News Article: No excuses, it’s time for Gottfried to move on

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No excuses, it’s time for Gottfried to move on
By Jess Nicholas
TideFans.com Editor-in-Chief
Jan. 17, 2009

As the clock counted down to zero Saturday in Alabama’s loss to Auburn, many Alabama fans were also hoping the clock was counting down on the Mark Gottfried era as Alabama head coach.

Alabama is 11-6 right now, which is a prime example of a record not telling a whole story. An 11-6 record in the NFL means a team made the postseason and either won or lost in the first round. For most college basketball teams, it can mean a variety of things, few of which are good.

For Alabama, coming off consecutive road losses to two very bad SEC teams, it means the season is in peril. And it means the man who has been at the top of the program for a decade needs to step away or be asked to do so.

There’s always a bit of risk taken when calling for a coaching change in basketball prior to the end of the year. Alabama could lose every game left on its schedule – but then get hot in the SEC tournament and NCAA tournament and possibly even win a national title (a fact that, more than anything, is the reason college football shouldn’t follow basketball’s path to a playoff system).

So if Gottfried does happen to get his team hot, either here in the regular season or once the postseason arrives, the dozen or so Mark Gottfried fans left will surely come out of the woodwork with cries of “I told you so” and ask for his contract to be extended.

That’s why Alabama needs to take matters into its own hands right now, and announce the Gottfried era is ending.

Whether Alabama gives Gottfried to the end of the season or not is its business. The school can either let him coach out the string, or install an assistant as interim coach and go from there. The key word in the sentence, however, is simply “go.”

Besides the losses, the stupefying substitution patterns, the mishandling of Ronald Steele’s career and the endless stream of excuses that come babbling out of Gottfried’s mouth after every loss, there is the pouting that appears to bleed out every pore on his body whenever football and its role at Alabama is discussed.

The basketball coach at Alabama is in the same position the football coach at Kentucky finds himself: It’s imperative to field a strong program, but know your role. You’re never going to be as big as King Football and you shouldn’t try to be. Even the success of Florida’s basketball program has not put it over or even equal to the Gator football program – and it never will. That’s life.

Many men are big enough to accept those circumstances and still find a way to win. Gottfried, apparently, is not one of them. A decade’s body of work backs up that suspicion.

It’s time for Alabama’s athletic department administrators to commit to making a change, ridding the basketball program of its current malaise and searching out the best coach it can find, preferably one without prior ties to the school. Fresh ideas are needed.

Gottfried’s continued services are not.