It takes real balls to send home two players that weren't even going to play. The SEC allowing the gumps to self-police themselves is a joke. How are they going to punish a player for doing what they coached him to do?
I can speak for a lot of Bama fans, not the entire group. There are a lot of bad calls in football. There are a lot of missed calls as well. It's part of the game. What disturbs me the most is when I see, or hear, a fan complaining that a particular call was made because it's our school playing that school. Even more disturbing is seeing fans blame a loss on one specific call. If a game was meant to be won, there were another 59 minutes plus where plays could have been made to win the game. What kills me is seeing conspiracy theories voiced that are ignorant. Ignorant, to the point there is no basis, rhyme, or reason behind them. There's a great example in this thread by Purple Tiger. "Is the Birmingham Bowl worth a damn?...NO Even so it will remain in the SEC lineup because it's in their backyard." Now, let's set aside the point that the Birmingham Bowl happens to be rank eighth in attendance this season in bowl games. But, let's focus on the reality and truth of the matter. The SEC has bowl alliances. There are years where Birmingham doesn't get an SEC team. In fact, out of the last six years three of those have featured teams that weren't in the SEC. But, there's some bias from the offices in Birmingham? No. It's a matter of rotations and bowl tie-ins to maintain. To add to the conspiracy we see the baseball tournament in Birmingham being an example of home cooking. But, again, let's completely set aside the fact it's an open bid process.
Let's see how open & honest the SEC HQ will be with the "open" bid process. Let's see if they actually list the criteria or publish the bids before conveniently selecting Hoover again. I know you didn't mention anything about the HQ expanding the tournament field. Why did they do it? I think I know but you'll simply call it a conspiracy theory because it benefits your Gumps. Obviously no other state has a facility like Hoover and because it's such a wonderful vacation town, we should hold the tournament there every year. Now that's funny!
We spoke at length about this very subject in an earlier thread, right after it happened. It's a bunch of BS, and hopefully karma will be a biatch...
I like the caveat, "they almost always..." This is another situation where the facts don't hold up to what actually has transpired. Out of the 14 teams in the league there were four who had fewer penalties than UA called—though the number isn't significant. More importantly, there were seven out of the 14 teams in the league who had the number of penalties differ from each other by just a few. The lowest penalized team in SEC play was Mississippi State with 33. UofSC, Ole Miss, Kentucky, Missouri, Alabama, and Texas A&M were all within four of that number. Notice just one of seven from the state of Alabama. There were two teams in the 40's, and five in the 50's with UGA leading the pack with 59 and UF in a tie for second with 55. UGA had 14 alone versus Florida and the Gators recorded 10 in the game. If all the turnovers didn't tell you how sloppy both teams played isn't 24 penalties a pretty damn good indication? As I've said before I'm going to break down the penalties called this year and look at them specifically. IE: how many are for pass interference? How many are for false starts, off illegal motion, etc. I suspect that you'll see a large difference in mental penalties. But, before I say "this team has penalties because..." let's look at the numbers. Both LSU and UGA had seven penalties a piece when playing Alabama. Both UGA and LSU averaged about seven penalties a game in SEC play. Yet, there's something amiss here? Putting it in different words, you're saying that the crews of the SEC get together and intentionally call the same number of penalties on a specific school throughout an eight game schedule. Now, for what it's worth your statement about two TD's coming after penalties and both on third down is false. One did and that was on a second down play, pass interference against UGA, which wasn't questionable in the least. And, that penalty was in the third quarter where UA was running at will against UGA, literally. Using your reasoning, the three years Birmingham didn't get a bowl the SEC office decided to dump on Birmingham? The Indy, Liberty, and Birmingham bowl have selections at the same time. Their "pecking order" is literally the same. One bowl doesn't get preference over another. It just so happened that Birmingham received an SEC team this season. It's no different than the Liberty getting Vandy last year and Birmingham and Shreveport having to invite non-SEC teams. Over the last three years the bowl in Birmingham has averaged 47,651 when an SEC team played. When a non SEC team played, the average has been 32,691. Your statement about this being the only year it's reached 46,000—false. Nobody wants to go to Birmingham, yet, that bowl ranks in the top ten in attendance this year? Facts prove otherwise. If you'll read what you said again this will make sense. You said, "Is the Birmingham Bowl worth a damn?...NO Even so it will remain in the SEC lineup because it's in their backyard." Your question about it being "worth a damn" is addressed by the attendance figures. Your assertion that of it "remaining in the SEC because it's in their backyard" is proven false because of non-SEC teams playing there as recently as last year. I don't know the length of the current agreement with Hoover. Criteria should be easy enough to figure out. It will be determined on capacity and who submits the largest bid. If you've followed the political things surrounding the country Hoover is in you'll see them bidding on things, bids that are far excessive considering the economic climate in the area, and losing. So, if they offer up a dollar figure that doesn't make sense it won't shock me at all. No. I didn't mention anything about the tournament expanding. Why? The SEC expands the conference by two teams. They expand the tournament by two teams. Yet, you think it's somehow designed to improve the chances of Alabama or Auburn to get in the tournament? Again, it's a statement that is proven illogical when you look at the facts of the matter. Conference adds two. Tournament adds two. They also implemented four teams getting a bye on the first day from two last year. I've never even commented on other states having good facilities for this tournament. But again, you're asserting it's a mind-set. All I've said was "it's an open-bid process."
i ain't taking sides, but they added 2 to the tourney last year in advance of the conference expanding, then added 2 again for the upcoming season as well. so in reality, Conference added 2, Tourney added 4.
Here is the deal. LSU is a hard-hitting team. We are going to be on the hitting end of these kind of plays more often than not. I say let the players play football. There are no "defenseless" players except a quarterback standing in the pocket or a kicker in the act of kicking. If you don't want to get hit, get off the field.
