Alabama News

General

AL.com college football staff picks for Week 13 of 2024

There’s still chaos atop the college football rankings, but not so in AL.com’s staff picks.

With three weeks left for our panel, our own Mark Inabinett has opened up a three-game lead on the field. However, we do have a tie for last place (including yours truly).

In the real college football world, there are a couple of massive battles involving unbeaten teams this week. In the SEC, some playoff contenders trying to hold serve. Across the state, three of our teams — Alabama, Jacksonville State and South Alabama — are trying to stay in contention for conference titles. The others — Auburn, UAB and Troy — are mostly playing for pride.

Scroll along below to find out how various AL.com sports staffers see this week’s games playing out. We’ve also given predicted scores for this week’s Alabama and Auburn games.

A reminder that these picks are AGAINST THE SPREAD. That means that each person’s selection doesn’t necessarily mean he or she thinks that team will win outright, just that it will cover the point spread.

On with this week’s picks (all times Central and all games Saturday unless noted):

Ole Miss (-9.5) at Florida, 11 a.m., ABC

Thomas Ashworth: Ole Miss

Michael Casagrande: Ole Miss

Patrick Greenfield: Florida

Andrew Hammond: Ole Miss

Mark Inabinett: Ole Miss

Nick Kelly: Florida

Peter Rauterkus: Ole Miss

Creg Stephenson: Florida

Indiana (+11.5) at Ohio State, 11 a.m., Fox

Thomas Ashworth: Ohio State

Michael Casagrande: Ohio State

Patrick Greenfield: Ohio State

Andrew Hammond: Ohio State

Mark Inabinett: Ohio State

Nick Kelly: Ohio State

Peter Rauterkus: Ohio State

Creg Stephenson: Ohio State

Army (+16.5) vs. Notre Dame (Bronx, N.Y.), 6 p.m., NBC

Thomas Ashworth: Army

Michael Casagrande: Notre Dame

Patrick Greenfield: Notre Dame

Andrew Hammond: Army

Mark Inabinett: Army

Nick Kelly: Notre Dame

Peter Rauterkus: Army

Creg Stephenson: Notre Dame

Vanderbilt (+8.5) at LSU, 6:45 p.m., SEC Network

Thomas Ashworth: LSU

Michael Casagrande: Vanderbilt

Patrick Greenfield: LSU

Andrew Hammond: Vanderbilt

Mark Inabinett: Vanderbilt

Nick Kelly: Vanderbilt

Peter Rauterkus: Vanderbilt

Creg Stephenson: Vanderbilt

Sam Houston (+6) at Jacksonville State, 11 a.m., CBS Sports Network

Thomas Ashworth: Jacksonville State

Michael Casagrande: Jacksonville State

Patrick Greenfield: Jacksonville State

Andrew Hammond: Jacksonville State

Mark Inabinett: Sam Houston

Nick Kelly: Jacksonville State

Peter Rauterkus: Jacksonville State

Creg Stephenson: Jacksonville State

Rice (-6.5) at UAB, 1 p.m., ESPN+

Thomas Ashworth: Rice

Michael Casagrande: UAB

Patrick Greenfield: UAB

Andrew Hammond: Rice

Mark Inabinett: Rice

Nick Kelly: Rice

Peter Rauterkus: UAB

Creg Stephenson: UAB

South Alabama (-22.5) at Southern Miss, 2 p.m., ESPN+

Thomas Ashworth: South Alabama

Michael Casagrande: South Alabama

Patrick Greenfield: Southern Miss

Andrew Hammond: South Alabama

Mark Inabinett: Southern Miss

Nick Kelly: Southern Miss

Peter Rauterkus: South Alabama

Creg Stephenson: South Alabama

Troy (+11.5) at Louisiana, 4 p.m., ESPN+

Thomas Ashworth: Louisiana

Michael Casagrande: Louisiana

Patrick Greenfield: Louisiana

Andrew Hammond: Louisiana

Mark Inabinett: Troy

Nick Kelly: Louisiana

Peter Rauterkus: Louisiana

Creg Stephenson: Troy

Texas A&M (-2.5) at Auburn, 6:30 p.m., ESPN

Thomas Ashworth: Texas A&M 30, Auburn 24

Michael Casagrande: Texas A&M 28, Auburn 24

Patrick Greenfield: Texas A&M 28, Auburn 17

Andrew Hammond: Texas A&M 28, Auburn 14

Mark Inabinett: Texas A&M 24, Auburn 23

Nick Kelly: Texas A&M 23, Auburn 17

Peter Rauterkus: Auburn 20, Texas A&M 17

Creg Stephenson: Texas A&M 16, Auburn 14

Alabama (-14) at Oklahoma, 6:30 p.m., ABC

Thomas Ashworth: Alabama 34, Oklahoma 17

Michael Casagrande: Alabama 38, Oklahoma 14

Patrick Greenfield: Alabama 34, Oklahoma 17

Andrew Hammond: Alabama 45, Oklahoma 17

Mark Inabinett: Alabama 31, Oklahoma 18

Nick Kelly: Alabama 31, Oklahoma 13

Peter Rauterkus: Alabama 31, Oklahoma 14

Creg Stephenson: Alabama 21, Oklahoma 0

Standings after Week 12

Mark Inabinett 65-55 (5-5 last week)

Nick Kelly 62-58 (4-6 last week)

Michael Casagrande 59-61 (3-7 last week)

Andrew Hammond 58-62 (4-6 last week)

Peter Rauterkus 58-62 (3-7 last week)

Patrick Greenfield 56-64 (2-8 last week)

Thomas Ashworth 55-65 (5-5 last week)

Creg Stephenson 55-65 (3-7 last week)

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General

Country music singer sentenced to prison for fatal DUI crash

Country music singer Caleb Kennedy was sentenced Monday to prison for his role in a 2022 DUI crash that left one man dead.

Taste of Country reports Kennedy spend the next two years and three months in prison.

The former “American Idol” star actually got 25 years in prison and a $25,100 fine for the crash, which left Larry Duane Parris, 54, dead.

The sentence, according to Taste of Country, was suspended to eight years and the fine was lowered to $15,100. Three years will be served in home detention, per the report. Kennedy also is receiving credit for two years and nine months served.

In February, Kennedy was arrested in Spartanburg, South Carolina on felony driving-under-the-influence charges back after he crashed into a workshop. Parris, who was in the shop, died from the injuries he sustained in the crash.

Taste of Country reported that Kennedy’s toxicology report showed traces of THC and Prozac, which he had a prescription for.

Mark Heim is a reporter for The Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Mark_Heim. He can be heard on “The Opening Kickoff” on WNSP-FM 105.5 FM in Mobile or on the free Sound of Mobile App from 6 to 9 a.m. daily.

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General

Why Oklahoma game is emotional for Alabama football’s special teams coach

Alabama football special teams coordinator Jay Nunez used to get in the car with his high school friends in Alva, Okla. on Saturdays to make a three-hour drive to Norman. The youngsters would pull into town, watch Oklahoma play, then turn around and drive home.

Starting with the 2022 season, Nunez found himself coaching special teams for the Sooners, back in his home state.

“Coach (Brent) Venables, I owe him the world,” Nunez said Wednesday. “He pulled me out of Eastern Michigan to go home and coach at a school like that.”

Then, after two seasons in Norman, Nunez left home again. He took a job coaching special teams for new Crimson Tide head coach Kalen DeBoer.

It wasn’t easy for the Sooner State native.

“I’m a big believer in, God tells you where he wants you to be if you just shut up and listen,” Nunez said. “Which is very, very hard to do most of the time.”

DeBoer and Nunez had never worked together before this season. However, they had mutual friends, as Nunez had followed behind his new boss at Southern Illinois and Eastern Michigan.

“The name kept following kind of where I was at,” DeBoer said Monday. “Not necessarily, obviously, in my position, but just seemed to be a guy that, really, the staff related to well. Heard nothing but great things, and then when it came to production, just the variety of things that he did mostly with special teams, but also coaching positions, just a really, really great football coach.”

On Saturday, Nunez and the Crimson Tide are returning to Norman. Alabama and Oklahoma will face off for the first time since 2018.

It’s a huge game for the Tide. UA will be expected to win easily against a team that has only won one SEC matchup this season, and a loss would effectively knock DeBoer and company out of College Football Playoff contention.

It’s been an emotional week for Nunez, who said he hadn’t slept at all.

“There’s a lot of positional guys that played special teams that I never got to say goodbye to.” Nunez said. “Excited to give some of those guys a hug if they want to. If not, I’ll put my head down and cry. But there’s some bittersweetness to it, for sure.”

In the meantime, DeBoer praised his contributions to Alabama’s 2024 efforts.

“He touches pretty much every player (while) coaching the special teams,” DeBoer said. “Every player is in those meetings at some point throughout the week. He does a good job of just relating to them. He keeps them excited about special teams and understanding the significance, not just to our team now but the value it can bring them as they continue their careers well beyond their days here at Alabama.”

Alabama and Oklahoma are scheduled to kick off at 6:30 p.m. CT Saturday in Norman. The game will be aired on ABC.

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General

Woman told police Pete Hegseth took her phone, wouldn’t let her leave, sexually assaulted her

A woman told police that she was sexually assaulted in 2017 by Pete Hegseth after he took her phone, blocked the door to a California hotel room and refused to let her leave, according to a detailed investigative report made public late Wednesday.

Hegseth, a Fox News personality and President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to be defense secretary, told police at the time that the encounter had been consensual and denied any wrongdoing, the report said.

News of the allegations surfaced last week when local officials released a brief statement confirming that a woman had accused Hegseth of sexual assault in October 2017 after he had spoken at a Republican women’s event in Monterey.

Hegseth’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment early Thursday. He has said Hegseth paid the woman in 2023 to head off the threat of a baseless lawsuit.

The 22-page police report was released in response to a public records request and offers the first detailed account of what the woman alleged to have transpired — one that is at odds with Hegseth’s version of events. The report cited police interviews with the alleged victim, a nurse who treated her, a hotel staffer, another woman at the event and Hegseth.

The woman’s name was not released, and The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually assaulted.

A spokeswoman for the Trump transition said early Thursday that the “report corroborates what Mr. Hegseth’s attorneys have said all along: the incident was fully investigated and no charges were filed because police found the allegations to be false.”

The report does not say that police found the allegations were false. Police recommended the case report be forwarded to the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office for review.

Investigators were first alerted to the alleged assault, the report said, by a nurse who called them after a patient requested a sexual assault exam. The patient told medical personnel she believed she was assaulted five days earlier but couldn’t remember much about what had happened. She reported something may have been slipped into her drink before ending up in the hotel room where she said the assault occurred.

Police collected the unwashed dress and underwear she had worn that night, the report said.

The woman’s partner, who was staying at the hotel with her, told police that he was worried about her that night after she didn’t come back to their room. At 2 a.m., he went to the hotel bar, but she wasn’t there. She made it back a few hours later, apologizing that she “must have fallen asleep.” A few days later, she told him she had been sexually assaulted.

The woman, who helped organize the California Federation of Republican women gathering at which Hegseth spoke, told police that she had witnessed the TV anchor acting inappropriately throughout the night and saw him stroking multiple women’s thighs. She texted a friend that Hegseth was giving off a “creeper” vibe, according to the report.

After the event, the woman and others attended an afterparty in a hotel suite where she said she confronted Hegseth, telling him that she “did not appreciate how he treated women,” the report states.

A group of people, including Hegseth and the woman, decamped for the hotel’s bar. That’s when “things got fuzzy,” the woman told police.

She remembered having a drink at the bar with Hegseth and others, the police report states. She also told police that she argued with Hegseth near the hotel pool, an account that is supported by a hotel staffer who was sent to handle the disturbance and spoke to police, according to the report.

Soon, she told police, she was inside a hotel room with Hegseth, who took her phone and blocked the door with his body so that she could not leave, according to the report. She also told police she remembered “saying ‘no’ a lot,” the report said.

Her next memory was laying on a couch or bed with Hegseth hovering over her bare-chested, his dog tags dangling over her, the report states. Hegseth served in the National Guard, rising to the rank of major.

After Hegseth finished, she recalled him asking if she was “OK,” the report states. She told police she did not recall how she got back to her own hotel room and had since suffered from nightmares and memory loss.

At the time of the alleged assault in 2017, Hegseth, now 44, was going through a divorce with his second wife, with whom he has three children. She filed for divorce after he had a child with a Fox News producer who is now his wife, according to court records and social media posts by Hegseth. His first marriage ended in 2009, also after infidelity by Hegseth, according to court records.

Hegseth said he attended an after party and drank beer but did not consume liquor, and acknowledged being “buzzed” but not drunk.

He said he met the woman at the hotel bar, and she led him by the arm back to his hotel room, which surprised him because he initially had no intention of having sex with her, the report said.

Hegseth told investigators that the sexual encounter that followed was consensual, adding that he explicitly asked more than once if she was comfortable. Hegseth said in the morning the woman “showed early signs of regret,” and he assured her that he wouldn’t tell anyone about the encounter.

Hegseth’s attorney said a payment was made to the woman as part of a confidential settlement a few years after the police investigation because Hegseth was concerned that she was prepared to file a lawsuit that he feared could have resulted in him being fired from Fox News, where he was a popular host. The attorney would not reveal the amount of the payment.

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General

Can UMS-Wright crack Vigor’s stingy defense in Region 1 rematch?

The closest win in Vigor’s dominant season came on Aug. 13, when the Wolves beat UMS-Wright 30-14. Ironically, that game was also the most lopsided loss of the season for UMS-Wright.

Now, the Region 1 rivals get another shot at each other with a place in the Class 5A semifinals on the line. Kickoff from Vigor on Friday night is at 7 p.m.

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General

Can Auburn men’s basketball reach No. 1 in rankings? Maui Invitational will be the test

Bruce Pearl opened his Wednesday afternoon press conference with a puzzling stat as Auburn basketball prepares for the Maui Invitational next week.

The SEC’s success in Maui, for as long as the tournament has been in existence, is minimal. In fact, it’s been a while since an SEC team has won the tournament. Vanderbilt won it in 1986, and Kentucky did it in 1993.

In Auburn’s first Maui experience back in 2018, they went 2-1 defeating Xavier in the first round and Arizona in the third-place game.

The Tigers fell to Duke in the semifinal round that year and Bruce Pearl spoke on how dominant ACC programs are in that tournament.

“That tells you how hard it is to win. The ACC’s won it 11 times, or something like that. The Big Ten won it eight times,” Pearl said. But our teams have not had a ton of success out there.”

“The way I look at it is we have a chance to play three great teams on a neutral site, and really find out where we’re at, but also, potentially, help our NCAA Tournament resume, if we can be competitive.”

Ironically, the last time Auburn played in this tournament they made it all the way to the Final 4 in 2019.

Auburn starts this year’s tournament with No. 5 Iowa State and a victory will see them play No. 10 North Carolina or Dayton in the semifinals.

On the other side of the bracket, back-to-back national champions No. 3 UConn will matchup against Memphis and faces the winner of Colorado and Michigan State.

“It sort of reminds me a little bit about the road to the Final Four in 2019, and we looked at that as, ‘Man, somebody’s got to beat Kansas, or North Carolina, or Kentucky along the way,’” Pearl said. “You know, somebody’s got to beat Iowa State, or North Carolina, or Dayton, or UConn, somebody along the way. That’s just how we approach it. So, I’m kind of looking at it as one game at a time.”

Peal compared tournaments like this to the NCAA Tournament in March with the scheduling of all the games. However, the depth of his roster and rotations will look different with the return of Ja’Heim Hudson and Jahki Howard in the lineup after serving team suspensions.

“Because we have three games in three days, it’s a little bit like an NCAA Tournament weekend. Two games in three days in the tournament,” Pearl said.

“I think one thing that should serve us well is our depth. The fact that we’re playing, the first few games we played 11, the last couple games we played nine. I think that that helps you on the back-to-back-to-backs. I know our coaches will have great preparations.”

Senior Chad Baker-Mazara voiced how excited this opportunity is for the team. Already averaging 10.5 points per game shooting 52% from the floor, he wants to use the Maui stage as a place to show the world who the best team in the country is.

“We’re really looking forward to this. It might help us become No. 1 in the nation,” Baker-Mazara said. “That’s a goal that I personally want for us as a team, to reach No. 1 and be at the point where it’s like, OK, we’re the best. Hopefully we can hold that throughout the season.”

The Tigers open the Maui Invitational Monday, Nov. 25. with its matchup against the Cyclones and the game will be televised on ESPN U. Tipoff is scheduled for 8 p.m.

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General

Casagrande: The College Football Playoff is wasting your time, serving empty calories

This is an opinion column.

Let’s start this by saying Warde Manuel is in an impossible position.

The Michigan athletics director is also the College Football Playoff Selection Committee chair, so like his predecessors, he’s subject to the November Tuesday night walks of shame.

The CFP loves a good sacrifice.

So, the guy who professionally defended Jim Harbaugh is appropriate in this case.

Nevertheless, this is not about Manuel’s day job. We’re here to talk about Tuesday Night Manuel and the dirty work he has to do for the CFP committee — the faux transparency of the sport’s secret judge/jury.

Because this is about TV ratings. It just is. The Tuesday night rollouts of preliminary rankings and how they’d fit on pretend 12-team brackets isn’t doing much to inform the public.

If anything, we’re left more confused and further in the dark.

And Manuel’s role as a spokesperson explaining the thought process certainly isn’t helping lend any real insight to the deliberations. Again, this is the way it’s designed and the committee chairs who came before him were just as maddening in the lack of substance provided.

The stakes are just heightened in Year 1 of the 12-team bracket. There are more mouths to feed this fall, and everyone goes to bed hungry every Tuesday night.

After Manuel’s appearance on ESPN, he heads to the phone where the pack of hungry wolves dressed as reporters are waiting. Though I’ll never say we need less time questioning those in power, these become pointless exercises if nothing insightful can be squeezed out of well-conceived questions.

When the committee won’t even disclose the strength of schedule ranking from which they base some percentage of their decision-making process, this is practically the only way to probe the hive.

Take the first question Manuel received in this Tuesday’s teleconference for example. It was about the gulf between No. 3 Texas and No. 10 Georgia in light of the Bulldogs’ 30-15 win in Austin and the fact the Longhorns don’t have any top-25 wins.

“Well, obviously Georgia has a very good win at Texas,” Manuel said, “but as the committee analyzed the body of work of Texas versus where Georgia is at the present time with two losses, even to top-25 teams, we came out that Texas was still a very strong team deserving of a 3 seed. They have a top-5 defense. Quinn Ewers is leading one of the top passing offenses in the country. We just looked at them and thought — and came out, I should say, with them at 3,”

Stated a few facts but essentially said we just think Texas is good and deserves to be No. 3. The word salad continued without anything other than we think Texas is good.

“It’s nothing against Georgia,” Manuel continued. “Georgia is a great team, but they did struggle against Ole Miss at Ole Miss but had a great win this past week against Tennessee. We will continue to monitor both teams and see how it goes in the next few weeks.”

Facts, but nothing a scoreboard couldn’t tell us.

Asked next about Georgia and the fact it moved up just two spots after beating previously No. 7 Tennessee, Manuel said they had “a long debate” and “intense conversations” about the placement of Georgia, Mississippi, Miami and Alabama.”

“… And there was a lot of consideration about where teams were ranked and why and a lot of conversation about it,” Manuel said. “It was very, very thorough. We’re dealing with very small margins in terms of the different things that we’re looking at and comparing, so I can assure you the committee went through it intensely in the last couple of days.”

Words. Words. Words.

What was discussed? What were the small margins?

We’re just saying they may have had lively discussions in the suburban Dallas hotel boardroom but these are the rankings and that’s all you’re getting.

An answer about BYU dropping after its loss to Kansas was especially fun after listing off a few wins and the end to the unbeaten run Saturday.

“Look, we give a lot of credit when teams win, and so we don’t penalize teams for winning close or winning too big in other words, but we do value wins, so that’s where we saw BYU,” he said.

Huh?

“But given some of those games that they played and the close wins that they had, it just was an indicator that some of the teams that were below them in the rankings last week should move ahead of them is how the committee assessed BYU.”

So they don’t penalize teams for winning close games but BYU won a few games that were close so the teams below them moved past the Cougars.

Got it.

Indiana is quite the story as the No. 5 Hoosiers emerged from the cornfields as the great disrupter to the natural order of things. They’ve beaten everyone but played nobody entering Saturday’s trip to No. 2 Ohio State. Manuel was asked what the committee will be watching anything specifically when ranking the winner and loser from this surprise top-5 matchup.

“We’re looking at how the offenses play, how the defenses play, what are the strengths, is there dominance in one half versus another,” Manuel said. “We are taking a look at the entirety of the game and the performance. We will then get together and assess and have conversations about what we saw in the outcome of the game, no matter who wins or loses, and assess then how to rank the teams. The team particular to the question who loses and how that impacts the rankings for next week, that is to be determined.”

They’re going to watch the offense and defense and determine if there was dominance and then look at the whole game and then get together to discuss it. Interesting.

Maybe Manuel is too nice and feels like he has to say something when nothing is really fine. Because those sentences are as hollow as they come. Impressive, in a way.

But we’re no closer to knowing anything tangible about what the committee is thinking outside of just the raw 1-through-25 ranking they release.

Why is No. 11 Tennessee the fourth of four two-loss SEC teams when it beat No. 7 Alabama?

“They have great offense, great defense. They play hard,” he said. “The committee just had a hard time. You’re talking about four really good teams, when you look at Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and Tennessee. I think the committee, we debated it, as I said earlier, quite a bit as it came down to how we saw those teams.”

It just came down to how they saw it.

Just what they think.

“It is close,” Manuel said. “There’s a lot of conversations. We’ll continue to monitor the performance of all these teams as the season progresses towards the end.”

Indeed they will.

They will discuss.

They will rank.

They’ll shove Manuel in front of an ESPN camera, then a phone call.

And then they’ll leave us to our imagination for how they came up with a final product.

Michael Casagrande is a reporter for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @ByCasagrande or on Facebook.

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General

Miss Manners: Street names should be easy, not a history lesson

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Our town is a typical suburb of a large city. It was originally settled by German farmers, but over the years, it has become an affluent sprawl of subdivisions and strip malls. Many of the original family farms have been honored in various street names.

Lingering descendants of the families, or those who knew them, adhere to the original pronunciations, but the majority of the community no longer does. For example: Old-timers insist that Mueller Street should be pronounced “Miller,” not “Mew-ler.” This is just one of several examples.

The thing is, I have lived in this town since the early 1970s, and never heard anyone refer to that street as “Miller.” If someone gave me directions and said, “Turn on Miller Street,” I would have bypassed the “Mueller” sign and kept looking.

I feel that naming a street after a family is lovely, but that the family’s right to police pronunciation is limited. The whole point of naming streets at all is to make navigation easier. If the community at large has tacitly agreed to call a street “Mew-ler” because that is the more intuitive, contemporary interpretation of the spelling, then that becomes the correct way to say the street name.

Those who pronounce these streets “wrong” are being told, on social media, that they owe it to these families to adopt the “correct” pronunciation. This seems unnecessary to me — and I have a Dutch last name that no one can pronounce without guidance.

GENTLE READER: Snapping at people to do something that has not been done in decades is unlikely to be effective. Far better to use one of the few advantages Miss Manners sees to social media — which is that people can opt out of group conversations about such issues, rather than feeding the flames by continuing to argue about them.

Please send your questions to Miss Manners at missmanners.com, by email to [email protected], or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.

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Who moved up on AL.com’s A-List as signing day approaches?

The updated A-List of the best Class of 2025 high school football recruits in Alabama shows a changing landscape in state recruiting.

With two weeks left before the early signing day, Auburn is set to ink its best in-state class in years. Nine of the 15 players on the A-List are committed to coach Hugh Freeze and the Tigers. Two are committed to Ohio State, two are uncommitted and the other two are set to sign with Texas and Alabama.

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General

Dear Abby: How do I deal with alcoholic friends?

DEAR ABBY: I have been friends with a couple for 30 years. Both are alcoholics. They function, work at farmers’ markets, are sociable, have a house and pay their bills. Yet, at least once, maybe twice a month, they get totally wasted and the wife calls me and rambles on incoherently. I suspect they get drunk even more frequently, but, thankfully, I don’t get a call every time they are on a binge.

I have been in terrible relationships in which I drank too much to numb myself. Thankfully, I have been out of such toxicity for years. But I’m having increasing difficulty dealing with these drunken phone calls. I suspect I’m the only person my friend calls because she knows few others would understand her slurred babble. I’m weary from these calls. How do I deflect them? — TIRED EAR IN ARIZONA

DEAR TIRED EAR: Put an end to those calls by being frank with your friend about the effect they have on you. Do this while she is sober. Tell her you do not want her calling you after she has been drinking because her speech is so slurred that you can’t understand what she’s saying.

Say if it happens again you will hang up the phone, and if it does, follow through. Let her calls go to voicemail. If you would like to maintain any sort of relationship with this couple, see them socially only when they are (reasonably) sober.

Read more Dear Abby and other advice columns.

Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips, and was founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips. Contact Dear Abby at www.DearAbby.com or P.O. Box 69440, Los Angeles, CA 90069.

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