Nick Saban is back at SEC Media Days, 6 months after retiring and asking the questions now

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Nick Saban is back at SEC Media Days, 6 months after retiring and asking the questions now

2024-07-18 07:10 Last Updated At：07:21

DALLAS (AP) — Nick Saban is at SEC Media Days again, six months after retiring as Alabama coach.

This time he's asking the questions as part of ESPN's SEC Network coverage of the four-day event.

“I’m still a coach at heart. So I want to ask the coaches questions so that they can actually talk about things that they want to talk about, and maybe things that they want to be able to get out there,” Saban said Wednesday, a short time before his successor, Kalen DeBoer, made his SEC Media days debut as Tide coach.

“So I’m not trying to put anybody on the defensive,” Saban added. “I’m trying to help them express what they’d like to express about their team, or about a particular player, or about a position on their team.”

Saban, 72, retired in January after 17 seasons with Alabama and three decades as a head coach. The seven-time national champion will work for ESPN this season on its “College GameDay” Saturday pregame show.

He said he doesn't plan to be critical as a broadcaster. He told DeBoer just that when the new Alabama joined the SEC Network set for an interview.

“I want to be objective. But I don’t want to be controversial,” Saban told reporters. “You could take any decision in any situation that anybody makes and make it controversial. Like, if we go for it on fourth-and-3, we would have 100,000 people in Alabama say, ‘I’m glad he’s going for it.’ And we would have 100,000 people say, ‘He’s a dumbass for going for it.’”

Saban has already made a headline, picking Georgia and Texas, not the Crimson Tide, to play for the SEC championship.

His former players noticed.

"He always said don’t let some guy who lives in his mom’s basement determine how you feel. I’m not going to let a guy who plays golf all day determine how I feel,” offensive tackle Tyler Booker said with a smile.

Saban said he has poured himself into the new job much as if he was still a coach. He prepared “a couple hundred hours” for his role on ESPN's NFL draft coverage. For SEC Media Days, he said he watched every team's spring game and called every coach in the conference.

“The biggest thing I miss is the relationships with the people, the players, the coaches, the staff and all the people that you work with, being a part of a team," Saban said. “That I miss. But, I also got to the point where it was difficult for me to sustain things the way I needed to sustain them, to be satisfied with myself that I was doing a good job. So the last year was hard. So, I said, maybe it’s time for somebody else. I don’t regret that.”

It has been an eventful week for Saban in Dallas. First off, he was sent to the wrong hotel room — an occupied room — upon checking in Sunday. The next day, he was initially denied entry to the area where media days were being held at the Omni Hotel on Monday because he forgot his credential. On Tuesday, he went to the Major League Baseball All-Star Game at Globe Life Field in Arlington.

When he is not working, he's playing a lot of golf.

Saban was asked if major college football could ever install a commissioner, would be he interested in the job. He said that's a question for his wife, Terry.

“I try to go play golf at 7:30 in the morning. So I get home at 11:30,” he said. “I can’t get to the ninth hole without getting a text of ‘This is what I want you to do when you come home.’

"At least let me finish my round. It's not going to get done any faster."

Arch Manning is a famous five-star recruit with quite a quarterback pedigree, and yet is preparing for a second season in a backup role at Texas.

Quinn Ewers also was a five-star, and is going into his third season with the Longhorns after bypassing early entry into the NFL draft.

“We’ve been fortunate to have some really good quarterback rooms, and I think the Manning family is pretty well aware of that,” Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said Wednesday. “I think they trained Arch to try to put himself in the best position to try to play in the best conference in America and then ultimately put himself in the best position to further his career playing in the National Football League.”

The Longhorns are now in the SEC, the league where his QB-playing uncles stood out — Peyton at Tennessee and Eli at Mississippi — before both went on to win two Super Bowl titles.

Ewers said Wednesday that he and Manning, also the grandson of Archie, are buddies who love being around each other.

“We compete at a high level,” Ewers said. “He’s really fun to have in the room.”

Texas junior left tackle Kelvin Banks Jr. has started all 27 games in his two seasons, and was a top recruit like the quarterbacks. He believes Manning would be a starter for any other FBS team.

“He could start for 133 other teams. He’s definitely a type of guy who’s like a sponge. He likes to soak in knowledge and understand, because every time I see Quinn on the field, I see Arch,” Banks said. “I feel like Arch has earned it, but obviously you know the situation.”

Shemar James really likes that No. 6 on defense for the Florida Gators in the much-anticipated return of EA Sports College Football game.

“Yeah, he’s pretty good,” James said of playing himself in the game that the linebacker and other college players had access to before its worldwide release Friday. “I had like four picks, like 20 tackles.”

James started to laugh when admitting that was playing against his own Gators and quarterback Graham Mertz.

Florida running back Montrell Johnson said people have told him that his player in the game is too good. He thinks EA Sports got everything right after he carried about 20 times for around 350 yards and four touchdowns.

“The thing I enjoy the most is playing as me ... seeing myself in the game,” Johnson said.

James described the graphics as amazing and the realism as good, but that can go only so far. He can’t wait to be on the field for real Aug. 31 after missing the final four games injured last season

“Not the same,” he said.

Mississippi State linebacker John Lewis said he was a little disappointed with his rating in the game.

“I was a 78. I could have been like an 80 at least. They got my speed right so I won't get mad at it. It's cool,” Lewis said.

Jeff Lebby is Mississippi State's third coach in the past three seasons after the sudden death of coach Mike Leach in December 2022.

Defensive coordinator Zac Arnett was promoted to replace Leach and lasted just one season before Lebby was hired away from Oklahoma, where he had been offensive coordinator.

The coaching changes have led to a lot of roster turnover and some challenging times for the Bulldogs.

John Lewis, a Canton, Mississippi, native, is among those who decided to stay put.

“I mean, it’s been rough, but at the end of the day, you know, it’s life,” Lewis said. “My grandmother always told me if it’s hard just think of something and get through it because at the end of the day, it’s going to get better in the long run.”

AP Sports Writer Stephen Hawkins contributed.

Follow Ralph D. Russo at https://twitter.com/ralphDrussoAP

AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/college-football

Trump refuses to criticize Laura Loomer amid concerns from Republican allies about her influence

2024-09-14 05:38 Last Updated At：05:41

RANCHO PALOS VERDES, Calif. (AP) — Donald Trump refused on Friday to condemn recent racist and conspiratorial comments from right-wing provocateur Laura Loomer, who traveled with him earlier this week to Tuesday night's presidential debate and several 9/11 memorial events.

“Laura’s been a supporter of mine,” Trump told reporters at a press conference near Los Angeles, where he was pressed on concerns from Republican allies about his ongoing association with Loomer, who once declared herself a “proud Islamophobe” and has a long history of promoting ugly and extreme conspiracies.

Trump said Loomer has “strong opinions,” but insisted he was unaware of her recent comments, including a post on X in which she played on racist stereotypes by writing that “the White House will smell like curry & White House speeches will be facilitated via a call center” if his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, wins in November. Harris is the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants.

“I don’t control Laura. Laura has to say what she wants,” Trump said. “I can’t tell Laura what to do.”

He later said Loomer “brings a spirit to us that a lot of people have," adding that, "in all fairness to her, she hates seeing what's happened to the country."

Loomer’s appearances on the campaign trail with Trump have alarmed some top supporters, who have taken the rare move of publicly airing their concerns that he is hurting his chances against Harris, who is driving up Democratic enthusiasm and repeatedly put Trump on the defensive in Tuesday’s debate. Harris was campaigning Friday across Pennsylvania.

Republican firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia Congresswoman known herself for spreading conspiracies, called the post about curry “appalling and extremely racist” and said it did not represent Trump’s “MAGA” movement.

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., called Loomer “a crazy conspiracy theorist who regularly utters disgusting garbage intended to divide Republicans," and said a Democratic party “plant couldn’t do a better job than she is doing to hurt President Trump’s chances of winning re-election.”

Trump has a history of association with extremists, including dining last year at his Mar-a-Lago club with Nick Fuentes, a far-right activist who had used his online platform to spew antisemitic and white nationalist rhetoric. Trump had said at the time that he “knew nothing about” Fuentes before his dinner with the rapper formerly known as Kanye West.

Harris has not commented publicly on Loomer's ties to Trump. But as has often been the case during his three White House runs, Trump has pulled the presidential campaign this week into a discussion of far-right conspiracies and unsubstantiated rumors with consequences.

He brought up a discredited claim about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, hunting and eating pets at Tuesday's presidential debate watched by more than 67 million people, as Harris repeatedly put him on the defensive about the economy and abortion. The claims — which he has also amplified in social media posts — have driven millions of online conversations, and resulted in serious repercussions for the town.

Bomb threats directed at the homes of Springfield’s mayor and other city officials, as well as Springfield City Hall and schools. prompted the evacuation of schools and government buildings there for a second day on Friday.

Yet Trump's allies, notably his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, have repeatedly raised the claims about pets — even as Vance acknowledged they may be false. In recent days, some Republicans have suggested Haitians are targeting ducks and geese in the city. Officials in Springfield have said those claims are unsubstantiated after employees investigated them, and advocates for Haitians warn promoting those claims puts people in danger.

Trump, who has promised if elected again to carry out the largest deportation operation in U.S. history, on Friday dismissed concerns from city officials and said his operation would target Springfield.

“The real threat is what’s happening at our border,” he said.

President Joe Biden on Friday said the Haitian community was “under attack” and that the false claims had to stop.

Speaking at a news conference at his Los Angeles-area golf club, Trump unleashed a litany of attacks against Harris and California, as he stood on a cliff overlooking the rugged Pacific Ocean.

“She destroyed San Francisco and she destroyed the state,” Trump said of Harris, who represented California in the Senate and also served as the state’s attorney general and the district attorney of San Francisco before becoming vice president. He accused her of having been soft on crime in her previous positions — something aides had suggested he would focus on during the debate.

Trump, who said he wanted to be known as “the border president,” also continued to rail against the dangers of illegal immigration, claiming that the country has had “thousands of people being killed by illegal migrants.”

In fact, there has been no spike in violent crime nationally or in the major cities where many migrants have settled, and national statistics show violent crime is on the way down.

Harris, meanwhile, was campaigning in Pennsylvania Friday, with stops in Johnstown and Wilkes-Barre, — two counties Trump won in 2016 and 2020 — as she tries to capitalize on her momentum after Tuesday night’s debate.

In Johnstown, she dropped in to meet with owners and supporters at Classic Elements, a bookstore and cafe, to discuss her plans to support small businesses if elected.

“Small businesses are so much part of the fabric of a community,” she told the shop owners. Harris said she would be in the state a lot and that “we got to earn every vote.”

It was her second day of back-to-back rallies after holding two events in North Carolina, another swing state, on Thursday. Her campaign is aiming to hit every market in every battleground state over four days, with stops by Harris, her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, and other surrogates in Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia.

While speaking in Charlotte, Harris took a victory lap for her debate performance in which she needled Trump and kept him on the defensive. Recounting one moment while campaigning in North Carolina, she mocked Trump for saying he had “concepts of a plan” for replacing the Affordable Care Act.

“Concepts. Concepts. No actual plan. Concepts,” she said as the crowd roared with laughter.

Her campaign said she raised $47 million from 600,000 donors in the 24 hours after her debate with Trump.

After appearing at his golf club in upscale Rancho Palos Verdes, Trump was planning to attend a fundraiser in the afternoon in the Bay Area town of Woodside that is being hosted by billionaire software developer Tom Siebel and his wife, Stacey Siebel. Tom Siebel is the second cousin once removed of Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the wife of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat and surrogate for Harris.

He then heads to Las Vegas, where he’ll have a rally in the city’s downtown area. Trump was in the city last month for a brief stop to promote his proposal to end federal taxes on workers’ tips, something that’s expected to especially resonate in the tourist city, where much of the service-based economy includes workers who rely on tips. He announced a new proposal Thursday to end taxes on overtime pay.

Madhani reported from Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and Colvin from New York. Associated Press writers Michael R. Blood in Los Angeles, Chris Megerian in Washington, Melissa Goldin in New York and Tom Verdin in Sacramento contributed to this report.