Alabama played Oklahoma in the Sugar Bowl Jan. 2, 2014.
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By coming to Georgia, he’d reunite with Smart, the previous defensive coordinator at Alabama, and defensive coordinator Mel Tucker, who coached defensive backs for the Crimson Tide last season.
Smith’s mother gave the Atlanta Journal-Constitution a copy of his July 1 letter to Alabama’s appeal committee. “If you want to go some place else (outside the SEC), we’d be glad to help you do that'”. “Period”, Samyra Smith said.
“He wants to go where he feels like he’ll have the level of success he wants to have”.
“The university is continuing to be resistant to any request to release my son. That’s where we are”, Samyra Smith told DawgNation.
“In (Saban’s) mind, the best decision is for him to stay here (at Alabama)”. And, Maurice Smith thinks he’s better off elsewhere; again, that’s his right. As the AJC notes, Georgia, started practice Monday. Smith is due to graduate on Saturday. That should earn him the right to play his final season of eligibility this year at the school of his choice, even if that school is Georgia, as his mother says it is.
Alabama declined an opportunity to comment Wednesday, but it’s clear the school disagrees with Samyra Smith’s contention that it’s been stalling to keep her son on the roster. She said her son has only had limited contact with Smart and defensive coordinator Mel Tucker, who were both at Alabama previous year.
In that letter, Smith described how someone at Alabama had retaliated against him after he’d begun to explore the possibility of transferring but hadn’t yet decided what to do. It was closer to home and he knew the secondary coach there. From there, he turned his attention toward Athens, and his former defensive coordinator Smart.
A day after meeting with Saban to inform his coach about his intent to transfer and being told he would not be allowed to transfer to another SEC school, Smith arrived at the athletic facility only to find his locker had been cleaned out and his personal belongings had been thrown in the trash. “It’s his choice. It should be his choice, if he wants to leave here, he should be able to do that”. It may work, it may not.
The problem, of course, is that Smith would only have to sit out a year if Alabama didn’t approve the transfer.
The obvious initial response is to say ‘oh boy, here is typical big, bad Nick Saban, blocking the transfer of a key player, to a big-time SEC rival.’ It makes sense, and I get it. So don’t tell me it’s about a violation of rules, I can read you the rules, I understand them well.
The SEC’s rule on in-conference transfers is the same for graduate transfers as it is for regular ones.
“So you make the choice about what’s best for the child, if you truly care about the kid”.
An Alabama spokesman did not immediately have a response when contacted by SEC Country on Tuesday night.
Unfortunately, Saban isn’t having it, and now Smith’s mom isn’t having it either. © 2016 Cox Media Group.
It’s also worth noting that for any Georgia fan who is frustrated by Saban keeping a player from joining the Dawgs, Smart made national headlines when he did the same thing earlier this spring, and didn’t allow Georgia players to transfer to play for their former coach Mark Richt at Miami.
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Saban and Alabama, who have the deepest roster in college football on a consistent basis, could and should take the high road here.
