JPETERMAN

I had to double check the calendar to make sure it wasn't April Fool's day. This is too good to be true. We never luck into stuff like this. Now if we can poach Beard it will be amazing!

Maybe his tick tock views were down.

As much as I hate the perception (and reality) that our donors have too much input into the program, the blowback on hiring Stoops cannot be understated.

Higdon Sock ???

Sark has a pretty good sales pitch to sell to Brandon. Hey son, why don't you stick around here for a bit. We'll get you some coaching experience, but recruiting can get you paid too. Did you see that we just got a Special Teams coach a million per year because he's bad a$$ at recruiting. Stick with me and in a few years you'll be able to afford as many strippers and monkeys as your heart desires.

I have a little doubt. Let's not forget that he did try to hire Stoops. It's hard to make hires that are consistently home runs. Could Sark have someone in mind that will come and even prove to ultimately end up being better than Harris? Sure. But I'll take a bird in the hand with Harris, based on early results, over an unknown at this point.

Having a coach believe in momentum, and pushing for some of these early studs to commit is huge. Its nice seeing all these guys at these events talk about UT and try to recruit each other. Herman always was overconfident that he'd be able to go undefeated and then everyone would want to flip. But losing to TCU and a few other crappy teams annually made that a much harder sell. I really hope we can get some of the O-linemen to publicly commit next. Sounds like we definitely have some leaners.

Probably talking about last year's season that got pushed to this spring. Believe they were going to try to play a shortened season of about 5 games starting in March or so.

There is definitely a wrong way to deal with the high school coaches which somehow we've managed to do since Mack left. That's not to say that you have to suck them off to the extent Mack did however, just not actively piss them off. Charlie pretty much ignored them in general, and I recall some chatter when he signed about 4 kids from Florida in the Cecil Cherry class that they were getting some "dogs" with the kids from Florida, implying Texas high school kids were soft. Herman was just an A-Hole and all the high school coaches despised him so he wasn't going to get the benefit of the doubt. You don't have to bend over backwards, but you basically shouldn't actively try to piss them off or they will likely steer kids away from your program. Feels like there is a lot of room in between those extremes in which you can succeed. Same goes for the trainers for that matter, unless you want to talk about dropping bags in which case some of them are more likely to be influenced by that sort of thing.

Because they use their money and resources appropriately. They have more staff than just about anyone, particularly behind the scenes. Sounds like they have some of if not the best sports medicine people, nutrition people, you name it. Saban is an extremely detail oriented prick who leaves no stone unturned and demands and gets the most out of his staff. I would imagine that he has had a team of qualified people researching how to best take advantage of something like this for quite some time. Carrington maybe did a good job of getting ahead of this, but I very much doubt Herman or the coaches had any interest in really learning about it, much less selling it. I bet Saban knows more about it right now than most coaches will 5 years from now.

I don't think anyone truly knows how the NIL stuff is going to evolve. But I'm sure Alabama was at the forefront of it like everything else. If Sark was truly in training there under the wing of Saban, then I think that plays to our advantage as he should know how to sell it as well as anyone else in the country.

The picture was certainly in poor taste. But it seems pretty clear to me (And no I don't know 100% for sure because I have zero sources) that Carrington knew he was gone by the time he took those pictures. Sark knew BC was gone too, but it didn't leak until after NSD2 just in case any recruits would have been turned off by it. Every year guys leave the day or 2 days after signing day. You don't think they've been talking for weeks beforehand, doing interviews etc. This is no different. If anything, it's more excusable for Carrington because the staff was just blown up and in transition. I'm sure he started putting out feelers the hour after Herman was fired, as well he should have. I'm not getting bad vibes from Sark splitting duties. I was getting bad vibes from him seemingly not wanting BC to potentially explore an opportunity that was presented to him when it is probably standard practice in the industry (timing-wise). I mean hell, we've been talking about Petagna for as long as the USC/Carrington rumors have been going on so we don't exactly have a moral superiority here. But again, I'm apparently reading too much into it, so let's drop it.

Ok, Ok. Just kind of struck me as odd and perhaps a bit of a red flag. Clearly I'm reading too much into it. Hope I'm wrong.

Seems to me that Carrington wasn't exactly keeping Sark in the dark either. We've been hearing about it for quite a while and that Texas would have the opportunity to match. So either match, or don't. But don't get all bent out of shape because he's willing to listen to someone else who makes him a better offer. Who on NSD2 did we not get that BC would have been a vital player in getting? I'll hang up and listen.

This is so stupid. I really hope this isn't indicative of his "authenticity" and saying one thing and doing another. I would think that a national championship game is more important than national signing day, and not only did Sark have outright overtures before that game, he was actively working for us and splitting time leading up to it. Being ok with Carrington leaving because you think he was a mole, or you think he is fairly easily replaceable is one thing. But this just gives me a bad vibe if he's truly begrudging BC for accepting overtures from another school during a period when the current staff he is on had been fired and he was somewhat in limbo. It's not like BC has been making top assistant coaching money for years either. He has to consider all opportunities that jump his pay significantly. Holding people to a standard higher than your own is a quick way to lose the team a la Herman.