Tide Tidbits – March 13, 2010

Alabama begins spring football work
Marcell Dareus is Exhibit A for why Alabama’s fourth-quarter conditioning program was particularly intense this offseason. Dareus, remember, was the most outstanding defensive player in the national championship victory over Texas. After Alabama’s first spring practice on Friday, Dareus still struggled for words when asked about his game-breaking interception and return for touchdown late in the first half. “Overwhelming,” Dareus finally offered. “I could not describe it. I was still speechless after the game. … I just didn’t believe I accomplished that. It was amazing.” Which pretty much underscores the challenge Nick Saban and his coaching staff are facing in the afterglow of the program’s first national championship in 17 years. Dareus also acknowledged that coaches have made it clear that last year is over. “They stressed it a lot,” the 6-foot-3, 280-pound defensive lineman from Birmingham. “We talked about making a legacy of our own. We can’t live off last year’s team. We’ve got to start our own path and we’ve got to do it ourselves.” [More]

Tide RB Terry Grant decides to forgo a fifth year of college football
Terry Grant’s once-promising college football career is over. The running back from Lumberton, Miss., has decided not to come back for a fifth year of eligibility, as has receiver Travis Sikes. “He’s been injured two years in a row,” Alabama coach Nick Saban said of Grant, who had two surgeries for a sports hernia. “He decided because of injuries — he’s already graduated — that he would not come back for his fifth year. He does qualify for a medical, if we need to do that, so he can continue academically. [More]

Nick Saban: The Second Coming Of Gene Stallings?
As many are getting beginning to exalt Nick Saban as the second coming of the Bear, let’s take a look back at Alabama’s last national championship head coach, Gene Stallings. Gene Stallings, while having previous college football head coaching experience at Texas A&M, came to Alabama from the NFL Arizona Cardinals where he had compiled a less-than-stellar record. Nick Saban, having been at Toledo, Michigan State, and LSU, came to Alabama from the NFL Miami Dolphins where he had a losing record. Both also had previous NFL assistant experience. In 1990, Stallings’s first season at Alabama, he went 7-5. In 2007, Saban went 7-6. While Stallings’s had one fewer loss than Saban, teams played one fewer game back then. We’ll see more of this. [More]

Jones taking spring break in Haiti
Most University of Alabama football players will go into spring break next week looking to get away from stress. Barrett Jones will be walking into more of it than he can imagine. The Crimson Tide’s starting offensive guard will travel to Haiti next week to volunteer to help earthquake victims. “With the earthquake there have been a lot of people who have lost their parents. There are a lot of orphans,” Jones said. “I’m working in a little village called Pignon, and it’s actually now a refugee camp for a lot of the survivors of the earthquake. It was (a town of) something like 20,000 people, and now it’s like 100,000 people. So many people have come from Port-au-Prince. Now people are starting to relocate and get their lives back in order. Another thing we’re doing is unloading supplies and distributing them to the people who need them.” [More]

Museum showcases trophy
The last time most people got this close to the trophy was Jan. 9, with walls of Dr Pepper standing guard at Walmart. But now the Waterford crystal football atop an onyx stand, announcing the University of Alabama Crimson Tide as 2009 national champions, shines under lights and behind glass at the Paul W. Bryant Museum. Fans have been asking to see the trophy “all day, every day” virtually since the bowl championship game ended, said Bryant Museum director Ken Gaddy. While much of the museum has its traditional displays from year to year, the American Football Coaches Association trophy, weighing 45 pounds and standing 34 inches tall, sits as the centerpiece of a wall display dedicated to modern UA happenings. Also featured are some of the other 2009 awards: the SEC Championship Trophy, a duplicate of the Butkus Award given to Rolando McClain, and a space for the Heisman Trophy, which the museum hopes to get on loan in the near future. There were actually two Heisman awards made. The one the Bryant Museum hopes to borrow is now at the UA athletic department. [More]

Roll Tide!

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