Alabama Football: No News is Good News
By: Larry Burton
When it comes to football news this time of year, the best news is no news at all and that’s basically what we’ve gotten from Tuscaloosa and the Alabama Crimson Tide football team.
What has come out is what we already knew, a looming quarterback battle is set for the future, Kenyan Drake is recovering well and Saban has brought in another bumper crop of recruits and some fantastic new coaches. That’s not news, that’s simply expected.
Why that’s good news is that when there’s news this time of year, it’s because someone is in trouble, a player has run afoul of the rules or a crisis is on the horizon.
So what there has been to report is that running back Tyren Jones. a good redshirt sophomore running back, has done the infamous “conduct not to the standard of the Alabama football program” violation. What we know is little. Saban rarely tells us what they’ve done, how long they’re in the doghouse for or what they have to do to get out of it.
March 13th starts spring practice and then they’ll be lots to talk about then. But even that will be mostly speculative. Saban won’t let us into practices and what he tells us in press conferences is only slightly better than not watching practice.
But for writers, it’s a great time to take time off. Since the national championship series loss, I’ve spent time in Fort Lauderdale, did a great cruise in the Caribbean, spent a week with Mickey Mouse in Orlando and I’m off to Alaska for another cruise soon, all thanks to the non news coming out of Tuscaloosa.
So while I could write stories like “Who Will Have the Highest Yards Per Carry, Henry or Drake?” or “Why Alabama Should Invest in the Future by Starting a Quarterback Other Than Coker”, I’ll wait until something happens that deserves to be said or just rankles my ire.
Therefore, I may be one of the very few that is glad there is nothing new to report.
But I do want to say, kudos for the girls softball team is 10 and 1 and looking extremely like a national contender. Way to go girls! And speaking of girls, the gymnastics team is kicking ass also and is the number 5 team in the nation and is also looking like yet another national contending team. Just because there’s no football news doesn’t mean that you don’t have some pretty magnificent things going on in Tuscaloosa to be proud of.
Larry has been published in almost every media outlet for college sports and now primarily writes here for Touchdown Alabama. Follow Larry on Twitter for inside thoughts and game time comments at https://twitter.com/LBSportswriter  Thanks for sharing the link to this story on your Facebook page!
