some spring football linkage

With baseball season opening up for sure today, and the Final 4 now officially set — chalk, just as I suspected — we figured the most rational thing to do here would be to post about ... football. Of course we did.

So, with that in mind, here are some links from around the spring football world.
• To begin, the chilling video of Auburn's new offense, courtesy of EDSBS.



That's no mirage, ladies and gentlemen — the War Eagles are passing the hell out of the ball. And my guess is they'll keep doing it from till August.

• For the most complete coverage of Alabama's spring, read OTS at RBR. Here's his latest entry. Alabama's spring practice is somewhat anti-climactic this time around — not only is it stretched out over nearly a month, but many of the players most people are interested in seeing won't get to campus until the summer (because they're new signees, see). Still, if you're looking for a football fix, it's either this or wait for Sportsouth to run another "College Flash Classics" episode, which is another whole blog entry in itself (I'll say this: only SS could take an idea that good and figure out how to make it annoying and unwatchable).

• I've basically stopped reading Rapaport's blog, if only because he's less focused on giving you inside info and more focused on telling you what a great reporter he is. It's like reading Anderson Cooper's blog. But I did enjoy this entry, where Nick Saban gave reporters an impromptu lesson about the fundamentals of tackling.

• Following up on the cancellation of the Gridiron Bash: Capstone, by process of elimination, says it's Auburn's fault.

• Almost left this one out: Mississippi State's Maroon and White game turned into an epic 0-0 tie that had to be decided in overtime. I'm not kidding. Deep South Sports has more.

Of course, State folk would say, "That just means our defense is kickass, man."
No. Your defense may be your saving grace again this season (despite the loss of several key cogs), but if your ... offense can't even so much as put up a field goal in 48 minutes of the "Don't hit my no-talent quarterback!" spring scrimmage, it's gonna be a looong freakin' year.

• Not sure how closely you've been watching the Michigan program lately, but since the hire of Rich Rodriguez, three offensive linemen have quit — the latest was Justin Boren, who complained about the erosion of family values within the program in a prepared statement.
The reality, according to SMQ? Boren doesn't like having to run so much.

Boren told reporters after Michigan's first spring practice 10 days ago that adapting to new coach Rich Rodriguez's no-huddle spread offense was physically challenging. He mentioned the difficulty the offensive linemen had constantly running to the line of scrimmage.

Wow. That must be really tough.

• For other spring reports, check out The Wiz.

And with that, enjoy Opening Day.

wlh