The Mess in Texas...
Reports are that Marshall has said no to Bama...

                I was wondering about the Texas job now vacate due to the firing of Rick Barnes.  He has been at Texas, a football factory, for 17 years.  He took 16 of those teams to the NCAA.  Exactly what does Texas expect? It seems to me that Texas fans are so upset at the state of their football program, Rick Barnes got fired instead. That’s Texas logic in my experience.  You can’t call that moderate success. So what does the AD tell a prospective coaching candidate when he visits? Our last coach was in 94% of the last 17 NCAA Tournaments, and we had to let him go. He wasn’t a winner. You’ll love it in Austin. We’ve got great bands, a wonderful culture, and more pretty women than you could imagine. What’s not to like? If you thought that Alabama had or has a good old boy network, then Texas is the Marshall Space Center of Stupidity.

`  

   If I were Bill Battle I’d interview Barnes just of find out the precise meaning of dysfunctional. What I’d ask Rick is it true that Alfred E. Neumann is AD. Now, Texas is rewarding Barnes for his service by waiting until after April 1 to fire him officially. They can save $250,000 dollar in his buy out that way. I’m sure a new coaching candidate will love that. The one thing that Texas has is oil money. I don’t know a lot about the oil business, but it strikes me that digging and hole in ground doesn’t take a lot of intelligence. Don’t mess with Texas? No way. Once I got stopped by their highway patrol. It is the only time I been stopped by the highway patrol there who  told I was driving to slow. No joke. I was doing almost ninety and was told to move to the outer lane so I wouldn’t tie up traffic. Texas isn’t a State. It’s a bad idea that got out of hand. Anyone who decides to coach at Texas needs an exit strategy tattooed on his arm just in case he forgets what it was. When I now travel through Texas, I drive 100 miles an hour just to get the hell of that godforsaken place.

     It may very well be that Greg Marshall takes the job at Texas. It seems like an odd fit to me. Marshall can speak in complete sentences and doesn’t wear boots. I’m sure that Texans can say equally upsetting things about Alabama. Texas started out as a Republic and that didn’t work. They then became a part of the Confederate States of America and we know how that worked out, and now they have Rick Perry as Governor. Some places just can’t learn from past mistakes. At least Governor Bentley doesn’t look like he has been marinated in pickle juice, and wears a cheap hair piece.

     I don’t know if Alabama is even close to finding a new head coach. Marshall may indeed turn us down. I’ve said before it wasn’t a done deal by any means. Shaka Smart is too intelligent to follow Grant at Alabama. Other coaches who we had chosen as fall back positions are going away one by one. Now the name of Richard Pitino is being floated for reaction. Here’s mine. Never select a coach based on the gene pool application of hope. Take White before little Rick. Here’s another idea, and I’m just saying, “what if”. What if we offered Tom Izzo 5 million dollars a year, and give him 10 million dollar signing bonus?  Saban can live with that. Alabama can likely afford that. What Alabama can’t afford is some guy who is up and coming and we hope will work out. We tried that. 

If Battle is serious about Basketball he better have something up his sleeve to keep from embarrassing the University of Alabama. Or here’s a less expensive idea – Tide fans need to understand that we just can’t find a top coach for basketball. Tuscaloosa is not a moving up job it seems. The word Alabama might not carry enough juice to get a big named coach anymore. I hope I’m wrong about that. I don’t put much value into that Yahoo Pat Forde. I think he makes some wild guesses and hopes he is correct on occasion. Let’s hope Forde is out on a limb again.