Steve Spurrier and Florida dominated from 1993-96. The first test might just be Alabama’s biggest of the regular season. The Tide opens with another ACC power, Florida State, in Atlanta’s new Mercedes-Benz Stadium. “All the guys that did play in that (Clemson) game are really hungry to get back out there and play and show the world that we are one of the top teams in the nation,” ‘Bama receiver Calvin Ridley said. Quarterback Jalen Hurts, the SEC offensive player of the year, gives Saban a returning starter at quarterback for the first time since 2013. He heads a group of promising young passers including Georgia’s Jacob Eason, Mississippi’s Shea Patterson and South Carolina’s Jake Bentley. Not to mention transfers Jarrett Stidham at Auburn and Malik Zaire at Florida . In the SEC West, teams like LSU, Texas A&M and Auburn are trying to play catch up to the Tide. Georgia, Florida and Tennessee are among the East Division teams hoping to close the gap with their West counterparts, who have held an eight-year monopoly on SEC titles . The Gators have won the East crown in each of coach Jim McElwain‘s first two seasons but are aiming higher. “Getting that taste of nine wins, we now want to get more than that,” Florida defensive back Duke Dawson said. THE FAVORITES East: Georgia. Kirby Smart‘s second team has a strong backfield with Nick Chubb and Sony Michel, and Eason has a year of seasoning. LB Roquan Smith is among 10 returning defensive starters. West: Alabama. Like Eason, Hurts has big-time backs — plus star receiver Ridley — to target. The defense has seven NFL draft picks to replace but also returning standouts like defensive backs Minkah Fitzpatrick and Ronnie Harrison and tackle Da’Ron Payne. TOP PLAYERS Minkah Fitzpatrick, DB, Alabama. Versatile defender could play either safety or cornerback. Derrius Guice, RB, LSU. Leonard Fournette‘s backfield mate has center stage to himself. Hurts. The Tide is expecting him to be a better passer after an impressive freshman season somewhat marred by late-season struggles, especially in the playoffs. Arden Key, LB, LSU. Had 12 sacks last season. Missed spring practice for unspecified personal reasons. Christian Kirk, WR/RS, Texas A&M. Led the nation with three punt returns for touchdowns. His 83 catches topped the SEC, producing 928 yards and nine touchdowns. Frank Ragnow, C, Arkansas. Hasn’t allowed a sack the past two seasons and has started 26 straight games. NEW FACES Ex-Ole Miss coach Ed Orgeron is back in the SEC West at LSU. His former program is trying to regroup from the July 20 resignation of Hugh Freeze while in the final stretch of an NCAA investigation. Interim coach and co-offensive coordinator Matt Luke is leading the Rebels. Alabama offensive coordinator Brian Daboll has been a much talked-about hire. ON THE HOT SEAT Texas A&M’s Kevin Sumlin is trying to avoid another November slump after three straight 8-5 seasons. Auburn’s Gus Malzahn hasn’t beaten top rivals Georgia and Alabama in three seasons. Getting warmish: Arkansas’ Bret Bielema and Tennessee’s Butch Jones. Republished with permission from the Associated Press.
Gary Shelton: Even in loss, Alabama is still football royalty
Now about this: They lost, which doesn’t happen often. They gave up the winning touchdown late, which is rare. Their defense gave out of gas, which was amazing to see. Still, in all, the University of Alabama is still one of the nation’s premier football teams as far as legacy. Before you chide the Tide, think of it this way: What other program would dare to be disappointed by finishing second in the nation. Ah, but Alabama is the home of national championships, houndstooth hats and lore. And know this: When the Tide lose, it’s generally because another legend has been born. The Tide had never faced a quarterback like Watson in any of their national championship seasons. Monday night, it was Deshaun Watson, who led Clemson on an incredible comeback. In two years, Watson has thrown for 825 yards and seven touchdowns. What other quarterback has ever done that on a national stage? Still, Alabama’s place in college football is likely to be unchanged. Who would you pick as next year’s national champion? ESPN says Alabama. So does Bleacher Report. How about the year after? The year after that? As long as Nick Saban is steering the machine, the Tide is expected to be elite. It has always been this way. In one poll or another, Alabama has won a version of 16 national championships. Wallace Wade. Frank Thomas. Bear Bryant. Gene Stallings. Saban. The first beat I ever had in journalism as Alabama. I covered Bryant’s last two titles at the school, and there was no other place quite like it. The Tide came opponents in waves, with their tearaway jerseys and Bryant’s leather-skin and his smoke-tinged voice. Alabama had too much defense, too much precision on offense, too many players, too much history. Bryant would win six titles, and although his team lost its bowl games in 1964 and 1973, people tend to forget 1966. That year, the Tide was a two-time defending champion and the only unbeaten and untied team in the country … and finished third after Notre Dame and Michigan State played to a tie. Eventually, Bryant has morphed into Saban who, frankly, has it harder. In his early years, Bryant could lose a bowl game and still win a national title. He lost to Southern Cal in the 1978 regular season, but earned a split. He never had to negotiate a playoff run, which can be tricky. Still, Saban has been successful with a distinct formula. The Tide plays superb defense. It usually has a great running back. And it often plays around its quarterback. This time, freshman Jalen Hurts wasn’t good enough. What both Bryant and Saban did was win most of the time. It is still unexpected to see an Alabama coach at the podium following a loss. It’s a sun-setting-in-the-south sort of feeling. Today, the Alabama Crimson Tide is no longer a champion. Just royalty. ___ Gary Shelton is one of the most recognized and honored sportswriters in the history of Florida. He has won the APSE’s national columnist of the year twice and finished in the top 10 eight times. He was named the Florida Sports Writer of the Year six times. Over his time in sports writing, Gary has covered 29 Super Bowls, 10 Olympics, Final Fours, Masters, Wimbledons and college national championships. He was there when the Bucs won a Super Bowl, when the Lightning won a Stanley Cup and when the Rays went to a World Series. He has seen Florida, FSU and Miami all win national championships, and he covered Bear Bryant, Bobby Bowden and Don Shula along the way. He and his wife Janet have four children: Eric, Kevin, K.C. and Tori. To contact, visit garysheltonsports@gmail.com
FiveThirtyEight ranks Alabama strongest college football team in history
Alabama beat Florida in Saturday’s SEC conference championship game, securing a spot in the College Football Playoff, and becoming the greatest college team of the past 80 years. The Crimson Tide needed to defeat Florida by 11 or more points to surpass the 1995 Nebraska Cornhuskers for No. 1, according to FiveThirtyEight’s Elo power rating. In fact, they whipped the Gators by 38 points, putting ’Bama ahead of any team in the history of The Associated Press poll, which began in 1936. For many college teams, the pinnacle of this year’s Elo ranking coincided with the end of the schedule. However, in the case of Alabama, the Crimson Tide needed to be both Washington and in the winter of the Clemson-Ohio State game to become this year’s national champ. If they didn’t, says Neil Paine of FiveThirtyEight, Alabama would’ve peaked a bit too soon. Nevertheless, FiveThirtyEight.com notes that Nick Saban can now boast that his 2016 Alabama team is now the strongest team in the modern college football era.
Daniel Sutter: College football, competition and monopoly
The 2016 college football season kicks off with Alabama ranked No. 1, after winning its fourth national championship under Coach Nick Saban last year. Any company dominating its business like the Tide could easily face antitrust charges as a monopolist. Sports, however, illustrate the key role of competition in the economy, even when the same competitor often comes out on top. Alabama’s run of four titles in seven years has only been equaled by Notre Dame (1943-49) in the 80-year history of the AP poll. In the game of Monopoly, play continues until one player has 100 percent of the properties, but in markets the term gets applied well below this threshold. So a charge of monopolization of the championship is plausible. Economist John Hicks wrote that “The best of all monopoly profits is a quiet life,” because a monopolist earns profit with little stress. If Alabama were a football monopoly, Coach Saban and the team are probably wondering when they will have a leisurely stroll to a title. Instead the Tide faces fierce competition annually. While Alabama has a large football budget, according to Knight Commission figures, Auburn, LSU, Tennessee, Ohio State and Texas all outspent the Tide in 2014. Alabama fans know that championships are not automatic, as the 30 years between Bear Bryant’s last title and Coach Saban’s first title brought only one championship and six straight losses to Auburn. Competition ensures that Alabama cannot rest on its laurels. The same applies for Olympic champions like Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt, who continue to win gold medals by besting the best competitors in the world. Economists recognize the same role of competition. As microeconomics students will soon learn, the key factor for monopoly is barriers to entry. This asks, can new firms readily challenge the dominant firm? Absent barriers to entry, a large market share can only be maintained by offering consumers a better product or service, or a lower price. This should affect how we view the economy. John D. Rockefeller started Standard Oil after the Civil War, and by 1890 was refining 88 percent of America’s oil. This was market dominance for sure, but Rockefeller enjoyed no barrier to entry and was challenged by over 100 new refineries. Standard succeeded by continually innovating, and their cost of refining fell from 3 to 0.29 cents per gallon between 1869 and 1897. This helped reduce the price of refined petroleum from 30 to 6 cents per gallon. The discovery of oil in Texas eventually boosted new refiners like Gulf and Texaco, which Rockefeller had no power to prevent. By 1911, when the Supreme Court broke up the company, Standard’s market share had fallen to 64 percent. Unfortunately, antitrust lawyers often view large market share as inherently suspicious, as illustrated in the Alcoa antitrust case. Alcoa had a 90 percent share in the market for new aluminum because they kept their price low, increased efficiency, and expanded capacity. The market dominance was enough for Judge Learned Hand, who wrote in the case, “It was not inevitable that it should always anticipate increases in the demand for ingot and be prepared to supply them. Nothing compelled it to keep doubling and redoubling its capacity before others entered the field.” I would characterize increasing production capacity to meet demand as serving customers. The most prevalent and effective barrier to entry is a legal restriction, which only government can enact. The U.S. Postal Service, for example, enjoys a legal monopoly on the delivery of first class mail. Cities established and maintained cable television monopolies for years. Between the 1930s and late 1970s, the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) regulated commercial airlines and never approved entry for a single new airline. All 79 applications between 1950 and 1974 were shot down. Will Alabama win another title this year, or will today’s prominent firms like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft still be significant 20 years from now? I really have no idea. But as long as rivals are free to challenge them, success can result only from sustained excellence, which improves our lives. ••• Daniel Sutter is the Charles G. Koch Professor of Economics with the Manuel H. Johnson Center for Political Economy at Troy University and host of Econversations on TrojanVision. The opinions expressed in this column are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Troy University.
West Virginia native Nick Saban works to bring relief amidst flooding tragedy
Nick Saban may have cemented his legacy in Alabama as the head football coach of the Crimson Tide, but he’ll always be a West Virginia boy. Amidst the tragic flooding in the Mountain State Saban, and fellow West Virginian and sometimes-rival Florida State University Seminoles coach Jimbo Fisher are working together to bring relief. The devastating flooding of June 23 destroyed more than 1,200 homes, taking at least 23 lives in the process, making it the deadliest flash flood since May 2010. Saban and Fisher, who grew up in Monongah and Clarksburg, respectively, are rallying high schools in their new home states to help provide impacted schools with football equipment, including helmets, pads, and practice jerseys, so students there may more quickly return to the activities and traditions they hold dear. “Football was such an important part of my childhood in West Virginia, and to see the devastation the flooding has caused, and how it has threatened so many high school football teams, we wanted to find a way to help,” Saban explained in a statement announcing the donation program. “We are asking each high school from across the state to donate a full uniform to help these schools get their kids back on the football field this season.” We are taking uniform donations to aid high school football teams in West Virginia affected by recent flooding. pic.twitter.com/eKpBRB3ptT — Crimson Tide FB (@CrimsonTide_FB) July 8, 2016 “As football coaches, we can do a small part to help the community heal by assisting the high school football programs affected by this tragedy,” Coach Fisher wrote in his letter to Florida’s high school coaches. “We have all seen how athletics can help heal and rebuild communities that have suffered through a tragedy.” Saban and Fisher will be joined on Wednesday July 13 by FSU assistant coach and fellow West Virginia native Rick Trickett at Clay County High School to present the donations.
Bill aimed at preventing youth suicide unanimously passes state Senate
On Tuesday, the Alabama Senate unanimously passed SB11 from Sen. Gerald Allen (R-Tuscaloosa) to establish a suicide prevention training program for teachers and school officials. The bill is also called the “Jason Flatt Act,” named for a young man who committed suicide in 1997. His father, Clark Flatt established The Jason Foundation to advocated for suicide prevention training in Alabama schools. Flatt was instrumental in crafting the legislation, which garnered support from Crimson Tide Head Coach Nick Saban. “There is no doubt this legislation will save young lives,” Flatt remarked in a news release. “The Jason Foundation is very thankful for all the help that Senator Allen has provided in sponsoring this bill. He has been instrumental in raising support from the many organizations and individuals across Alabama that are moving this legislation forward.” The legislation requires educators to receive extensive training on identifying stages of “mental decline,” often indicative of possible suicide, and effective ways of combating such decline and aiding needy students. “Some young people suffer silently and don’t know where to turn,” Allen said in the release. “Students spend more time at school than almost anywhere else, and we have to make sure our teachers and administrators have the tools to recognize when a student is struggling, so help can be offered promptly and effectively.” Passage of the legislation marks another success of Senate Republicans in tackling their 2016 agenda. The bill now heads to the Alabama House of Representatives, where it will likely see a similar outcome as it did in the Senate.
Diane Roberts: Hey, football fans! How’s Donald Trump gonna do?
Greeting sportsfans, I’m Brent Toast of ESPN, along with former Heisman winner Johnny Twitt. Welcome to the most important event of 2016, the college football national championship! Who will prevail? Will it be the Clemson University Tigers, led by evangelical whackjob Dabo Swinney, or the Crimson Tide of Alabama, coached by gazillionaire and part-time Bond villain Nick Saban? But first, let’s look at the second-most important event of 2016, the race for the White House. Who’s playing with his hand in the dirt? Who’s got his ears pinned back? And — this is crucial — who’s No. 1 in pandering? Johnny? Thanks, Brent. Right now I’d say you’ve got to give the edge to Carly Fiorina. Her 40 time ain’t that hot — at 22 hours, it’s right up there with the Matanuska Glacier — but there’s nobody out there more shameless. Check this out: Minutes before Stanford took the field against an Iowa team already demoralized by the sheer number of Republican hopefuls crisscrossing the state, Fiorina sent this tweet: “Love my alma mater, but rooting for a Hawkeyes win today. #Rose Bowl.” Whoa, Johnny! That’s impressively, you might even say, stupidly, brazen. You got it, Brent. Between Christian McCaffrey’s running and the Stanford band’s halftime show featuring cow-tipping and references to FarmersOnly.com, Iowa collapsed like wet wheat. At least Fiorina tried to make a play. All Jeb Bush could come up with was free coozies at the pregame pep rally. Coozies, Johnny? That’s right, Brent. Coozies, black and gold, with “Hawkeyes for Jeb” on ‘em. That’s pretty tragic right there, Johnny. Not even “Jeb for the Hawkeyes.” No. No. What about Marco Rubio? Could be a momentum issue: the Michigan Wolverines delivered an old-fashioned fanny-whupping to Marco Rubio’s Gators down in the Citrus Bowl. That had to hurt. Bad year all round for Florida, Johnny. Houston owned FSU in the Peach and USF got slapped harder than a redheaded stepchild by Western Kentucky. Plus, Rick Scott is their governor. Ugly, Brent. Ugly. What’s happening with the Democrats, football-wise? Well, Brent, no one’s actually seen the Democrats, since they held their debates on game nights, and Hillary Clinton has failed to tell us who she’s supporting in Monday night’s championship game. I have to think it’s Clemson: the state of Alabama has pretty much outlawed Democrats. South Carolina has an early primary, too. What about Donald Trump? Well, that’s the big question. We reached out to his campaign but all they’d say is that he roots for the Wharton School of Business. The Wharton doesn’t have its own football team, Johnny. Must be some confusion with the U Penn Quakers. Au contraire, Brent. Trump specifically stated that the Quakers are “huge losers” and that he would kill ISIS the way they taught him to at Wharton. Well, OK, then. In related news, we now know who bankrolled the skywriting over the Rose Bowl, you know, the “Trump is Disgusting”? A property developer from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Name’s Stan Pate. Democrat? No, a Republican. Scary. Developer versus developer. It’s like the Civil War. Whatever. Trump’s getting some football love from former Georgia Bulldog great Herschel Walker and Patriot QB Tom Brady … Hot wife. Can’t argue with you there, my friend, but those guys have been hit in the head many, many times. Hard. Got to remember that, Johnny. Stay with us — we’ll be right back with Sen. Bernie Sanders, our guest picker on GameDay. Can he beat Rick Ross and Katy Perry? • • • Diane Roberts teaches at Florida State University. Her latest book is “Tribal: College Football and the Secret Heart of America.” For more state and national commentary visit Context Florida.
