Brace yourselves, listeners. ALDLAND’s latest podcast features a very special guest. I don’t want to spoil anything, so fire up the podcast and find out for yourself who it is.
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Download the ALDLAND podcast at our Podcasts Page or stream it right here:
Here we are with yet another edition of the ALDLAND Podcast. Chris Cunico is off making bad decisions in Nola, so the task falls to blog founder AD to talk about a wide variety of sports-related topics with me, from the exciting finish to the English Premiere League season to the impending change to the college football postseason. So take thirty minutes out of your work day and check out this awesomeness.
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Download the ALDLAND podcast at our Podcasts Page or stream it right here:
Spring games may be the height of college football nerdery, but when they’re giving away posters like this one, I’d be glad to hold my tongue.
Vanderbilt’s spring game is tonight at 6 pm.
The uproar and controversy of Urban Meyer’s stunning recruiting coup at Ohio State settled in and Stefon Diggs, still on the Buckeyes’ wish list, was debating his future.
Diggs, the second-highest rated wide receiver in the country, had narrowed his list of potential schools to Maryland, Florida and Ohio State. For more than a week following National Signing Day on Feb. 1, and before Diggs eventually signed with Maryland, Meyer relentlessly pursued Diggs.
Multiple sources told Sporting News that Meyer—who won two national championships in six years at Florida and cemented his legacy as one of the game’s greatest coaches—told the Diggs family that he wouldn’t let his son go to Florida because of significant character issues in the locker room.
Character issues that we now know were fueled by a culture Meyer created. Character issues that gutted what was four years earlier the most powerful program in college football. … Read More
(via Sporting News)
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Related:
Urban renewal: Once Meyered in the Swamp, a Buckeye nut returns to his roots
I was a Mike Leach fan long before Craig James took the helm of the mothership and got Leach fired from the head coaching job at Texas Tech. I think I first learned about Leach through an interview on Jim Rome’s radio show and was hooked by his deadpan demeanor and the facts that he has a law degree from Pepperdine and kept an automatronic pirate-skelleton in his office. I’m not even a pirate guy, but the random, dry sense of humor, and the nonchalance with which he carried on his job as a successful college football coach of one of the highest-flying offenses in the nation all combined to hit me just right.
When Leach finally landed his next coaching job, Washington State plainly had gotten a real steal, and though his tone of voice would never betray it, it appears that Leach has embraced his new home as well. From an interview posted yesterday on SB Nation’s WSU site:
Jim Moore: In a battle to the death among Pac-12 mascots, which animal or person wins?
Mike Leach: The Cougar absolutely. Let’s go through this a little bit. A cougar obviously kills a duck and a beaver. A cougar against a husky … that’s pretty well a massacre. A cardinal or whatever: I don’t know exactly what a cougar would either climb it or I wouldn’t want to think of what else he’d do on it. Now Golden Bears could be kinda tough. I think you’d want to be a little fast and loose with them. You don’t want to get caught by that bear. The Ute … you gotta dodge some arrowheads, but I still like the Cougar. Buffalo … I think the buffalo would be pretty tough to beat. Wildcat: Cougars are bigger than wildcats. Sun Devils, that’s mythical anyway. Trojans, they may be as well. I think you gotta look out for the Bruins and the Buffalo. The Golden Bear, Bruin and Buffalo .. I think those are the tough ones.
Moore: Why the Buffalo?
Leach: Do you want to fight a buffalo? I don’t know, those buffalo are big. You know, buffalo are significantly bigger than elk. I grew up near Yellowstone so I’ve been near buffalo. Buffalo are huge. And then the other thing I’ve always gotten a kick out of: When you play Colorado, there’s those buffalo dragging those six handlers around. Those handlers aren’t dragging the buffalo. The buffalo’s dragging him.
Ralphie’s not even a big buffalo. Ralphie pulls those people wherever he wants to.
More on the interview, including audio, is available here.
At the very least, Leach gives WAZZU fans a reason to believe they can climb out of the Pacific Twelve basement and the rest of us a reason to watch that miserable conference.
Jay Norvell is a co-offensive coordinator and wide receivers coach for the University of Oklahoma. Ricky Seals-Jones is a four-star recruit who is expected to commit to the University of Texas tomorrow.
I saw the above in the @ALDLANDia twitter feed a few moments ago. Assuming it was real, it since has been deleted. Further assuming it was real, it strikes me as all kinds of problematic.
As I’m writing this, SB Nation confirms that the above tweet was real and that Seals-Jones wasn’t the only recruit to receive such a message.
Upon changing my calendar this morning, I was greeted by the above image, which is the cover of the official football program for the 1947 meeting between Ole Miss and Vanderbilt. According to Rivals, Vandy won the game 10-6 and finished that season with a 6-4 record, going 3-3 in the SEC. Not a bad year for them, and, for us, not a bad Groundhog Day.
After the Red Wings fell 3-2 to the Blackhawks at the United Center, I boarded a plane from Chicago early the next morning, and touched down in the land of the Delta blues, in the middle of the pouring sunshine. It was a beautiful New Year’s Eve day in Memphis, especially by my recently recalibrated Northern standards, and I’m not sure anyone could reasonably protest the prospect of tailgating outdoors in 60 degrees and sun on December 31st. Whenever I go to Memphis, I’m always (I write this as if I go there so often) struck by the lowness of the terrain. It isn’t just flat, it’s low. (Or maybe it was the lowrider dunebuggy of a rental car we had. It’s a tossup really.)
Hearing no reasonable or unreasonable protest, tailgate we did, the site graciously hosted and organized by the VSL Braintrust. After gorging ourselves on food, drink, and conversation, we made our way into the Liberty Bowl, which presents as large and grand but operates as small and comfortable. There’s an imposing fortress-like structure at the main entrance that would be impressively and confusingly lit at the end of the game, the moat area being a concourse that certainly felt like it was in the stadium but operated as a sort of DMZ for people to finish their outside consumables and proceed into the technical, ticket-taking entryway.
Once inside, I found myself in the best seats I’ve ever had for a sporting event of consequence. It wasn’t a surprise– I knew where the seats were– but there was something pretty neat about saddling up in the second row, right behind the Vanderbilt bench and about turning around and seeing a sea of black and gold stretched from end to end of the Commodore side of the stadium. Keep reading…
Due to recently starting a new job, moving to a new city, and spending most of my free time beating Uncharted 3, I have not been able to chronicle my Sugar Bowl experience until now. But as promised, here it is. For those of you who for some strange reason anticipated this article, or even remember that it was supposed to be written, enjoy.
If your team ever makes it to the Sugar Bowl, you need to go. Even if your team has little to no shot of ever making it to the Sugar Bowl (I’m looking at you Vandy), try to tag along with a friend who went to a school that doesn’t use the bounce pass as its primary way of trying to move the ball forward. Anyway, the Sugar Bowl combines the best components of Mardi Gras with the best components of going to a college football game. Adult beverages flow liberally from any one of the many establishments on Bourbon Street, and you should be sure to try New Orleans mainstays, the Hurricane and the Hand Grenade. While you are hanging out in the French Quarter, you will get to enjoy many of the gameday traditions that you have been accustomed to, whether it is chanting “Go Blue” or doing whatever Virginia Tech fans do. All of this combines to produce a unique bowl game atmosphere.
The Alabama Crimson Tide Elephants rolled and stomped all over LSU in the real national championship game last night, piecing together a 21-0 shutdown of the Tigers on their way to an unassailable claim to the championship. Although we were reminded innumerable times over the past week about the short distance between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, LSU’s offense missed the bus ride down. From the first play, Jordan Jefferson looked shell-shocked, and he never snapped out of it. While senior Jerrett Lee may have a tendency to throw interceptions against Alabama, Jefferson was such a non factor that the decision to stick with him and keep Lee on the sidelines was indefensible. I don’t care if Bill Barnwell proves that Lee on the sidelines is worth 8.79 potential points for LSU, because the Tigers had no actual points. Having given up five scores by the third quarter, but only down by two (15-0), the game was extremely salvageable. Down 21-0 in the fourth, why not give Lee a chance to at least put some points on the board, or at the very least get some playing time in his final game? What’s the worst that could happen? Wasn’t that already happening?
In previewing this game, I predicted that LSU would win a low-scoring affair. While you might say that I was wrong on both counts (twenty-one points, including a !touchdown!, has to be considered high-scoring for this pairing), I at least was correct that LSU would post a low score.
Finally, having already expounded upon Brad Paisley’s new retrospective, “Old Alabama,” and what it means for the national status of country music, I offer the following classic anthem with which to observe the Tide’s BCS championship:
ALDLAND 