The Crimson Connection: Marrow and Whitlow talk about their Alabama connections

Entering Saturday's Alabama game, two wildcats are having a homecoming- sort of. Both tight ends Coach Vince Marrow and starting quarterback Jalen Whitlow have strong connections to the land of the Tide. With Marrow, his connection comes in the form of playing under current Alabama Coach Nick Saban back during his tight end playing days at Toledo, where Saban coached in 1990. For Whitlow, his connection comes in to play from his high school days when he played for the Prattville Lions in Alabama. So with this in mind, let’s go ahead and look a little bit deeper into the pair’s connections back to the land of Houndstooth hats and Roll Tide Roll. Vince Marrow: As I said above, Vince Marrow has a pretty deep relationship with Nick Saban. Not only did he play under him, but his son did as well. Mike Marrow, who currently is a fullback on Georgetown College's squad, was a redshirt under coach Saban in 2010 down at Alabama. Now while his son was only on the team for one year, Marrow said that Saban is still, "(a) very close guy to our family. I have a lot of respect for him, and I'm not surprised at where he is at today." However the praises did not stop there for his former coach. Marrow also mentioned how Saban helped him out not only as a player, but as a coach as well, saying that he picked up a lot of traits from him that he uses in his own coaching repertoire today. But once he was asked the inevitable question about how it was going to feel coaching against the man who he considers like a father figure to him for the first time, Marrow responded with a quote that has to stand alone to be truly appreciated:

“It’s kind of strange (coaching against Saban); he is one of the four guys in my life that really have affected my life. But you know; this is football. It could be my mother over there and imma’ go and try to compete and win. But I have a lot of respect for that man, a lot of respect.”

I will say that if one thing can be concluded from Coach Marrow, it is that the man has an immense amount of respect for one of, if not, the best coach in college football today.

Jalen Whitlow:

On the complete opposite side of the connection spectrum sits quarterback Jalen Whitlow. Whitlow's big connection to the school is that he grew up and played high school ball in the very state that the school is named for. Our fearless quarterback played football at Prattville High School, a place where Jalen claims that "99.9% of the people are Alabama fans." So how does Whitlow feel about the two schools down there? Did he pull for the Crimson Tide, or rather the Tigers up the road in Auburn? The answer fortunately was that, in his words, "I really never declared a side."

Despite the fact that he remained neutral, Whitlow said that he is still feeling the tide come in via his own family. See, while Jalen might not have cared for the crimson and white, his family sure as hell does. Jalen's sister goes to the school, and his brother is a big fan of the tide as well, which can only make things that much wilder in the Whitlow household this week:

"It’s crazy in my house. My parents got all of the Alabama gear cause my sister goes there… My brother likes Alabama, so yeah its crazy."

Obviously Jalen is not going to tolerate such type of fandom for the game this weekend, going as far as to say (jokingly) that his family better be wearing blue all weekend. So when KSR fan favorite Alan Cutler (Cutlah!!) asked if his sister was going to don the blue and white, he looked him right back in the mustache and said, "she better" much to the amusement of all the reporters.

All jokes aside, Whitlow said that while he has heard about Alabama his entire life, he says that he is not putting them up on a pedestal so to speak. Rather, he's just going to treat it like every other game and, "just come in and work and try to get ready to play."

Well said indeed Mr. Quarterback.

Go Cats