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.
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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
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.
“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.
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.
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.
Dynamic Kyle duo Trask and Pitts remain on ESPN’s Heisman Watch: Though each of their respective stocks took a bit of a dip following Florida’s first loss of the season to Texas A&M last weekend, Florida’s duo of Kyles remains on the ESPN Heisman Watch going into Week 7.
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.
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.
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.
Accomplished way to much to stop here. Got so much more to accomplish.
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.
Notre Dame’s baseball team was supposed to start their second set of games Thursday evening in San Antonio against Incarnate Word but mother nature had other plans
Notre Dame’s baseball team was supposed to start their second set of games Thursday evening in San Antonio against Incarnate Word but mother nature had other plans as inclement weather has caused it to be canceled and will not be made up.
Notre Dame is set to play Incarnate Word in an already scheduled game Friday night with first pitch set for 7:00 p.m. ET before taking on Toldeo on Saturday afternoon and the University of Texas San Antonio on Sunday.
🚨 GAME UPDATE 🚨
Tonight's Notre Dame game against Incarnate Word has been canceled due to inclement weather.
Game times maybe adjusted for tomorrow so stayed tuned for more updates.
Notre Dame started the year last weekend taking two of three games at UAB. Mitch Megias, Tommy Vail and Joe Boyle set down the final 17 batters of the series-deciding
game last Sunday and allowed just one baserunner and no hits over the final six innings that led new head coach Link Jarrett to his first series win at Notre Dame.
Friday saw Notre Dame get the Link Barrett era as manager off to a positive start as the Irish won 4-2 over the Blazers after being led by Tommy Sheehan who threw seven innings of scoreless ball
On Saturday, game two of a three game set to start the 2020 baseball season starts at 2 p.m. ET in Birmingham, Alabama. Notre Dame will be looking to move to 2-0 on the new campaign.
Before that though, relive Opening Day quickly by checking out the highlights below!
Friday saw Notre Dame get the Link Barrett era as manager off to a positive start as the Irish won 4-2 over the Blazers after being led by Tommy Sheehan who threw seven innings of scoreless ball. See the highlights here:
While you are waiting for today’s game to get started, check out all the highlights from Friday’s 4-2 opening day win!#GoIrish ☘️ pic.twitter.com/ycUpqWzeSh
