Doug Jones refuses to commit to acquit; trails most GOP opponents

No Alabama voter in their right mind thinks that a vote to acquit President Trump will let Doug Jones sneak in and be reelected as the junior U.S. Senator from Alabama. No... his vote against Trump's Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in 2018 has almost certainly sealed that fate. But here he is trying to play the uncommitted juror in an appearance on ABC News this morning. Axios won't let me embed the video but you can click through if you want, and you tell me if that's the face of an honest man.

So... given that the man is fundamentally dishonest and slipperier that a Goat Hill piglet, how can his 2020 electoral fate be almost certainly sealed? Well, we have some recent polling of the 2020 Alabama Senate seat race and Jones trails almost all of his GOP opponents.

Tommy Tuberville beats him 47/40. Sessions wins 46/41, my guy Bradley Byrne beats him 44/40.  Who does he almost certainly not beat?

Jones did beat former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore in a head-to-head match-up, leading him 47% to 33%, with 20% undecided. He also led Rep. Arnold Mooney, R-Indian Springs, 40% to 34%, with 25% undecided. The incumbent senator also consistently led his opponent among voters under the age of 35; African-American voters, and non-evangelical voters.

There really are only two people who could lose to Doug Jones in November: Me, and Roy Moore. Though Mooney trails Moore in the Advertiser poll, that's simply a function of name recognition. Mooney is a solid conservative with very little (known) baggage.

I'm not running--I missed the primary ballot deadline because my wife grabbed my ankle and wouldn't let me make it to the courthouse.

That leaves Creepy Uncle Roy Moore.

The sexual misconduct allegations against Brett Kavanaugh failed to derail his SCOTUS nomination because they were provably false. The sexual misconduct allegations against Creepy Uncle Roy were credibly true. If things had ever come to a trial, the well of other victims with other lurid and disgusting stories would have never run dry. Let's just say that the women who came forward were the brave ones.

A vote for Creepy Uncle Roy in the March primary is the same as a vote for Doug Jones in the general election. Please don't.

Alabama voters have already made it clear that they'd rather have a dishonest Democrat than a creepy dude who was twice removed from office by members of his profession elected from his own party. If Republican lawyers and judges can't stand the man, Republican voters shouldn't either.

Tommy Tuberville is a stone cold lock for the Republican Senate nomination

The reason Tommy Tuberville is guaranteed to win the Republican Party's nomination for the U.S. Senate isn't what you think it is. He's gonna get it because he's a really, really good recruiter.

For ten years as Head Coach of Auburn University, Tubs went head-to-head with the best salesmen on the planet--his rival head coaches in the Southeastern Conference. 

For ten years he went to every corner of the state (indeed, every corner of the country) and convinced complete strangers to send their sons to play football in a remote corner of Alabama.

For ten years he went before our friends Cam and Mike and sold the media and public that everything on The Plains was going just fine, y'all.

He didn't get everyone he went after but he signed the majority of them. He never won a college football national championship either,  but he won the majority of his games.

He says he's a Donald Trump supporter. He touts conservative Christian values. He's for cutting taxes and reducing the size and influence of the federal government. Tubs can play the Washington Outsider role to perfection, too--he's never held public office. As any college football fan will tell you though, every coach serves at the instant pleasure of the fans, boosters and assorted "friends of the program." Run afoul of them and post a bad season and you're out the next day.

You can't do that with a U.S. Senator, who is elected to a six-year term with no recall and no recourse if the horse changes color a few weeks after being sworn in.

My guy is current U.S. Congressman Bradley Byrne. I've met him, I've donated to his campaign and I've spoken with his congressional and campaign staff. I don't think there's a more qualified candidate running. Byrne will be able to read a legislative proposal and decide whether it makes sense or whether he can offer a better alternative.

Tubs might be able to read a team roster but I doubt he'll be able to tell if a Senate Resolution is even written in English.

He's a helluva recruiter though. He's never gotten them all and he's ok with that. That's all he has to do to get the GOP nomination. For a state GOP electorate that was dumb enough to nominate Roy Moore in the 2017 special election, it's no heavy lift for Tubs to get the nod in the primary about six months from now.

In fact, he's a stone cold lock.

Tommy Tuberville suit connected to Donnan Ponzi scheme?

Current Texas Tech and former Auburn head football coach Tommy Tuberville was named Friday in a $1.7 million lawsuit, alleging that he and another defendant defrauded investors.

Filed in US District Court in Montgomery, the complaint alleges that Tuberville and a partner, John David Stroud, “by use of means or instrumentalities of interstate commerce and by use of the United States
mails: (a) employed devices, schemes, and artifices to defraud Plaintiffs, (b) made untrue statements of material facts and omitted to state other material facts necessary in order to make the statements made, in the light of the circumstances under which they were made, not misleading, and (c) engaged in acts, practices or courses of business which operated as a fraud and deceit upon Plaintiffs.”

The plaintiffs have demanded their money back, but federal regulators’ review of company accounts shows less than $3,500.

Where’d all that money go?

View the full complaint below.

UPDATE: In July 2011, former Georgia coach Jim Donnan was accused of running a Ponzi scheme. Among those said to have invested with Donnan’s enterprise:

Formed in March 2004, GLC Enterprises, as it was known then, attracted investments from several high-profile figures from the world of sport. Among them are former University of Oklahoma and Dallas Cowboys coach Barry Switzer; Virginia Tech football coach Frank Beamer; Texas State football coach Dennis Franchione; and Texas Tech football coach Tommy Tuberville.

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Tuberville to plead ignorance?

Recall that on March 30 of this year, four former Auburn football players went on the record with HBO’s Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel and alleged that they were paid thousands of dollars in improper benefits during their careers at the school, and at least one of them also alleged academic shenanigans.

All of these alleged violations of NCAA rules would have occurred during the tenure of former Head Coach Tommy Tuberville, who was fired after the end of the 2008 season. Tuberville now coaches at Texas Tech and as an active coach of an NCAA program, he is required by league rules to cooperate with Enforcement Staff investigators.

There is no way of knowing whether Tuberville has already been interviewed about the allegations, but it’s quite clear that he’ll be pleading ignorant.

Via the Dr. Saturday blog on Yahoo! Sports, Tuberville told a radio interviewer that he doesn’t know what his players are (or, were) doing.

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"It happens a lot of places now. It's just not Ohio State. Kids do things I'm sure here at Texas Tech that we don't know about. We try to monitor them daily, every minute, talk to them, educate them. If we do that the right way, usually you can overcome a lot of these problems that happen.

“It's unfortunate, but it's always been out there. You've always had teams that have stretched the rules and played in the gray area. It's unfortunate that sometimes people go to the length of trying to hide things that players have done, and they get caught.

"There's a lot of things you can't control. There's a lot of things the players do that you can't control. We're limited to the time we can spend with these kids, but we're held to the standards of a saint, so to speak.

"Unfortunately, Jim Tressel got caught up in this deal with one of his good players. If he'd have come out from day one and say 'listen, this happened, and we're going to go on with business,' I think they'd been fine."

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Not only is that a vote of no confidence for the compliance staff he’s working with now, it’s a jab in the eye of the compliance staff at Auburn, too. Tuberville wasn’t asked about the HBO Four during the interview, but he’ll get asked by NCAA investigators.

Tubs has already used the ignorance defense once. He used the defense during the investigation of the school’s use of directed studies course in the Sociology Department, claiming that he had no idea that so many of his players were getting cushy course assignments and never going to class.

He should ask disgraced former Ohio State Head Coach Jim Tressel how well that works these days.

And lest anyone get the foolish notion that the NCAA isn’t really interested in the HBO Four’s allegations, you might want to rethink your concept.

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Tommy Tuberville gets a raise, faculty gets the shaft? Not exactly.

In January, Texas Tech University and Football Coach Tommy Tuberville agreed on a new contract that would run through 2015 and increase Tub’s salary from the bargain basement $1.5 million to $2.0 million, an increase of $500,000.

That hasn’t set well with the TTU faculty, as the university is facing a grim funding situation from the Texas legislature, according to an item published yesterday in the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal.

When Tuberville agreed to take the job last January following former coach Mike Leach’s dismissal, Tech Athletic Director Guy Bailey promised that Tuberville’s compensation would be evaluated following ticket sales and other revenue generating activities associated with the 2010 football season.  Football revenues set school records last fall, and Bailey made good on his promise.

That still sticks in the craw of the academic community at TTU.

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A recent pay boost for Texas Tech football coach Tommy Tuberville has miffed some professors whose own pay has stagnated against a spartan state funding backdrop.

Several professors at a faculty senate meeting Wednesday questioned the university’s January announcement it will increase Tuberville’s annual pay by $500,000 through 2015, one of the university’s few raises as it braces for lawmakers to cut tens of millionsof dollars from the university’s revenue.

The five-year $11 million contract guarantees Tuberville at least $2 million per year, up from $1.5 million in the original contract he signed with Tech in 2010.

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Others later said the raise shows a priority on athletics over academics.

Meek, like Bailey, said some frustration may stem from confusion about how Tech pays Tuberville’s salary. Many fail to understand that a funding wall separates academics and athletic budgets, Bailey said, so the raise does not directly siphon from academic coffers. Each year, however, academics does subsidize $2.5 million of the athletic department’s budget. Bailey said Tech has reduced that to $2.25 million this year to reflect state cuts and he hopes to slowly wean athletics off that subsidy entirely over the next few years.

But, he added, his office first needs time to untangle federal and NCAA red tape tied to the subsidy.

Wednesday’s faculty discussion touched on an older, broader debate about where and how sports fit at public universities. The question has surfaced repeatedly over the past few years alongside a surge in athletic spending.

“Regardless of the specifics of the money flow, there’s still a question of the symbolism of what this says about the university’s priorities,” said John Curtis, director of research and public policy at the American Association of University Professors, a faculty advocacy group in Washington. “If you’re at a time of cutting academic programs or freezing or cutting salaries for faculty and other employees and you have a raise for the football coach — even if the money is there — it sends a completely wrong signal about where the priorities of the university are.”

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In the excerpt above, the underlined statement is the one that has generated the most chatter on sports blogs and message boards, and it’s also the most misunderstood concept in this story. It suggests that the general fund of a public, state-funded university is funding the entire athletic department, including the football program.

People associated with the program and one source close to Tuberville hotly and flatly deny that. While it is true that the athletic department is receiving a subsidy from the academic side of the books, that money is not going into Tuberville’s pockets or the pockets of his assistant coaches. Instead, that money goes to supporting less lucrative athletic programs, such as softball, track & field, golf, swimming, etc. These programs are not revenue generators and, if left to fend for themselves, would likely not survive another season.

At many major universities with large, successful football programs, football funds not only the entire athletic department but in some cases generates a net positive contribution to academics and the general fund.  Additionally, a large, successful football (or basketball) program has the added—but more esoteric—benefit of drawing more students to apply for enrollment.  Students want to go to schools with an exciting, competitive athletics program. It’s part of campus life and it is a major factor in many students’ decision-making process.

Tuberville is a decent football coach. He’s won in the cutthroat competitive environment of the Southeastern Conference. He’s not a great coach, as many Auburn fans would probably agree. He is however, capable of recruiting well and coaching the Red Raiders to perennial 8-4 seasons, a decent bowl appearance and an occasional run at a Big XII division or conference title. He’ll win games, he’ll put a decent product on the field, and he’ll put butts in the seats.

The objective, of course, is to get so many butts in the seats that the football program can drive the rest of the athletic department’s budget and wean it off of the general fund/academic subsidy.

While I’m sympathetic to the plight of the academic budgets, complaints such as those aired by the professors quoted in the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal are short-sighted. The priorities of the university have always been about providing a quality education and campus experience for the students making the transition from teenager to young adult. Football is part of that experience at TTU, and if Tuberville keeps winning, it’ll be part of helping to pay for it, too.

But you can’t win if you can’t attract decent coaching, and the only way to attract decent coaching is to pay a competitive salary. It’s not about sending messages about priorities. It’s about economics.

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