GUMP DAY! Let us celebrate S-E-C SPEEEEED

Alabama Basketball has an epic recruiting class entering the 2022-2023 season. It is do good that Nate Oats thinks it is scaring off portal targets.

Alabama men’s basketball coach Nate Oats believes the team’s current roster has made it harder for his team to fill its two open scholarships for the upcoming season.

“We’re trying to use them,” Oats said Wednesday at the Regions Tradition Pro-Am. “Couple guys we’ve gone after have gotten a little scared of our current roster. We need somebody that’s willing to fight for minutes. We’ve got a pretty good roster right now.”

How good it the incoming class? It sits at 3rd in the nation, just behind Duke and Arkansas, with four Blue Chip commitments (incouding two five-stars). And, in quality index, it is 9th overall — even the one three-star player that “drags down” the overall rankings is JUCO’s No. 1 power forward (and 4th-ranked overall), Nick Pringle. So it’s not like this is a project player.

The future is now and there are some great players out there who can still come in to make a difference for a ‘Bama offense that has to run a deep bench. They just have to be willing to fight for it.

This is a really nice problem to have, y’all. I’m not gonna lie.

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S-E-C SPEEEEED

Isaiah Bond is a burner with elite track speed, and he’s already on campus hoping to make an immediate difference.

Arriving in Tuscaloosa, Ala., on Sunday, May 29, Bond has spent the last few months before he enrolls at UA focusing on maintaining his weight – he fluctuates between 175 and 180 pounds – and improving arguably the top trait he brings to the table as a football player: his speed.

The Buford (Ga.) High School star believes his track background will benefit him in college.

“It’s gonna help me a lot,” Bond told BamaOnLine. “Speed kills, and there’s not gonna be a lot of players at the next level that’s gonna be able to keep up with that.”

Bond is one of several incoming wideouts that ran track in high school, and the native of Buford, Ga., posted a number of impressive times during his senior year. In the indoor season, he ran a personal record of 6.83 in the 60-meter dash on Jan. 29 before participating in three outdoor events. Bond was part of Buford’s 4x100 team and posted a 10.7 in the 100-meter dash at the Middle Georgia Distance Carnival on March 5, a season record for the senior.

The final evolution of Alabama’s offense is complete. This is an offense that wins getting the ball in space and letting god-given talent do the rest. They say you can’t coach speed, and to some extent that is true. But you can coach explosiveness...so just wait until Bond spends a year with Coach Ballou and ‘Bama’s otherworldly S&C program.

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This is going to trigger Kirby

Guess who’s teaming up for joint practices and scrimmages? Why, yes, that would be Jalen Hurts and Tua Tagovailoa.

It’s Gump Day, so relive the magic.

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Tide 102.9 makes an interesting case that the situation in the running back room for the 2022 Crimson Tide is eerily similar to that of 2013.

We’ll have to see about that, but the preview of the ‘backs is a pretty good one nonetheless.

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It’s going to be very hard to keep Earl Little Jr. off the field this year. He can do so many different things and play at so many different positions, that he is an immediate asset to a secondary that was exceptionally suspect and/or injured last season

He will arrive on campus later this month with the summer enrollees and join a deep and talented secondary in Tuscaloosa. The Tide return four players that made at least five starts in 2021, including Jordan Battle, DeMarcco Hellams, Brian Branch and Kool-Aid McKinstry. Malachi Moore also has double-digit starts under his belt. LSU transfer Eli Ricks and Khyree Jackson will also be the mix in this fall and redshirt freshman Terrion Arnold gives them tremendous depth.

“I’ll be moving around,” Little told BamaOnline. “Obviously the corner and the star position, that’s what I’ve been playing in high school. I’ve played all three positions – safety, corner and Star in high school, but they wanna start me out at that those two particularly as soon as I get there.”

Like Kool Aid and Khyre last season, Little’s issue entering the year isn’t talent, it’s just lack of experience. And methinks he’ll get thrown into the fire early.

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This is an interesting take...and one that history will likely prove to be incorrect. “Alabama won’t dominate in the NIL era.”

Much the same thing was said by changing bump rules, scholarship limitations, the transfer portal, guaranteed scholarships, early signing periods, and every other gimmick: It’s simply hard for some people to realize that what you do with the talent is far more important than just getting it on campus. Ask USC or Texas or Michigan or Penn State or any number of teams that perpetually sign Top 10 classes and do very little with them.

The only thing that can defang Nick Saban is the grave.

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One player that is “fully committed” but that teams keep making a run at is rising five-start Jahlil Gurley. The most aggressive shitweasel suitor has been Auburn, blowing up the DBs phone despite his drop-dead date of April 24th having come and gone.

Hurley came from a family of Auburn fans, but Coman said he soon became a fan of college football as Hurley learned technique and watched more games. He’d wear an LSU shirt at one practice then dawn [don sic] Crimson Tide gear the next day. Coman stressed building relationships with coaches that covered more than football. An inauspicious first meeting with Nick Saban — the legendary head coach always coaching, chiding Hurley for his hand placement — forged a bond.

“(Recruiters) still call (Hurley), but he tells them straight-up, ‘I’m fully committed,’” Coman said.

Nick Saban doesn’t sugar coat anything for anyone. And that honesty has paid off far more than promising the world.

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