Second Spring Football Scrimmage Tomorrow; NCAA Bans Satellite Football Camps Effective Immediately

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Second Spring Football Scrimmage Tomorrow

Photo Credit: RollTide.com

The Alabama Crimson Tide football team suits up for their second scrimmage of the spring tomorrow. Alabama coaches have been focusing practices since scrimmage number one towards today, addressing specific areas they felt needed particular work. Head football coach NICK SABAN commented this week, "We're really focused on trying to make a lot of improvement based on what we saw in the (first) scrimmage."

Saban had also mentioned on Wednesday being a little frustrated with where things stood with the team right now, but did say that Alabama is "making progress to where we need to go." So a little sugar with the pill that is sometimes hard for some of the players, and fans, to swallow.

Saban is looking for more effort, and said we "have to have more guys who can execute and do their job without mental errors. He continued, "Every time we have a mental error, we have a bad play. I don't care if it's on offense, defense or special teams."

The head man says he knows that the coaches and players have it in themselves to control the mental errors, the effort that is put forth and toughness. He said, "It don't take a lot of ability to be responsible, know what to do or give effort. That's a choice. Play with toughness. That's a choice. That's something I think we need to stay focused on and push the players through so that we can make the kind of improvement that we need to make."


Tomorrow we see how it all comes together in the second scrimmage, just one week before the A-Day Game and final spring practice.

Photo Credit: RollTide.com

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NCAA Bans Satellite Football Camps Effective Immediately

Alabama head football coach NICK SABAN, the University of Alabama and the Southeastern Conference got its wish today when the NCAA prohibited satellite football camps effective immediately.

In a release from the NCAA today it was stated Football Bowl Subdivision schools must "conduct camps and clinics at their school's facilities or at facilities regularly used for practice or competition." Further, coaches and staff members "may be employed only at their school's camps or clinics." Thus comes the elimination of the "guest coaching" loophole coaches such as Michigan's Jim Harbaugh and Penn State's James Franklin have utilized to coach at camps across the country.


The Southeastern Conference had proposed a rule prohibiting satellite camps after Big Ten schools and others set up shop in the talent-rich Southern recruiting bases. Michigan hosted a satellite camp at Prattville High School last summer.  The two that Harbaugh and company had planned for this summer in Alabama are now dead and stinkin'.

Saban was one of the most vocal critics of satellite camps and said Wednesday even if the ban didn't go through, he didn't see any value in the Crimson Tide participating in the practice.

Though taking it to the extreme, Saban got his point across asking, "How many teams play Division 1 football? Are they all going to have a satellite camp in every metropolitan area? That means they'll have 113 camps in Atlanta, 113 in Tampa, Orlando, Miami, Dallas, Houston. I mean, it sounds like a pretty ridiculous circumstance to me for something that nobody can really determine, did it have any value anyway?"

The SEC wasn't the only conference opposed to the satellite camps. The Atlantic Coast Conference also supported the banning of the satellite football camps. The Southeastern Conference said it would drop its own ban on May 29 and allow its coaches to participate in the camps if a national ban was not implemented.