As elucidated here in Sports Illustrated, the University of Alabama board of trustees has voted to eliminate football at the UA-Birmingham campus - like, basically right now, following their impending bowl game now that first year head coach Bill Clark and long time AD Brian Mackin have brought the program back up to respectability at 6-6.
Let me repeat that.
The UAB Blazers, having spent years trying to build this football program, having hired a tremendous young and up-n-coming coach who's done great things with a young team this year, just had the rug pulled out from under them.
As Thayer Evans points out, there were warning signs that fueled the rumors all season...why won't they extend Clark's contract?...why hasn't Mackin put any more non-conference games on the schedule beyond next season?
But the nastier rumors swirl beneath the surface, and they're worse than the pay-the-players scandals and the sinecure-jobs-for-athletes tales we fear: the University of Alabama trustees were afraid of any competition for the affections of the state with the Crimson Tide of Tuscaloosa. Gene Bartow's role is discussed in Evans' article, but there's a down-South, good-ol'-boy network at play that's downright frightening. As if the University of Auburn isn't competition enough, we don't want no young whippersnappers pulling the carpetbaggers out from under us. This seems to have been brewing for a while - those non-conference games should have been scheduled three years ago. (Most teams have at least some games scheduled into the 2020's.)
Look out, South Alabama and Troy. You're next. Ain't NO one gonna stand in the path of Lord Saban and the Tide...
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