I am a big fan of Alabama State University and their football team. I think they are awesome. I can’t wait to get down to Tuscaloosa and see them play.
Game time is right around the corner and I’m glad to see that the team is doing an awesome job of preparing for the season. After we saw the game last week, I had no doubt that they will be one of the best teams in the country. It’s a pity that the SEC didn’t get to play a game last year, because the Tide would have been a top-five team.
So far, the Tide have lost one game in the last week and a half, but that could easily change. As a fan, I’m ecstatic that the team is staying out of the cellar of the division, and that they will be going to the BCS Championship game. But as a fan of the team and a student of the university, I was a little worried, because the team has had some recent issues.
They have a lot of problems. Since last season, they have had to deal with the loss of star running back Michael Bush, who went down with a season-ending injury. They have also been the victim of two major suspensions, one of which was a year-long one for the team. But more importantly, they have been the recipient of NCAA violations, and a few of their players have been suspended for the last month or so.
I don’t think the NCAA is really to blame for the team’s problems, but it does seem they may have been a little too eager to suspend players just to get them in trouble. They’ve been more or less suspended for about a month, and that may or may not have been a reason for the violations.
I can understand the suspensions. It may (or may not) have been a reason for the violations, but it does seem like a pretty lame reason to suspend a team for too long.
If that’s not the NCAA’s fault, what is? I’m sure there’s some other reason. Maybe the players weren’t really guilty of anything, but if the team is suspended for too long, I’m sure the NCAA isn’t comfortable about that.
I understand the reason for the suspension, Im sure it wasnt the players fault. To be honest, I think the NCAA would be fine with a suspension of one game, because college basketball is a crap shoot, but I can understand why a team that might not be involved in the NCAA violations would be suspended for a few games, in the same manner as the team in basketball.
I think you could argue that the suspension is punishment due to the fact that the team is playing in what they believe to be a meaningless game and the team is taking punishment for something they werent actually guilty of. You can’t really blame the players for any actions they take, but the NCAA can certainly decide to suspend a school for a few games for a team that probably shouldn’t be suspended at all.
The Landon Donovan scandal started here in 2004 and continues to this day. The NCAA’s decision to suspend the Alabama football team is yet another example of this.