Alabama’s top-ranked Crimson Tide will make its first trip to Columbia to play Missouri as an SEC opponent this Saturday.
This one, however, will have even more special meaning for Alabama coach Nick Saban and Missouri coach Gary Pinkel, two coaches whose careers have been intertwined since their days as collegiate teammates at Kent State.
“Gary was actually one year behind me in school, so I was a senior when he was a junior,” Saban said. “I have always had a tremendous amount of respect for the kind of person that Gary is. He was a hard worker and very smart football-wise. We spent one year as GAs and part-time coaches. We were not assistants, so I did have an opportunity to work with him, and I do think that Don James had a tremendous impact.
“I can’t speak for Gary, but on me, in terms of my whole philosophy in dealing with players, personal development programs, academic support programs, talking about things relative to football as well as program oriented things, how to recruit, how to evaluate players. I learned a lot,” he said.
“When I first started coaching, (Don) James was so well-organized that I just assumed that any place that you went, that’s how everybody did things. When I left Kent State and went to other places, I was like, ‘Wow, Coach James was way ahead of all of this.’
Saban was named head coach at Toledo in 1990 and after a 9-2 season, he left for the defensive coordinator’s job with the NFL’s Cleveland Browns. When Saban left Toledo he recommended Pinkel as his replacement. Pinkel got the job and stayed there 10 seasons. Both coaches owe a lot of their coaching philosophies to James, their coach at Kent State. Besides playing for James, Pinkel also spent time as an assistant on James’ Washington Huskies staff.
“I know Gary was exposed to the same thing and was with Coach James a lot longer, and I felt bad about leaving Toledo after one year and I knew the best person out there for that program would be Gary. I was just happy that he got the job, and he did fabulous job there for a long time and he has done a fabulous job at Missouri,” Saban said.
Alabama’s No. 1 ranking portends a tough day for the Tigers. Missouri is 0-12 all-time against No. 1 teams. In fact, Missouri’s only win over a No. 1 team of any major poll came in 2010 when Oklahoma came to Columbia as the No. 1 team in the BCS ranking but was only No. 3 in the Associated Press poll. Missouri won 36-27 behind quarterback Blaine Gabbert. Now the Tigers will try to knock Alabama out of the top spot in the polls.
“This is an important game to us,” said Saban. “It’s an SEC game. We are playing in a place where no one in our team meeting today has ever been before, including me. We are playing a new opponent that, in my mind, is a very challenging opponent for a lot of reasons. They are a very good defensive team. They are ranked nationally in most categories. Defensively, they are physical, tough and aggressive.”
But Missouri is also hurting. The Tigers had a rough game last week in the loss to Vanderbilt. Linebacker Will Ebner missed the game with a bad hamstring. Tailback/punt-returner Marcus Murphy dislocated his right ring finger in the first quarter. Quarterback James Franklin sprained his left knee as did center Mitch Morse in the third quarter.
Alabama will be making its first trip to Columbia since a 1978 visit that resulted in a 38-20 Alabama victory. …
It is nice to get a win after four consecutive losses. After beating Auburn 24-7, Arkansas interim coach John L. Smith opened his first of the week press conference with these words: “It’s a great day to be alive. Good day.”
Arkansas has not had many good days this fall, but Smith was quick to give props to his players who have persevered through more bad days than good ones since Bob Petrino’s fateful motorcycle ride.
“Those guys deserve a tremendous pat on the back,” he added. “Now we have to build on that. They have to continue to do that this week.” …
Another coach who has suffered through some bad days this fall is Auburn’s Gene Chizik, who claims he is not thinking about his job security. He might be the only person not thinking about it. Auburn fans certainly are spending time thinking about Chizik’s job status. The question is whether athletic director Jay Jacobs is thinking about it.
“We don’t have leadership,” freshman receiver Sammie Coates said after the loss to Arkansas. “Everybody talks about wanting to win, but nobody is showing how they want to win.”
Ouch.
“I think that if you’re going to ask a young man a question, you’re going to get his true feelings,” Chizik said. “The bottom line is when you’re in a situation that we’re in right now, where you’re not as successful as you’d like to be and you’re not as successful as you’ve been in the past, then you have frustrated feelings with some guys. That’s the opinion of one man.
“I feel really, really good about the majority of our team being right on point. I have no issues with that. The message is very simple, man. You don’t practice and play and participate based on the circumstances. You’re one way all the time, and that means you’re always working towards improving and winning. Again, that’s one guy’s opinion.”
Chizik needs to consider whether it is truly one guy’s opinion or is it the opinion of the one guy who was bold enough to speak out.
”I think it’s good that you have guys and leaders on the team that believe that. I think it sends a good message to guys right now that are frustrated and maybe not playing as much as they’d like and things of that nature, all those things that go along with when things aren’t going exactly the way you want it,” Chizik said.
It’s a sure bet that unless the Tigers can reverse their field and post a win against Ole Miss on Saturday, Coates might not be the only one speaking out. …
For the first time in over a year-and-a-half, LSU coach Les Miles had his “Lunch with Les” press conference following a regular season loss. Predictably, he wasn’t happy about it.
“Our football team is certainly stunned a little about the outcome,” Miles said. “Our football team is going through some changes. We need to play better in a number of ways. It is not an effort thing. I enjoyed my team’s effort. We have to play smarter.”
Miles admits his team hasn’t developed the way he thought it would.
“I don’t think there’s an easy answer there,” he said. “I have to tell you that I don’t have the flexibility to speculate about this or that, or if this guy was here or that guy was here. The flexibility that I have is to have the team that I have coached as best as I can. To sit on the sidelines and speculate about why this or that happened doesn’t necessarily benefit me when I know the answers. So what we’re about to do is just continue to work on efficiency, executing and doing the right things. We’re setting out to fix them. That’s certainly what we’re about.”
LSU needs to get its problems fixed quickly. The No. 3-ranked South Carolina Gamecocks will be in Tiger Stadium for a Saturday night game.