Jumbo Package: MVP!

Slow day today, and even I can’t find a whole lot interesting. But, we shall sally forth. I am RBR’s Don Quixote, tilting at the windmills of shitposting.

Let’s begin:

Alabama Softball Team 27 has had two players named to the preseason POTY watchlist. Faith Hensley’s name may surprise you, but the other won’t — yep, it’s Montana Fouts. Again.

Hensley, like Fouts, is a Super Senior. She spent the last four years at Ball State, where she earned MAC POTY honors last season. Quality player.

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My friends, we are in the wrong line of work.

Imagine finishing a season with two losses, being passed over for the Sugar Bowl by a team you barely beat for the first time in 16 years, getting absolutely whacked by your fiercest divisional foe and woebegone South Carolina — and then extending that 18-8 coach for nine-million dollars per year, for almost a decade. Fully. Guaranteed.

No, that’s not an overreaction or anything. Ask Texas A&M how they feel about that contract. Or Michigan State.

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EMMMM VEEEEEEE PEEEEE

Jalen Hurts was named one of the NFL’s six finalists for league MVP. Most expect the award to go to Mahomes. But, honestly, Hurts has been the engine to the Eagles’ meteoric rise to NFC powerhouse.

We are so very happy for Jalen. He’s just your ordinary, overnight, decade-long sensation — he worked so very hard to improve from one week to the next, one game to the next, one season to the next — that despite his limitations as a passer (still), he deserves every bit of success that comes his way.

You can’t measure heart, and his is one of the biggest to ever wear a crimson uniform.

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Basketball recruiting is really heating up this week.

On Saturday, one of the nation’s best pure perimeter shooters is set to commit: 4-star Elijah Moore:

Cardinal Hayes High School and New York Wiz Kids’ guard Elijah Moore, a four-star prospect in the national class of 2024, is set to announce his commitment this coming Saturday, live at noon ET on the 247Sports Channel.

Moore, who is one of the premier three-point shooters in the national junior class, will choose from among five finalists - Alabama, Arkansas, Miami, Oklahoma State, and Syracuse.

Freeman would be a good candidate to replace Jelly’s perimeter shooting.

Meanwhile, in the frontcourt, Alabama has its eyes set on another long swing-forward candidate, 6’8”, 4-star forward Donnie Freeman.

Moore has recently committed to an OV with Alabama.

Four-star power forward Donnie Freeman will take an official visit to Alabama starting Wednesday, he announced on his Twitter account. The Washington (D.C.) St. John’s product is ranked the No. 4 power forward and the No. 32 overall prospect in the country, per the industry-generated 247Sports Composite Rankings.

Freeman holds offers from programs like Maryland, Texas, Iowa, LSU, and Rutgers, among a number of others.

Freeman would most likely fill the shoes left by Noah Clowney’s almost-certain departure at season’s end.

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The anatomy of bullshit.
How the Gumposphere “insider” game is played:

Aaron Suttles posts a very credible story in the Athletic, saying that he’s sure Nick Saban would love to have Jeremy Pruitt back.

That is obviously not a controversial statement. Pruitt is still relatively young (48), is an elite recruiter, is an Alabama native, and one of the best hands-on coaches Saban has ever had. Baldie began his career at Alabama in 1997. Nick Saban’s Alabama team was his first major college job. Alabama won national titles with Pruitt as both a position coach, and the Tide’s most aggressive defensive coordinator.

The ties are deep, and the track record is outstanding. So, sure, it’s fair to say Saban would love to have him back — or at least would seriously consider it, under better circumstances.

From there, that reasoned and sensible opinion moves to Tider Insider, where a notoriously flaky plagiarist cites #sauces to rehash it five minutes after the fact, claiming that it’s already being worked on behind the scene. But appeals could delay the process. Don’t be surprised if it happens. Or doesn’t — nothing is said, in other words, except some vague claims that are wholly unfalsifiable.

From there, that unsubstantiated claim of an alleged insider, citing his alleged insiders, moves on to sports radio, where a guest rehashes it, without being challenged. And this time, the claim is even firmer: the red tape has already been done...but the SEC is dragging its feet on approval.

Nothing is said, in other words. Again.

And from there, 102.9 slaps an “insider report” on the website, citing that radio appearance — but has anything been said? No. Is it reliable? Credible? Hardly. Instead, it is nothing except 4th-order rank hearsay within hearsay within hearsay, based on a fabrication, that began as legitimate above-board speculation by a national beat writer.

Thus, the “ERMAGERD, SEC WON’T LET US HIRE JAR’MY BACK!” Gump Rage Bait is born.

Don’t fall for this people.

Just exercise some credulity, if not basic reasoning, about the process and facts at hand — Pruitt absolutely cheated at Tennessee. Worse, he got caught cheating stupidly. Tennessee has only now received its notice of allegations. The NCAA investigation has not concluded. Pruitt has not been interviewed. No determination has been made. No infractions have handed down.

Think Alabama’s compliance is gonna’ green light that hire? That Saban would be comfortable with a 5-month DC who gets a show cause slapped on him? And, behind the scenes, that the SEC would be okay with its flagship hiring an actual cheater? That the President or Board of Trustees or AD would be copacetic with the appearance of impropriety and the narrative of Alabama-as-win-at-all-cost cheaters? For that matter, do you think Saban would tarnish his end-career legacy like that — after 40 years of being above-board — with open questions about his integrity on the way out the door? Or, god forbid, that you can even trust Pruitt anymore to not get Alabama hammered by the NCAA?

That’s stuff Auburn can get away with — not so much Alabama. Nor am I certain Nick Saban would even want to at this stage. Think Alabama is gonna’ make a hire at either coordinator spot before the NSD deadline arrives in 10 days or so, with potential NLI still in-play.

We’ve seen #sauces take on a new life of their own before, but rarely have we been able to trace the genesis of bullshit from its origin as a Patient Zero of legit analysis into a blossoming pandemic of #online Clout-Chasing and Phallus-Galloping.

Don’t get got, we beg you.

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Finally...

We’ve detailed here at length the various ways that Alabama baseball is shortchanged and shorthanded in comparison to literally every other SEC program.

Want to do something about it? Now’s your chance — you can help participate in the Baseball NIL collective at a pretty awesome fundraising event, with a very reasonable buy-in:

That’s about it for now, have a great day and Roll Tide.