Ain’t it grand when a Georgia Boy, a UGA Graduate, proves what a fine defensive coach he is! Way to go, Will! Now, I am a Bulldawg supporter, have been since Coach Butts, but I bet against the Dawgs today, and sadly, I won. Before I get too deep in the weeds, a la “Gomer Jones: Modern Defensive Football,” I’d like to quote the man who should have been Georgia’s “second greatest coach,” Erk Russell: “Attitude might be worth 80 percent of any athlete’s makeup.”
Attitude, folks, comes from the Head Ball Coach, and it does not trickle down, it floods the heart and soul of every other coach, and each and every ball player.
Coach Smart is a fine man, a kind soul, a lover of the University, and a good coach… but he is not Coach Saban. Why? He is just too nice. (So was Coach Richt, Coach Donnan and God Bless him, Coach Goff, and so it goes!)
Too nice to pull Fromm and start Fields! Jake Fromm in the mold of Jalen Hurts, a game manager, a safe choice, a guy who will seldom get you beat, except like today, and Justin Fields, in the mold of Tua Tagovailoa, an exciting and dynamic baller who transferred from UGA and is now starting for the Ohio State University, and has already tossed 18 TD’s this season!
Coach Saban did not hesitate, he saw a winner, not a QB who played not to lose, and zippity do dah, Tua came in the game, won the National Championship beating UGA, and well, so it goes for Alabama. Tomorrow they will be acclaimed as the best team in the Nation, and may well win it all, another National Championship, again this year!
I asked myself, why does our University continue to choose to hire fine gentlemen, like Coach Smart, with their gracious Southern airs and demure personalities?
Coach Dooley certainly shared these attributes, but there was one really significant difference, he and Saban, like the famed Coach Lombardi, share a common religious denomination, they all are Roman Catholics, and in the clutch, they all fight like gladiators in the Coliseum , holding nothing back, and they never apologize or appear inoffensive and gracious in a loss.
It is a well-known fact that Roman Catholics communicants can “kill” during the week, and through the “Sacrament of Confession” be fully absolved of their sin and comfortable in their skin, even after bumping off fellow mobsters “back then” and supporting Abortion Rights activists “now.” See John Gotti or Senator Biden. For Roman Catholics, the Act of Confession conveys not only forgiveness but forgetfulness, and from the age of seven, the classical “Age of Reason,” and year of their First Communion, Roman Catholics are taught that their sins are Forgiven each Saturday and Forgotten each Sunday by their Priest Confessors!
In coaching College Football, this attitude leads to Phenomenal Successes, as almost anything they do to win… at any cost… is quickly forgiven and, at least in their minds, forgotten!
Oh, occasionally the NCAA does catch wind of a Roman Catholic Head Coach whose behavior they find troublesome, like the blindness of “JoePa,” Coach Joe Paterno at Penn State, to the crimes of members of his staff, but always, by the grace of God, the controversy occurs at the end of a great career.
UGA has no lack of Roman Catholic born Professors and academic staff, both as active communicants and “fallen away” adult Roman Catholics (Notice, no one ever claims to be an “Ex” Catholic) and as well a goodly number of “Yankee” born Faculty whose agnostic and amoral ethics are right out of the Roman Catholic Church’s famed Baltimore Catechism… anything sinful you do today can be forgiven on the next Saturday Night!
Why not seek such a man as Head Ball Coach? Or at least as a close second, a man of the Predestination faith: “God has already chosen, so what does it matter what I do…” a Presbyterian? Seek a man like the real ole Ball Coach, the son of a Presbyterian Minister. Now that is a credential to be sought!
No Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, Evangelicals or member of any other denomination who thinks a missionary trip to a Third World country is good preparation for the coming fall Football Season need apply!
The point I would stress here is that Alabama has such a coach, a man who believes in winning ethically, but with little concern about whose feelings are hurt, or who transfers out, or frankly, who stays in. It is a given fact that if a young man stays and plays at Alabama, he will WIN, because that’s what BAMA, under Saban, does. They and the team dare not do otherwise!
Now, today in particular, let me cite a quote from USC’s Coach Muschamp, delivered while firing the South Carolina Team Chaplain: “Muschamp told Despres the reason he was dismissing him was that he wanted an “inclusive” program and that “Jesus was a distraction” to the team’s effectiveness.” Seriously, now check out the score above! Don’t you wonder…?
Nuff said…