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.

SEC Football

1. LSU linebacker Kevin Minter named team MVP.

2. 6,000 seat, $85 million expansion going on at Tiger Stadium.  Capacity at LSU will increase to just short of 100,000 at the start of the 2014 season.

3. With Drew Alleman’s days drawing to a close, James Hairston looks to be the next in line as kicker at LSU.

4. If your nickname is the Crimson Tide, why does an elephant mascot roam the sidelines?

5. Focus shifts today at Mississippi State – bowl game against Northwestern is two weeks from tomorrow.

6. Nick Griffin’s injury at MSU will give redshirt freshman running back Josh Robinson more opportunities.

7. With three weeks to prepare for the bowl game against Pittsburgh, Hugh Freeze will spend time this week focusing on his younger players.

8. Nearly 21,000 tickets have been sold through Ole Miss for the BBVA Compass Bowl.

9. South Carolina has three less Michigan players to worry about for the Outback Bowl.  Starting cornerback J.T. Floyd, the punter and a backup linebacker all suspended by coach Brady Hoke.

10. After playing both ways this year at Georgia, Malcolm Mitchell would love to focus on one side of the ball: “If I had to pick between offense and defense, one or the other, I’m going to pick offense just because I love doing it.”

11. Georgia players choose whiffle ball.

12. Tennessee junior tackle Ja’Wuan James says he’ll return for his senior year. “Blessed to have another year…”

13. Florida’s Sugar Bowl opponent, Louisville, slashing some ticket prices to the game thanks to the local pizza baron.

14. With Josh Henson the new offensive coordinator at Missouri – a look at how much previous experience every OC in the SEC has.

SEC Basketball

15. At the end of the first and second halves Saturday night against Arizona, Florida was outscored 15-0.

16. Missouri finally gets to see what Oregon transfer Jabari Brown can do tonight against South Carolina State. Frank Haith: “We’ve got to understand, here’s a guy that hasn’t played in a year and will be playing (tonight) for the first time in a long time.” Illinois-Missouri on Saturday one of Andy Katz’ “must watch” games this week.

17. Auburn’s legitimate center duo?

18. Vanderbilt tries to make it three in a row tonight against Cornell. Dai-Jon Parker will make his season debut after serving a 10-game suspension.

19.  This list of college hoops’ most overpaid coaches features three names from the SEC.

Extra

20. A North Alabama player’s racist tweet aimed at President Obama last night -he’s no longer on the team.

If I were meeting the President of the United States, I don’t know that I’d feel comfortable asking him for a chest bump.  But I’m not ever-pumped Auburn assistant football coach Trooper Taylor.

After shaking President Obama’s hand at the White House yesterday, Taylor can be seen requesting a presidential chest bump.  Obama obliged with what looks to be a rather half-hearted effort.  Perhaps he knew that a full-on bump would result in the loss of every single Alabama fan’s vote in 2012.




Still, when it comes to personality, Taylor takes a backseat to no one.  At least he didn’t make The Prez wave a towel.

The Auburn football team was set to visit the White House as BCS Champions back on April 29th… but that trip was cancelled when devastating tornadoes ripped through their home state just two days prior.

Now the Tigers have rescheduled their meeting with President Obama for next Wednesday.  Gene Chizik and the rest of the Tiger team will be honored in the Rose Garden.

Stop the conspiracy theories before they start.  Stop the moaning.  And if you’re tempted to say, “I bet if that were our school, the SEC wouldn’t do anything,” please put a sock in it.

The Southeastern Conference — in a very good move — has pledged $500,000 to help tornado victims at the University of Alabama.  The contribution will help assist students, faculty and staff who were displaced or injured by the recent devastating storms in Tuscaloosa.

The SEC, of course, is made up of all 12 member institutions.  This pledge is basically a way for the other 11 schools to extend aid — additional aid in many cases — to UA.  University of Florida president Bernie Machen (for instance) said that while SEC rivals “compete fiercely in athletics, we also support each other fiercely in times of need.”

Commissioner Mike Slive visited Tuscaloosa on Sunday and had this to say: “I’ve hear a lot of people say words don’t describe what happened, and words don’t describe it.  The devastation is so complete that in a sense it’s mind-numbing.  You keep seeing it and it’s almost as if your eyes are trying to send a message to your mind that this is really what you’re seeing.”

“There was this sens that this is very difficult and tragic, but it was just a matter of time before people were going to rebuild,” Slive said.  It’s part of the South.  No matter what other issues we have, the fundamental goodness of us is manifested.”

For those of you believe President Obama was born on Mars, that Osama bin Laden is alive and living with Elvis and Jim Morrison, and that Mike Slive is solely responsible for cutting a league check to Bama ’cause he likes ‘em, kindly put the foil hat back on your head and step away from the various messageboards out there.

The schools of the Southeastern Conference are aiding one of their own.  And it’s an excellent decision.


In other tornado-related news:

ESPN’s Rece Davis has been in Tuscaloosa working on a report that will air on Sunday’s “SportsCenter.”  Davis is an Alabama native and grad.  In 1974 he saw his own childhood home destroyed in a twister outbreak.

Last night at a Crimson Caravan tour stop, Nick Saban thanked a group of Tide fans for their help in the recovery process.  “It’s the most devastating thing I’ve seen in my life,” the coach said.  As for the SEC’s pledge of a half-million dollars, Saban sounded the same note as Machen and Slive: “It shows the quality of the league.  I know we compete against each (other), but it’s not about which school you root for.  The great schools in our league work together.”

Saban has said that he’s trying to help his own players from a mental standpoint.  “A lot of our players are affected by this psychologically in a little different way.  We’ve set up a kind of medical center for our guys in the training room so that if they have psychological issue with some of the things they’ve encountered or they’ve seen, or tried to help with, that they can get the help they need.”

Meanwhile, the city of Tuscaloosa is already trying to set new construction standards so poorly built homes and businesses don’t replace those that were destroyed by the storms.

In keeping with our early-mornin’ Iron Bowl theme…

The BCS champion Auburn Tigers will be making the traditional winner’s trip to Washington, DC a week from today.

“On Friday, April 29, at 10:00 a.m. ET, President Obama will welcome Auburn University’s football team to the White House to honor the team’s 2010 BCS National Championship,” an Obama staffer said yesterday via email.

The first round of the NFL draft will be held next Thursday and it’s likely Cam Newton and Nick Fairley will be snapped up nice and early… meaning that they’ll likely be available to head to the White House on Friday if they choose to attend the ceremony.