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Maurice Smith-Gate; SEC grants waiver to UGA w/ strict guidelines and penalties

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Re: Maurice Smith Transferring; Alabama will not grant release to UGA

IMO there's no way he could/should return to Bama. I don't think any of our players would trust him after all this.
 
Re: Maurice Smith Transferring; Alabama will not grant release to UGA

tide96 said:
Let's also be real and note that if the team had no plans to play him, we probably would not have put up much of a fight. I think that Saban just feels a bit betrayed because they have put so much work into him and now he wants to leave right when we can use him.

But I'm sure the coaches at Bowling Green have similar feelings.
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BG I'm sure feels that way, but at least Dieter started the transfer process right after last season. He didn't go through spring and most of the summer with the team giving him starters reps and continuing to develop him.

Smith did. He went through spring and summer getting the majority of the reps as the starter at Star and/or Money. If we would have known he wanted to transfer back before spring camp, we would have given all those reps and development time to someone else who would be around to actually help the team toward the goals this year.

instead, he wasted the coaches and teams time and delayed the development of other players.
 
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Re: Maurice Smith Transferring; Alabama will not grant release to UGA

tide96 said:
Let's also be real and note that if the team had no plans to play him, we probably would not have put up much of a fight. I think that Saban just feels a bit betrayed because they have put so much work into him and now he wants to leave right when we can use him.

But I'm sure the coaches at Bowling Green have similar feelings.
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How hard it is for people to understand Saban doesn't have an issue with him transferring? He's cleared him to go to Miami or any other school... Except those in the SEC. That's it.
 
Re: Maurice Smith Transferring; Alabama will not grant release to UGA

I don't think he should've sought a transfer because he was a "practical" starter in the Spring at nickelback. He'd be on the field for 70% of the game or more over the course of the season here. He wanted to go to UGA and start at one of the outside corner positions where your pure cover skills can be demonstrated more easily than at the interior pass defense positions. He wasn't buried in the depth chart, he just wasn't going to be the ALPHA corner in this group.

The move wasn't about play time. It was about knowing the coaches and scheme at UGA and feeling that he could be a bigger fish there.
 
Re: Maurice Smith Transferring; Alabama will not grant release to UGA

colbysullivan said:
IMO there's no way he could/should return to Bama. I don't think any of our players would trust him after all this.
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I understand the sentiment but I don't think all that really matters. If he is not allowed to transfer to UGA and stays at Bama I do not see him having any problems with the coaches or players. He has really done nothing wrong other than allowing his mom to blab to the media IMO. He is a good player and (by all accounts) a good kid so I don't see the need to rail him out of town because he wanted to play for his old coach.
 
Re: Maurice Smith Transferring; Alabama will not grant release to UGA

CoolBreeze said:
I understand the sentiment but I don't think all that really matters. If he is not allowed to transfer to UGA and stays at Bama I do not see him having any problems with the coaches or players. He has really done nothing wrong other than allowing his mom to blab to the media IMO. He is a good player and (by all accounts) a good kid so I don't see the need to rail him out of town because he wanted to play for his old coach.
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Yes he has. he consumed valuable practice reps in the spring that could have gone to someone else, and we could have further developed the guys who will be with the team to play the roles we need them to play.

He might be a good kid, and I won't speak ill of him except for this decision. decisions have consequences. He decided he wanted to play elsewhere. Ok, we don't think you should, but if you are, go do that within the rules of the NCAA and SEC.
 
Re: Maurice Smith Transferring; Alabama will not grant release to UGA

rgw said:
The move wasn't about play time. It was about knowing the coaches and scheme at UGA and feeling that he could be a bigger fish there.
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I tend to agree, and I don't blame him for asking for the transfer to Georgia. After all, it would put him in a leadership role on their defense and increase his NFL draft stock. But when Saban explained that it wasn't going to happen (for whatever reason), he should have moved on to whatever his plan B happened to be.

The reality - Smith was not going to increase his draft stock anywhere but at Georgia or Alabama this year. Going to Baylor or Miami, with their different defensive schemes, would not have allowed him to play with the same aggressiveness. You lose a step when you have to learn something new until you have it down such that you no longer have to think about where you are supposed to be on a given play or in a given situation.

Smith didn't think this all the way through. When Saban says that he really believes that it is in Smith's best interests to stay at Alabama (with GA off the table), he is right. Smith has cost himself money here - he might have cost himself a shot at the NFL altogether.
 
Re: Maurice Smith Transferring; Alabama will not grant release to UGA

B1GTide said:
Smith didn't think this all the way through. When Saban says that he really believes that it is in Smith's best interests to stay at Alabama (with GA off the table), he is right. Smith has cost himself money here - he might have cost himself a shot at the NFL altogether.
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I admit to not have been following the situation too closely but is he going to be railed out of town because of this? I don't get that impression but may be wrong. If he stays and plays I do not see how he lost any NFL shot or money.
 
Re: Maurice Smith Transferring; Alabama will not grant release to UGA

You don't want guys practicing and playing who said they don't want to be here.
 
Re: Maurice Smith Transferring; Alabama will not grant release to UGA

CoolBreeze said:
I admit to not have been following the situation too closely but is he going to be railed out of town because of this? I don't get that impression but may be wrong. If he stays and plays I do not see how he lost any NFL shot or money.
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You are right - I have no idea where Saban is on this. If he stays at Alabama, his future remains bright. But will his ego (and his mother) allow him to even consider staying at this point? Do his teammates want him to stay? I have no idea.
 
Re: Maurice Smith Transferring; Alabama will not grant release to UGA

B1GTide said:
...Smith didn't think this all the way through. When Saban says that he really believes that it is in Smith's best interests to stay at Alabama (with GA off the table), he is right. Smith has cost himself money here - he might have cost himself a shot at the NFL altogether.
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rgw said:
You don't want guys practicing and playing who said they don't want to be here.
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Yeah, Don't Go Mo/You Go Mo should take his degree and his 'Bama recalcitrance right into the Arena League playoffs and start working on a highlight reel for the CFL draft next season.
 
Re: Maurice Smith Transferring; Alabama will not grant release to UGA

B1GTide said:
You are right - I have no idea where Saban is on this. If he stays at Alabama, his future remains bright. But will his ego (and his mother) allow him to even consider staying at this point? Do his teammates want him to stay? I have no idea.
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Don't forget what he said about his teammates throwing his things in the garbage...I have no idea if it is true or not, but the team knows...
 
Re: Maurice Smith Transferring; Alabama will not grant release to UGA

rgw said:
You don't want guys practicing and playing who said they don't want to be here.
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Agreed. Never knew he said that or felt that way. Seemed to me that he just wanted to play for his old coach and thought he could transfer because he graduated.
 
Re: Maurice Smith Transferring; Alabama will not grant release to UGA

CoolBreeze said:
Agreed. Never knew he said that or felt that way. Seemed to me that he just wanted to play for his old coach and thought he could transfer because he graduated.
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All that's well and good, and if it were just that, then maybe - but at this point, after the collusion, the public accusations, the yelling at meetings - I can't imagine Smith being back at Bama. He needs Bama far more than Bama needs him...
 
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Re: Maurice Smith Transferring; Alabama will not grant release to UGA

I truly hate this scenario but it is important for the University of Alabama to protect their interests in this situation. We're not required to become a farm team for the rest of the SEC regardless of how the media feels about this situation. Maurice Smith had somewhere north of 110 non-SEC, FBS schools to pick from and he picked Georgia instead. Furthermore, he dug in his heels and tried to fight this in the public to get his way despite literally nothing existing legally to get him to Georgia.

Yeah, he's not suiting up in Crimson this Fall. At any point in this scenario he could have withdrew his transfer request and make nice with the coach since he had nowhere to go...but he hasn't made that decision.
 
Re: Maurice Smith Transferring; Alabama will not grant release to UGA

tide96 said:
Let's also be real and note that if the team had no plans to play him, we probably would not have put up much of a fight. I think that Saban just feels a bit betrayed because they have put so much work into him and now he wants to leave right when we can use him.

But I'm sure the coaches at Bowling Green have similar feelings.
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No, to be real, Saban would probably not have released him because it would set a bad precedent (we know about Black). In reality, the rest of the SEC is almost certainly glad Saban is holding the line, though they aren't going to publicly express it. Don't know about the hypocritical Smart, but he has painted himself into a corner.

Saban has granted Smith the same option that Deiter exercised. In fact, Smith can go to UGA immediately, and he can play after he has completed 2 academic semesters.
 
Re: Maurice Smith Transferring; Alabama will not grant release to UGA

Intl.Aperture said:
I agree. At this point, the ethical thing for Smart to do would be to tell Maurice it isn't going to happen and that he still has a shot at the NFL but only if he fully embraces a return to Bama or goes to a non SEC school. Bama clearly isn't going to budge and the only people getting hurt are Maurice and his family (essentially cutting off the motivation side of it since Saban has made his will perfectly clear) - Kirby will get by in the secondary and it's not like the addition of Maurice was going to pole-vault them into a shut down defense anyways (no offense to Maurice who is a talented player, but Patrick Peterson, he is not). Don't know how well he would fare getting back on the roster at Bama, people are fickle and complex and this situation has several layers - the easiest route may be another power 5 team outside the SEC. Someone joked about Miami but I bet they'd love to have him and I bet he'd do a bang up job for them down there. Don't want the young man to squander what could've been a crucial season in deciding the next phase of his life.
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If he was a "Patrick Peterson", he wouldn't have a reason to transfer.

RTR


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