And now for something completely different: spring football

I caught a little bit of the Oklahoma spring game last week on ESPN. Later this afternoon, Iowa and Iowa State will have theirs and the Iowa scrimmage will be on t.v. live.

In other news: Stewart Mandel got blown off by Nick the Dick, and lives to tell about it: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/stewart_mandel/04/09/alabama/index.html

Another writer, Josh Moon of the Montgomery Advertiser made Mandel look like an angel with his shot at Nick: http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070408/SPORTS/704080337/1002%22

Hey Nick, we don't have time for your shit, either. :

 

Spring games are already? Really? Guess this snow is throwing all my senses off these days.

 

Oz, outside of the freak snowstorm the northern half of Iowa got on Wednesday, things are normal. For now....

 

OK ... gotta ask a possibly very ignorant question.

I've always been under the assumption that outside of the SEC and the Big XII, NO ONE cares about spring football?!? ... I guess being on the East Coast, I never hear a Pac-10er going, "oh, hell yeah man, I cannot wait for that Stanford spring football game!"

 

Does this make you a D_B-3 fan?


http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/39823/

 

Michael Wilbon on PTI about Nick Saban's policies toward the media:

"IT DOESN'T MATTER!"

 

People have used places like Michigan and Penn State as the counterpoint to surviving with closed practices.

The difference is they've always been closed so beat writers have come up with other ways to find stories. Alabama's are now closed so the beat writers are scrambling...

There's a difference between people like Wilbon saying it doesn't matter, because in the grand scheme of things it doesn't, and fan-boy apologist talking heads fellating Saban simply because he's the Alabama coe-ach and whatever Nick does, these guys and girls will blindly back.

 

I don't understand the point of closing spring practice. Most teams don't work on anything special or super-exclusive during spring drills. They are just that: drills. A little 11-on-11, a little 7-on-7, a few small scrimmages and one spring game. And lots and lots of tedious drills.

I see the logic in not wanting players to get "distracted," but it's spring football. No real point in "closing" it, IMO.