Did ya hear? Nick Saban said a bad word!
CFB Huddle’s rarely-heard-from guest columnist The SEC Bro broke down Steph Curry winning NBA MVP in the spring, and wrote the following:
I guess he did play at Davidson, though, and they’re on Alabama’s schedule the week before the Iron Bowl. Coach Saban says that’ll be the toughest game all year, so I guess I have to give Curry props there.
Pretty cool when life imitates art.
I won’t belabor the point too much. Those who defend the SEC’s tactic of essentially building a bye week into the most heated stretch of the season as smart strategy aren’t wrong. Unfair or not, it’s an advantage. A loss in November has historically been more damaging to a team’s championship chances than one sustained early in the season. Nothing in Year 2 of the College Football Playoff rankings suggest that’s changed.
I don’t blame Saban for his tirade. There isn’t coach in this or any sport who purposefully slights an opponent — barring a few exceptions — and coach-speak is a careful choosing of words to describe an opponent.
That message is fine for keeping the team focused, but for anyone else, the suggestion Charleston Southern poses any serious challenge to Alabama is an insult to our intelligence. Fitting; if the SEC’s late-season cupcake scheduling is “smart,” the implication is that the rest of college football’s strategy is dumb.
The Week 12 Saturday Six-Pack is bereft of SEC games, though Ole Miss and LSU try to out-backslide one another in Oxford, and Arkansas has a prime opportunity to affirm its status as the SEC West’s second-best team at home against Mississippi State. That’s the same Arkansas that lost to Toledo and Texas Tech, just FYI.
Instead, the Six-Pack turns its focus to conference championship and Playoff-implicated contests elsewhere around college football. This time of year should be about defining contenders, and an offering of make-or-break contests promise to do just that.
Click the page numbers below to continue through the Week 12 Saturday Six-Pack.
SATURDAY’S SIX-PACK: 4 Hands/Bale Breaker/Stone Sorry Not Sorry Double IPA
In honor of the SEC’s shameless, albeit collectively unapologetic scheduling, I raise a glass of the 4 Hands/Bale Breaker/Stone collaborative effort, Sorry Not Sorry Double IPA.
This one comes in a single bottle and not a six-pack — which is for the best. At 9.3% ABV, it packs a wallop.
Sorry Not Sorry is definitely not for the faint of heart, perhaps more worthy of Saturday Six-Pack induction in honor of the Big 12’s November gauntlet than of the SEC cupcake platter.
