Fence Sitter wrote:I never thought I would actually feel sorry for Alabama. I was really pulling for Clemson but I really just wanted to see a moderately close game. What we had was a showcase for both Ross & Lawrence. Two of those catches by Ross were just ridiculous.
The irony is that Justin Ross is from Alabama and was the #1 prospect in the state who left for Clemson because there was too much talent at Alabama and he didn't want to compete for a starting spot. Dabo Swinney played at Alabama the year before I was there. When Nick Saban retires, Swinney is likely to succeed him. He owes Alabama more than he could ever repay them probably.
He and his mother were homeless at the time and Dabo was a walk on who had to take his Mom with him and they lived in their car for much of the time when not staying at a friend's house. His Mom worked herself into debt trying to pay his tuition, Coach Stallings was aware of the situation and put him on scholarship. He was on the 1992 championship team.
Trevor Lawrence played at Cartersville which is just 15 minutes away from me. He and Justin Fields (from Kennesaw, 5 minutes away) were the #1 and #2 prospects in the country coming out of high school last year. Georgia Bulldogs opted to push for Fields as a recruit instead of Lawrence. Boy did that backfire. Fields just transferred to Ohio State after not seeing enough playing time and playing back up.
Makes you realize that those barbs against Notre Dame losing to Clemson were predicated upon Alabama being the best team and Clemson being an "also ran". Those barbs turned out to be the random background noise of the universe.
Kevin Graham wrote:The irony is that Justin Ross is from Alabama and was the #1 prospect in the state who left for Clemson because there was too much talent at Alabama and he didn't want to compete for a starting spot. Dabo Swinney played at Alabama the year before I was there. When Nick Saban retires, Swinney is likely to succeed him. He owes Alabama more than he could ever repay them probably.
He and his mother were homeless at the time and Dabo was a walk on who had to take his Mom with him and they lived in their car for much of the time when not staying at a friend's house. His Mom worked herself into debt trying to pay his tuition, Coach Stallings was aware of the situation and put him on scholarship. He was on the 1992 championship team.
Trevor Lawrence played at Cartersville which is just 15 minutes away from me. He and Justin Fields (from Kennesaw, 5 minutes away) were the #1 and #2 prospects in the country coming out of high school last year. Georgia Bulldogs opted to push for Fields as a recruit instead of Lawrence. Boy did that backfire. Fields just transferred to Ohio State after not seeing enough playing time and playing back up.
After that second catch by Ross, I turned to my wife and said: "That catch alone probably means several million dollars more for that kid when he signs with the NFL." If they were both in the next draft, Lawrence would go first and Ross in the top ten, maybe even top five.
"Any over-ritualized religion since the dawn of time can make its priests say yes, we know, it is rotten, and hard luck, but just do as we say, keep at the ritual, stick it out, give us your money and you'll end up with the angels in heaven for evermore."