The Bloody Horns Field Is Set!

Thanks to all you guys who stepped up. Here's the final field sheet, with foursome pairings and rules. Let's hope for good weather!

"Ohio State Tattoo Parlor, Meet Alabama's Suit Parlor"

Well, well... well.

This is going to be interesting.

Here we have one of the Mount Rushmore-caliber college football programs in the country, with a stuff-for-autographs scandal brewing that appears to be a carbon copy of the dynamics that brought down Jim Tressel at Ohio State.

Mind you, Nick Saban has yet to blatantly lie to the NCAA about this - yet - but who knows where it's headed.

We pick up the excellent legwork on the ground from Outkick The Coverage.com....

As the T-Town Menswear story continues to grow, one of the most interesting aspects of the story has been the degree to which a middle-aged suit store owner ingratiated himself with the Alabama football program. As you've seen from our previous story hundreds of Alabama players have been pictured hanging out at his store. 

Including Julio Jones at the above picture, trying on a suit coat inside the store.
Why are so many players hanging out here? 

How many mall stores did you regularly hang out at while you were in college? 

The only real reason why so many Alabama players would be hanging out at this store is simple -- because they were getting hooked up in some way. Ohio State's tattoo parlor meet Alabama's suit parlor.

The basics are as follows.

Mall store owner has easily 100 or so Alabama players he is "friends" with. They sign stuff for him. He sells that signed stuff.

And we're supposed to believe that the players will do this for anybody - like say, the Dairy Queen down the road, not at the mall, and not with access to $1000 plus tailored suits.

Uh, sure.

Julio Jones - who proudly recounted how his single mother worked to raise him by working at fast food chicken joints - apparently wore up to 16 different suits while playing for Alabama and walking in from the team bus.

At 6-4, 220, he's not borrowing them, either.

The store manager won't talk.
The owner of the memorabilia company won't talk.
Alabama says there are no violations.

And yet, they are voluntarily "disassociating" with the guy for 3 years.

Hmm. Doesn't ESPN have a 15 year, $2 BILLION deal with that same conference.

Why, yes. Yes they do. Wonder if this story gets equal scrutiny as Ohio State.

Ahhh. Sure it will. Of course. Right?

If They Are Happy, Then I Am Happy....

.... with the lockout settlement.

I mean, I don't get it. But hey, it's their league. Their money. Their brains.

Not mine.

I stand by my lengthy, and well argued post from the weekend.

But that's over.

Let it rot on the digital scrapheap of the interwebs and the graveyard of cached pages on Google's search servers.

If I were the players...

I would have pushed for nothing less than the former revenue split of 53-47 in our favor.
I would have absolutely insisted on getting rid of franchise and transition "tags."
I would have certainly said: "A five year deal is enough. Let's see how it goes."

Given how panicked the league is to get in Week 1 of the pre-season, it would seem the players had excruciating leverage over the owners. What would a lockout that dragged into October have done?

We'll never know.

That said, happy, happy, happy.

Perhaps the best analogy is from the Sopranos. Episode 69: "The Fleshy Part of The Thigh."

Back home, Phil comes to Tony with Johnny Sack's final offer: T keeps his paycheck and W-2 for 10 years and 12 percent of the sale price – but no skim. Tony agrees. “Truth be told, there's enough garbage for everybody.”

Amen. Let the garbage trucks roll!