[revrew]

Our fourth season began with two big newslines--one good and one bad. The bad news was that veteran star WR Joe Horn, who had been injured last year but made a strong comeback, chose to retire. I pleaded with him through his agent to give us another year or two, but Horn told the media he had just lost his fire to continue. His heart was still in New Orleans, and he returned there to devote himself to a charity he had started in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. It was a heavy blow to Rebels fans.

The good news, however, was that the voters of Birmingham approved a new stadium deal, one that would cost Jeffrey Davis a cool $200 million dollars and give the Rebels one of the finest stadiums in the league.

Unfortunately for the fans, we couldn't give them much news either in the free agency market, nor in the draft. I knew we had a beautiful crop of young players, who, given time and maturity, could propel this team to the winner's circle. I needed the money to lock up the youngsters, rather than trying to pull in vets to win now. In free agency, we brought in a few vets that fell through the cracks--mostly backups that could handle the time if we suffered injury--and we traded virtually nothin for an upgrade at fullback. The draft gave us nothing but depth (or so we thought) and hopefully, hopefully, the right guard we were desperately needing.

Rnd 3 - Lamont Carlisle, QB, Baylor
Rnd 3 - Mercury Frase, G, Small College
Rnd 5 - Toby Porter, CB, Tennessee
Rnd 6 - Ross Lewis, QB, Truman State
Rnd 7 - Frankie Warholic, DT, Houston

The fate of our season, however, would rest not on new acquisitions, but the development of the previous year's rookies and youngsters. Little did I know, years down the road, that one of our late draft picks would "volunteer" his name for the Hall of Fame.