COMMENTARY: Which area college football teams made the grade?
By L.C. Johnson
Montgomery Advertiser
January 24, 2008
A lot of newspaper sports editors have been known to have their respective beat writers hand out grades for teams they cover. But invariably what happens is that some readers/fans are turned off a bit by the idea that the writers have opinions. Check that, they only take offense when the opinions run contrary to what they happen to believe.
Trust me, my guys can take it. Most of us do, regardless of what is written. But I decided to spare my staff any of the aggravation and will offer my own views on our area college football teams. We need something to tide us over between now and signing day.
But as an added twist, I am asking our readers to submit their mini-evaluations of our seven teams as well.
You can either submit e-mails to sports@montgomeryadvertiser.com or go online to montgomeryadvertiser.com and share your report cards and comments under the story chats icon. I will take a sampling of the best reviews to run in next week's paper along with a consensus grade as well as your suggestions on how to make your football program A-plus quality.
Feel free to come up with your own criteria. But in coming up with a grading scale, I concentrated on the following questions: How successful was this past season based upon the head coach's ability to:
(*) Assemble/maintain a coaching staff;
(*) Get the most out of his players;
(*) Handle on/off-the-field controversy/distractions;
(*) Schedule and recruit;
(*) Give fans something to look forward to for next season.
Based upon those criteria, here are my grades from Best to worst.
TOP OF THE CLASS
Tuskegee coach Willie Slater earns the highest grades across the board. Not only did he win every game -- decisively in most instances -- while capturing the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, Pioneer Bowl, and Sheridan black college national championships, but he did it with class and humility. He should conduct a seminar for Bill Belichick. For extra credit, think about this: You never hear much about his players goofing off. Enough said. Grade: (A)...
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