Tag: UAB

Should Group of Five schools conduct their own championship?

Why are we keeping the Group of Five under the same umbrella as the Power Five?

Talk of Big 12 schools leaving the conference for greener pastures means the future of college football has become a hot topic yet again. There’s speculation that longtime rivals Texas and Oklahoma will leave for the SEC. We’ve also heard of Kansas and Iowa State heading to the Big Ten. It makes one wonder if the Big 12 even has a future as a Power Five conference.

Then, amidst all that discussion, you see tweets like this from Statistically Speaking Podcast host Kyle Umlang:

Notre Dame no longer being an independent aside, this graphic gives you pause. Note that some Group of Five schools have been bumped up to Power Five status. “Some” is the key word here. Most of them remain on the outside looking in.

The point is the Power Five conferences only are going to get bigger as time goes on. Unless they eventually admit all Group of Five schools, which is unlikely, what’s even the point of those schools trying to compete with the big boys? Invitations to major bowls already are hard to come by for them, and the new College Football Playoff proposal only serves to benefit the Power Five even more.

Given all of this, there is only one solution: Break the Group of Five conferences away from the Power Five, and let them compete for their own championship. The likes of Northern Illinois and UAB have no hope of winning a national championship under the current or future structure. A new playoff system just for them would at least give them a shot at adding serious hardware to their trophy case. No reasonable college football observer can say they have one now.

Power Five schools still would be allowed to schedule Group of Five schools if they wish, just like they currently do with Football Championship Subdivision Schools. After all, Nick Saban is well within his right to schedule lesser opponents just ahead of the Iron Bowl, as cheap as that is. However, it no longer does any good for the Power Five and Group of Five to compete under the same umbrella. The Group of Five schools barely ever has a shot at New Year’s Six bowls anymore, let alone a national title. That structure is keeping these programs from growing, and they’re stuck where they are as a result.

Let’s discontinue this charade of all Football Bowl Subdivision schools being on equal footing. It’s not true, and everyone knows it. By starting a new playoff for the Group of Five, there would be more opportunities for those schools to play for high stakes, and that would be better for the development of both the players and coaches. When the best you realistically can hope for is a conference championship, something is amiss. At least with March Madness, every Division I conference has a shot at standing above the rest.

Let’s add yet another champion to the college football season. Some might call it a cheap move, but is it any better than what we have now? Heck, the new Division I subdivision can take some of the bowls its team already gets sent to. Would it really bother the Power Five schools if they didn’t get to go to the New Orleans Bowl or Bahamas Bowl?

The national championship is the goal for every team. Give the Group of Five teams a chance. It’s time to set them free from the grips of the Power Five.

Panthers waive DL Frank Herron, sign 2 more

Panthers waive DL Frank Herron, sign 2 more

According to Monday’s waiver wire, the Carolina Panthers have parted ways with Frank Herron. This comes nearly one month after the team signed the 26-year-old defensive tackle.

Herron broke into the NFL as an undrafted free agent with the New England Patriots in the spring of 2018. The 6-foot-4, 305-pounder bounced around a number of practice squads before finally registering on-field action as a Detroit Lion over seven games from 2019 to 2020.

The waiver wire also noted the Panthers have signed two undrafted rookies of their own, bringing in Northwestern University linebacker Paddy Fisher and University of Alabama at Birmingham running back Spencer Brown.

Fisher, 6-foot-3 and 240 pounds, was a four-year starter for the Wildcats. He recorded 401 total tackles, 2.0 sacks and four interceptions.

A four-year standout as well, Brown rushed for 4,011 yards and 41 touchdowns in his collegiate career. He is the only player to be named Conference USA Championship Game MVP twice (2018 and 2020).

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Alabama Baseball: Tide Travels to UAB for Midweek Clash

Alabama Baseball will travel to Birmingham to take on UAB in midweek clash.

A midweek run against two in-state foes begins Tuesday night as the Alabama Crimson Tide (7-1) travels to Downtown Birmingham for a date with the UAB Blazers (5-2) at Regions Park.

Both teams enter the game after sweeping their opponents in three-game weekend series’. Alabama swept Wright State in Tuscaloosa, while UAB took three from Alabama A&M.

Colton Schultz, Jess Davis, and Thomas Johnston are the key bats to watch for the Blazers. Schultz and Davis have each collected 11 hits in seven games played, while Johnston is 9-of-14 with 5 RBI. William Hamiter and Zane Denton are the key run producers for the Tide, with 8 and 7 RBI respectively. Denton leads in hits with 13, Peyton Wilson is not too far behind with 10.

Tuesday’s pitching matchup will feature two players that are searching for their first win, William Freeman for Alabama, and Austin Bohannon for UAB. Freeman struck out five batters over four innings for the Tide against Jacksonville State last Tuesday, while Bohannon has allowed two hits and has struck out seven batters in two appearances in the young season.

First pitch is scheduled for 6 p.m. CT in Birmingham for the Tide and Blazers. The game will be televised through CUSA.tv. The broadcast will also be available on the Crimson Tide Sports Network.

Contact/Follow us @RollTideWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Alabama news, notes and opinion.

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Mark Ingram’s history of not rushing a head coaching hire

Mark Ingram’s history of not rushing a head coaching hire.

Mark Ingram, a former Tennessee long snapper and current UAB Director of Athletics, has been in his current position since 2015.

Ingram is a candidate to fill his alma mater’s vacancy for Director of Athletics.

Since arriving in Birmingham, Alabama, Ingram has made hires in men’s basketball, baseball and softball during his tenure.

Marla Townsend served as UAB’s first softball coach for 18 seasons. She was 532-507 for the Blazers.

Ingram promoted assistant Amanda Ellis as interim head coach for Townsend’s replacement.

Ellis remained in the position for two seasons before Ingram hired Oregon assistant, recruiting coordinator and hitting coach Jimmy Kolaitis. Kolaitis left UAB in July 2020 for Arizona State. Ingram hired Joe Guthrie as Kolaitis’ replacement. Guthrie served as an assistant to Kolaitis.

Brian Shoop retired as UAB’s baseball head coach in May 2020 after a 39-year coaching career and the last 14 with the Blazers. Ingram has elevated assistant Perry Roth as interim head coach for the 2020-21 season.

Mark Ingram. Photo by Dan Harralson, Vols Wire

UAB men’s basketball head coach Jerod Haase left the Blazers for the same position at Stanford following the 2015-16 season.

Ingram promoted assistant Robert Ehsan as Haase’s replacement. Ehsan served as UAB’s head coach through the 2019-20 season. He was relieved of his duties and Ingram hired former Blazer Andy Kennedy as the next head coach.

Ingram inherited football head coach Bill Clark. Clark has been the Blazers’ head coach since 2014.

Tennessee athletics director search: A look at Mark Ingram’s career

Ingram previously discussed his career on the show “Tennessee Two-A-Days.”

The show can be listened to here or below.

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Tennessee athletics director search: A look at Mark Ingram’s career

Tennessee athletics director search: A look at Mark Ingram’s career

The University of Tennessee is currently searching for its next Director of Athletics.

Dec. 2, 2014 was a day UAB president Ray Watts announced that the school would be shutting down its football program.

Following Watts’ announcement, UAB fans, alumni, students and supporters rallied to successfully save the program with an announced return taking place June 1, 2015.

One month before the announced return of football, Mark Ingram was hired as UAB’s director of athletics on May 1, leaving his position as executive senior associate athletics director at Temple.

Ingram’s history in athletics on the collegiate level began as a two-year starting long snapper at Tennessee from 1995-96, playing alongside Peyton Manning. Ingram later completed a master’s degree at UT in sports administration in 1997.

He joined UT’s athletics department in 1998, serving as an assistant director of development.

From 2002-06, Ingram was an assistant athletics director for development at the University of Missouri, and then served in the same role at the University of Georgia before returning to Tennessee in 2007 as senior associate athletics director.

During his time working in UT’s athletics department, Ingram helped with renovations across campus. His responsibilities were raising money and working on design that included getting Charlie Anderson on board to build the Anderson Training Center with a $48 million contribution.

UAB’s football return

UAB head coach Bill Clark and Director of Athletics Mark Ingram. Photo by Dan Harralson, Vols Wire

UAB returned to competition during the 2017 season after not fielding a team for the 2015-16 campaigns.

Since the return, UAB has been invited to four bowl games and have won Conference USA twice.

Ingram previously discussed with Vols Wire the waiting game in fielding a team and UAB having to build a roster from scratch.

“The waiting game, putting the team back together — we spent a lot of time with a team of people with the NCAA including Oliver Luck at the time, Kevin Lennon and so many others who were very helpful to us in putting the roster back together, which is more complicated than it probably seems,” Ingram told Vols Wire. “One may think maybe to just go recruit this many players and this many next year, and so on and so on.

“In order to get back on the field by 2017, you had to put a roster together in about 18 months. You needed some older players so that you could have graduates, so it seems funny to recruit a kid so that he will leave you, but you needed some one and two year guys, and we did that. Hats off to the players themselves who came to us in that first semester in the the fall of 2015 and the winter of 2016. They knew we were not going to play until the fall of 2017.”

The NCAA granted waivers so that any UAB commit would not lose their eligibility, having their eligibility clock frozen while the program was dormant from competition.

While players were committing to UAB and patiently practicing and scrimmaging ahead of the 2017 season, money continued to be pledged and raised for the program.

The UAB Football Operations Facility and Legacy Pavilion, featuring 46,000 square feet of meeting spaces, weight rooms, cardio spaces, large hot and cold pools, cryogenic therapy areas, a player lounge and three practice fields was built and finished prior to the first game in 2017.

The facility cost $22.5 million, coming from donations after the shutdown and resurrection of the football program.

“For players to have the faith in us that they showed, and the patience to wait it out knowing what could be, and fortunately we held true to our word in terms of raising money to build a practice facility that would be world-class, which we have not only raised the money — but we built the facility and moved in a month before our first game in 2017,” Ingram said.

Ingram further discussed his career on the show “Tennessee Two-A-Days.”

The show can be listened to here or below.

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Updated list of this weekend’s cancelled/postponed college football games

The full list of the now 14 games that have been canceled or postponed in college football this weekend.

It seems like each time you refresh your Twitter feed this week there is more bad news for college football as yet another game is being cancelled or postponed.

That was the case for me as I just hit refresh as I sat down after lunch and the news of Utah and UCLA getting called-off showed up.

Add it to the ever-growing list as COVID-19 has hit college football hard this week and teams and conferences understandably proceed with the season under plenty of caution.

Here is a list of all the college football games that have been either cancelled or postponed for this weekend:

No. 1 Alabama at LSU
No. 3 Ohio State at Maryland
No. 5 Texas A&M at Tennessee
No. 12 Georgia at Missouri
No. 15 Coastal Carolina at Troy
No. 24 Auburn at Mississippi State
North Texas at UAB
Rice at Louisiana Tech
Memphis at Navy
Pittsburgh at Georgia Tech
Air Force at Wyoming
California at Arizona State
UL Monroe at Arkansas State
Utah at UCLA

14 games in total are off for this weekend as college football continues to play through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Gators News: October 16, 2020

Florida’s football squad has been sidelined by a COVID-19 outbreak, while the cross country team travels to Alabama and soccer hosts Vandy.

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Typically on an October Friday, Gators fans are gearing up for their favorite football to take the field on Saturday, but alas, this is no typical Friday. Due to an outbreak of the novel coronavirus on UF’s football squad, its home game against the LSU Tigers tomorrow has been postponed until Dec. 12.

In the meantime, Florida’s biggest rival gets set to play in the biggest game of this season so far when No. 2 Alabama and No. 3 Georgia meet up in Tuscaloosa. More than just a potential preview of this year’s SEC championship game, the result of Saturday’s matchup will echo across the Power Five landscape and wield a heavy influence on the makeup of the College Football Playoff.

The Crimson Tide will likely be without coach Nick Saban due to a positive COVID-19 test, but he said Wednesday that says he’s ‘feeling great’ and would ‘hate’ to miss the game against the Bulldogs. Saban did not make any reference to the results of his daily test on Thursday but did seem to hold the door slightly open for a possible return to the sideline for Saturday’s game.

In Gators athletics news, the men’s and women’s cross country teams travel to Hoover, Ala., today to participate in the Blazer Classic, hosted by the University of Alabama-Birmingham. Florida joins Arkansas, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Kentucky, Middle Tennessee State, Mississippi State (women’s race), Ole Miss, Tennessee and Vanderbilt in the field of competition.

Coming up Sunday, the soccer team hosts the Vanderbilt Commodores in Gainesville. Florida leads the all-time series, 28-3-1, won their most recent meeting, 1-0, on Sept. 29, 2019 and carries a 1-1-1 record heading into their fourth game of the SEC-only schedule.

Around the Swamp

It’s great to be a Florida Gator!

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College football returns: How to watch, game picks

College football returns with two games on Thursday night. How to watch plus Longhorns Wire makes their picks.

On Thursday night, college football returns with two matchups on the horizon. Central Arkansas is hoping to win their second game of the season when they travel to Birmingham, Alabama to take on the UAB Blazers. The second game of the night will be between South Alabama and Southern Miss.

Longhorns Wire returns with another weekly edition of game picks. Each staff member chooses whether to take the favorite or the underdog as well as their predictions on if the spread will be covered.

Central Arkansas-Alabama Birmingham (-20.5) Winner South Alabama-Southern Miss (-13.5)  Winner ATS Record Outright record
Patrick Central Arkansas UAB South Alabama USM 0-1 1-0
Griffin UAB UAB South Alabama USM 1-0 1-0
Cami UAB UAB USM USM 1-0 1-0

How to watch Central Arkansas vs UAB

Game Time: 7:00 pm CST

Network: ESPN3

Stream: ESPN App

How to watch South Alabama vs Southern Miss

Game Time: 8:00 pm CST

Network: CBS Sports

Stream: CBS App

Contact/Follow us @LonghornsWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Texas news, notes and opinions.

We have a forum and message board now. Get in on the conversation about Texas Longhorns athletics by joining the Longhorns Wire Forum.

Greg Bryant, Jr.’s Death Still Stings Four Years Later

It’s been four years since former Notre Dame running back Greg Bryant, Jr. needlessly lost his life in a case that remains unsolved.

It was Mother’s Day weekend in 2016 when shocking news came out of West Palm Beach, Florida that former Notre Dame running back Greg Bryant, Jr. had been shot and ultimately killed.

You can discuss the what’s, how’s and why’s to this for days on end and not come up with anything that makes any sense.  It was shocking and made no sense then.

Four years later it still stings to think about and still lacks any answers.

Bryant wasn’t perfect – none of us are.

He was a young man who happened to be a really gifted football player that had teammates who adored him.

His second season at Notre Dame in 2014 he took a significant step, scoring three rushing touchdowns and at the time, recording the longest punt return of the Brian Kelly era at Notre Dame.  Notre Dame’s second leading rusher in 2014 seemed primed to take a leap in ’15.

2015 never came for Bryant at Notre Dame though as he was ruled ineligible and left campus, stopping at a junior college in Miami before announcing his commitment to the restarted UAB football program.

While home from UAB on Mother’s Day weekend Bryant was out late before the shooting took place.  Is that important to mention where he was?  Some say yes because perhaps it helps tell the story they’re hoping to tell despite knowing any exact facts.

To me Bryant went to a place that plenty of 21 years old males have attended before and plenty more continue to do.  Some people out there like to act like he was asking for trouble by doing such a thing, but was whatever went down worth taking someone’s life over?

I don’t know what happened there or after he left but I do know whatever it was, it certainly wasn’t worth a 21 year old man losing his life.

I don’t know if Greg Bryant, Jr. would have made the NFL but was on his to graduating from college, something he never wound up getting the chance to do.

Greg Bryant, Jr. never got a chance to walk down the aisle and get married.

Greg Bryant, Jr. never got to see his middle years and share nights reliving the glory days with his old high school buddies.

Greg Bryant, Jr. never got the chance to be a father and impact his child’s life as positively as his father did for him.

It stung then and still stings just as much now when you take a moment to remember Bryant.

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Alabama baseball defeats UAB 13-7 on the road, moves on to 16-1

On Tuesday, Alabama baseball defeated UAB on the road in Birmingham, 13-7, while moving on the 16-1 on the season. 

On Tuesday, Alabama baseball defeated UAB on the road in Birmingham, 13-7, while moving on the 16-1 on the season.

Offensively for the Tide, all nine starters for the Tide recorded an RBI, including Diodati who finished the game 2-4 with one run scored and also drew two walks.

On the mound, Alabama used 7 pitchers, including Rukes who went three innings who only gave up one hit.

Alabama who is now ranked within the top 25, will face Missouri in their first SEC 3 game home series starting Friday.

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