"I'm a little bit of a victim," he said. "I get asked questions that I really shouldn't answer. You should have the opportunity to weigh those options and I didn't have the opportunity to do that." You have to wonder about the character of a recruit that would sign with a guy that puts out BS like this... He reminds me of my favorite receiver....TO!
Well Nick, the way I hear it, you were the one to contact colleges first -- so you had to have some opportunity, right?
I wonder if the assistant coaches that pulled up their families to coach at Miami under Saban are on the victim list too.
I read on tidefans.com that the tide fans want to boycott Shula's Steakhouse in B'ham, because daddy Don Shula agreed Saban was a fraud in Miami, and that Bama treated Mike Shula unfairly only one year removed from a 10-2 record and big bowl win, given he lost most of his outstanding defense from that team and had a young quarterback with no college experience. And given CMS was dealing with the loss of scholarships for most of his tenure at Bama. Lot of hard feelings over this one. Ugly deal all around. Saban is no victim, he simply refuses to accept accountability for his failure, and he's trying to put the blame on everyone else in the organization. Bama could have given Shula another year and if it didn't pan out, fired him. By then, Saban would have probably been fired and they could have hired him for 1.5 - 2.0 mil per year.
The qb was an issue. Would you rather have a Sr. qb with a few years of game experience under his belt, or a newbie in his first season under fire? Experience is good, always. JaMarcus is twice the qb this year that he was last year. He got much better after the middle of this season, learning from his mistakes against Fla. No way JPW was even with Brodie Croyle's last season as QB. He may surpass Brodie with a couple more years, but that remains to be seen, IMO. It's not physical skills, its decision making, and you learn a lot from your mistakes. You don't get to make the mistakes until you have played a lot.
So you had a record setting QB, that definitely will get most coaches fired. I guess then we should address the players missing from that D, lack of depth due to scholarship reductions caused by the probation. Yep, fire the coach who came in knowing he would be hamstrung and fire him when the sanctions are over. Certainly duped Shula. I know there were other issues concerning Shula. But I tire of hearing how Bama was weaken because of probation, then one of your own being cast aside because he couldn't "succeed" despite these limitations. You can't have it both ways. This is so much like James Dickey being kicked out at TTU so Bob Knight could come in that it could have been scripted in a form letter. You got a new expansion that needs to be paid for, time to generate a little buzz.
