RickKarle's Blog

     Here we are just over a week from the start of the college football season, and I'm thinking of what kind of Auburn coverage I'm going to bring our viewers on tonight's newscasts. Nowadays, that involves more thinking than I could ever imagine. And the scoop from Alabama? It shouldn't be a problem!  Say what? Am I telling you that getting news out of the cranky Nick Saban is easier these days than getting news from the outgoing and always upbeat Tommy Tuberville?  You better believe it, and here's why!

     While Coach Tuberville and his players do grant interviews after practice and after scrimmages, Tubs has closed all practices and scrimmages to TV cameras.  For years, Tuberville has allowed tremendous TV camera access to his workouts- but this season, his sessions are closed up tighter than safe deposit box.  Want some pictures from AU practice? Sorry! Want a few plays from a Saturday scrimmage? Forget about it!  Now don't get me wrong-  Coach Tubs has every right to close his practices, but a TV-savvy man like him should know to throw us hair-sprayed types a bone every once in a while.

     And Nick Saban?  The man everyone was fearing has opened his practices to TV cameras for the first twenty minutes of each session. He allows TV cameras into his scrimmages for warm-ups (hey, it's something, right?). And interviews? Saban meets the media via a news conference twice a week and offers up players for interviews each day that he does not speak.  On an average practice week, Saban and his players meet with us a total of four times. Allright- Saint Nick tends to keep his assistant coaches clear of the media, where Tuberville does not. Saban does not allow freshman to speak with the media, and if he sees video on an internet site that's not supposed to be on an internet site (See Tide TV), he will speak out. And I still say that Nick Saban is more paranoid about the media than many coaches out there.

     Bottom line? Not for the life of me I would ever imagine that as a local TV talking head I would be getting more from Nick Saban than I get from Tommy Tuberville.  Please understand that both coaches have been gracious with the Fox6 sports people- and that respect goes both ways. It's just been an interesting summer what with AU being more secretive than UA.   Really now- who'da thunk it?