Alabama seemed past due for a commitment when the week began.

The Crimson Tide entered the week with only three commitments for the 2013 class. It had been almost a month (March 19) since defensive back Chris Williams from Kingsland, Ga., had given his pledge to Alabama.

That’s why the timing was right for linebacker Shaun Dion Hamilton to commit to the Crimson Tide on Wednesday. The standout from Carver High School in Montgomery, Ala., chose Alabama over Auburn and Tennessee.

“(Alabama) is a great program,” Hamilton said, according to AL.com. “Coach (Nick) Saban is a great coach. They’re known for winning championships, you know they’re going to be in a BCS bowl every year. I just love Alabama.”

Alabama would love to add to its class this weekend. With A-Day coming up for Alabama on Saturday, many of the nation’s top prospects will be in Tuscaloosa to see the Crimson Tide play their spring game.

The list of talented prospects planning to visit Alabama this weekend include quarterback David Cornwell from Norman, Okla., linebackers Clifton Garrett from Joliet, Ill., and Tre Williams from Mobile, Ala., cornerback Marlon Humphrey from Hoover, Ala., and defensive tackle Elisha Shaw from Atlanta.

That’s just the beginning of a strong list of prospects who plan to visit Tuscaloosa this weekend. The list is also fluid, of course. Prospects often plan to make trips only to change their mind and stay home.

Humphrey, who’s been busy with his track season, could decide to stay home this weekend, according to TideSports.com. But that wouldn’t diminish his importance to Alabama’s class.

Humphrey, whose father played football at Alabama, is one of the top targets on the Crimson Tide’s board. A recent profile from ESPN RecruitingNation explained why:

“Not only is Humphrey the top player in the state, he’s also an Alabama legacy. However, the coaching staff wants him because of his ability to play. He’s physical. He’s long. He’s fast. He makes plays. He’s just what Nick Saban wants in a cornerback.”

Alabama fans would probably like to see more commitments. Alabama’s 2014 class is ranked No. 14 in the nation by Rivals.com, which is sixth best in the SEC. Still, only Southern California has four or less commitments and is ranked higher (No. 12) than Alabama.

Crimson Tide fans have nothing to worry about with the 2014 class. Alabama still has its championships and Nick Saban to sell to prospects.

And with a large collection of highly-touted prospects on campus this weekend, expect more prospects to follow Hamilton’s lead and commit to the Crimson Tide soon.

ESPN150 Released

ESPN revealed its top 150 list for the 2014 class on Thursday.

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University of Alabama football coach Nick Saban will have his contract “amended” and “restated” according to Al.com.  The Tide’s CEO had his contract amended/restated this time a year ago, too.  That rejiggering locked Saban into the Bama gig through 2019 and set his pay at an average of $5.6 million per year.

Saban visited the White House yesterday with his third Alabama national championship squad in four years.

The compensation committee of UA’s board of trustees will also likely dole out pay raises to Saban’s assistant coaches.

Bret Bielema has been a head coach in the Big Ten and now he’s a head coach in the SEC.  Who better to ask about the difference in fan fervor between the two areas, Midwest and South:

“(At tonight’s event) you’ve got 700 people, sold the place out, very excited, very passionate people that love their Hogs, love to hear about them on a daily basis.  The great thing is, it’s been this way everywhere we’ve been, no matter if it’s northeast, southwest, everywhere we’ve been in Arkansas has been very positive…

(At Wisconsin there was) obviously not near as much passion especially in all the maybe small- or medium-sized towns where you’ve got the whole people coming out and supporting everything and doing it in a way that they show all their passion on a daily basis.”

Bielema was also asked by SportingLifeArkansas.com about a comment he made to boosters last week that turned into a national story.  Bielema has since said he was joking when he compared his resume to Nick Saban’s.  “It’s just also a reminder on a daily basis that everything is public.  It’s just, you can’t interpret tones.  When I made a comment last week, it was kind of a rebuttal to a question and everybody was laughing and joking around and obviously it was taken out of context.”

NCAA president Mark Emmert is a man under fire.  The organization he runs is one of the least popular in the country, it’s mired in a scandal regarding its own handling of an investigation, and it’s facing a potentially landscape-changing lawsuit.

Now the press is getting involved, too.  USA Today has begun digging into Emmert’s past.

It’s this writer’s opinion that any time you dig long and hard enough into someone’s past — especially someone who’s worked at a number of different jobs — you’re going to find dirt.  That’s because people who work in a number of places are bound to make a number of enemies.  All it takes is for one or two enemies at each stop to start hurling accusations and a man’s reputation will go bye-bye lickety-split.

That said, one of the places Emmert worked was at LSU as the school’s chancellor from 1999 through 2004.  People there are talking.  We’ll let USA Today pick it up from there:

“At LSU, an academic fraud scandal emerged in the football program under then-coach Nick Saban in 2001-02. Emmert oversaw an investigation into the allegations made by a university instructor that eventually acknowledged five minor and isolated violations and declared most of the claims ‘unfounded.’

Emmert even met on LSU’s behalf with the NCAA, which accepted LSU’s findings. But after Emmert decided to leave LSU in 2004, a witness testified in a deposition that the instructor was telling the truth and that the problems were far more systemic than the school admitted, even extending to grades being changed for football players, according to court records.

The culture was ‘appalling’ and ‘like Romper Room,’ the employee said in 2004 testimony.”

That blurb shifts into a longer breakdown of LSU’s issues under Emmert.

Whether Emmert was guilty of a cover-up or not, LSU is back in the news today.  So is Nick Saban, who will have to provide answers about this situation and how it might pertain to his current program at Alabama.  Already enemies of Emmert — Penn State fans, duh — are taking the USA Today report as Gospel.

The old saying that there’s no such thing as bad publicity is just that — an old saying.  The phrase was coined long before talk radio, the internet, and social media made the rush to judgement oh so much easier.  USA Today’s decision to re-open the vaults on Emmert will most assuredly cause headaches for a few folks in Baton Rouge and Tuscaloosa over the next few days.

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SEC In The NCAA Tournament
Ole Miss will play LaSalle Sunday….Florida plays Minnesota
Alabama 66, Stanford 54 in Saturday NIT Action
Three Alabama reserves are no longer on the Crimson Tide football team as Nick Saban whittles his roster down to the 85-man scholarship limit
LSU held its first spring scrimmage Saturday
Georgia QB Aaron Murray reported for spring practice eight pounds lighter than he weighed last season
Ole Miss AD Ross Bjork has been given a raise and a contract extension after his first year on the job
Ole Miss will spend $6 million on architects to design a new 10,000-seat basketball arena to replace the Tad Smith Coliseum

The Alabama football team won’t be in Washington, DC tomorrow after all.  The traditional White House meeting between the President and the reigning BCS champs has been postponed indefinitely due to inclement weather in the nation’s capital.

Nick Saban and his 2011 championship team met President Obama last April.  With spring practice starting in Tuscaloosa on March 16th it could be April before last season’s champs meet the Prez, too.

Amazing.

Somehow we’re already a sixth of the way through 2013.  Blink and it will be football season again.  The old adage about time moving faster the older you get?  Yeah, it’s true.  If only I’d believed that at 25 I’d have stopped more often and smelled a few more roses.

Instead my 20s were just one big enjoyable blur.  Followed by a rapid decline into decrepitude.  Ah, well.

The thought/lyric of the day comes from The Grateful Dead.  It’s the Dead’s first appearance on the site.  And it’s placement today has absolutely nothing to do — as far as you know — with all the Alabama fans claiming this we at MrSEC.com hate their Crimson Tide because we dared to say we would have booted two players two weeks quicker than Nick Saban did.  Egads.  In hindsight, maybe we should have displayed our hate for Saban and Bama a day earlier, too… instead of writing this.  Guess we’re just not too good at carrying out vendettas… way too wishy-washy in who we hate from day to day.

“Alabama getaway.  Alabama getaway.  Only way to please me — turn around and leave and walk away.”

The playing careers of four University of Alabama football players arrested and charged with robbery and/or fraudulent use of a credit card earlier this month have ended in Tuscaloosa.  Nick Saban announced today that all four freshmen – Brent Calloway, Tyler Hayes, DJ Pettway, and Eddie Williams — are “no longer associated with the (Alabama) football team.

A statement from the University of Alabama said: “UA’s judicial review has been completed.  The four students involved in the robberies on campus are no longer enrolled in UA.”

Saban said:

“Based on all the information we’ve received and gone through and tried to determine the future of the four guys that got in trouble, those guys are no longer associated with the football program.  Their actions do not reflect the spirit and character that we want our organization to reflect.  It’s obviously very disappointing and unacceptable what happened…

I also think that I’ve been really proud of over the last five years that our team has done a very good job and shown personal responsibility and how they represent the university, what they’ve done in the community, in the classroom, off the field.  And they’re going to continue to do as much as we can in personal development, character development in our program with education to try to help guys have a chance to be more successful in life…

Some people learn by words, some people learn by consequences, some people can’t learn.”

It was only a matter of time before Saban and/or the University of Alabama dismissed at least the three players directly involved in the robberies.  We felt that Calloway might survive as he had only used a stolen credit card.

In the end, it is a privilege to represent one’s university as an athlete, not a right.  A violent criminal act should end that privilege posthaste.  Especially if one has already admitted to committing said act.

Here’s hoping the young men turn things around and make the most of any second chances that are afforded them in life.  But that second chance should not have come on the same campus where the two students they knocked unconscious continue to matriculate.

On a separate note, Saban also revealed today that receiver Danny Woodson Jr. has been suspended for a violation of team rules.

Update: With the suspension, Woodson, Jr. is not participating in the team’s offseason workout program and he’s not the only one.  Receiver Marvin Shinn has decided not to participate and will likely transfer, according to Nick Saban.  Both players redshirted in 2011 and were reserves in 2012.

When Urban Meyer arrived at Ohio State a little more than a year ago, he brought with him an SEC-style tenacity (or ruthlessness) for recruiting.  The fact that Meyer recruited players who had already committed to other Big Ten schools ruffled the feathers of Wisconsin coach Bret Bielema… who’s since taken the Arkansas job, moved to the SEC, and started flipping other schools’ commits his own self.

All’s fair in love, war, and recruiting.  Which is why Meyer shouldn’t be too upset to learn that Nick Saban’s Alabama staff is still pursuing Marcelys Jones, a 4-star offensive lineman who’s committed to Ohio State.

Jones told Scout.com:

“I’m supposed to speak to Nick Saban later today.  They said they liked my film and said I would fit in with the players they recruit. They said I could help them a lot if I would go down there to play. I told them I’m still committed to Ohio State, but they said they didn’t really care about that at all. They said they go after who they want and don’t pay attention to who’s committed.”

There’s nothing illegal or under-handed about trying to change the minds of committed players.  It’s part of the game.  And no one plays the game better at the moment than Saban and his crew.

Auburn added 23 players from 9 different states on Wednesday and Thursday.  A breakdown of the Tigers’ “target zone” is below:

Alabama = 6 recruits

Kansas = 5

Florida = 4

Georgia = 3

California = 1

Colorado = 1

Indiana = 1

Mississippi = 1

Oklahoma = 1

In-State Signees = 26.0%

Out-Of-State Signees = 73.9%

Observation:

Of the four new coaches in the SEC, no one had as good a day as Gus Malzahn.  Of course, when you’re returning to a program you won the 2010 BCS Championship with (as offensive coordinator), you’ve got plenty of recent history to sell.  Malzahn also made sure to shore up a thin roster with six juco players including all five of those Kansas signees.  On the downside, recruiting against Nick Saban and an Alabama program that’s won three out of four national crowns is going to be tough.  Having a unique offensive system could offset Bama’s talent advantage.  At least that’s the hope on the Plains.