Alabama's Carson Lucky to be Alive After Tuscaloosa Tornado; Alabama, LSU Vie for College Championship; Penn State Hires New Head Football Coach
LEMON: I know you can hardly wait. I can't. Monday night, the sports world will be watching the BCS college football championship game -- the showdown between LSU and HLN. Sports anchor, Joe Carter, joins me now from New Orleans. My team in the NEWSROOM room said you should recuse yourself from these sports because you're very biased. This championship, Alabama is playing for its 13th national title, but I know this one would have some -- it has some extra meaning to one player in particular. Tell us about it.</s>JOE CARTER, HLN SPORTS ANCHOR: Life is a very precious thing especially when you talk to Carson. He was involved in the tornado Tuscaloosa in April. It did so much damage. It caused more than $11 billion in damage in Alabama. More than 300 people were killed. Some 350 twisters that tore through the state. When you go to Tuscaloosa and look at it now, it's certainly not the same town it was before the tornado. Dozens of businesses flattened. That day, Carson and his girlfriend, Ashley, were playing with their dogs in front of their home. The tornado warning started. They went inside the House, the tornado came, ripped the roof off, basically tossing them like ragdolls. Carson woke up in the hospital several hours later asking for his girlfriend, Ashley, only to be told she had been killed along with their two dogs. And here we are, Carson Tinker, 24 hours away from the biggest college football game of his career, and he really puts in perspective. It's still a healing process for Carson Tinker.</s>CARSON TINKER, ALABAMA LONG SNAPPER: Something I do every day. There's not like a textbook way to get over something like what I had to go through and what Tuscaloosa had to go through. It's an every day thing, but I said this before, every day is a blessing, you know, and I believe that.</s>DARIUS HANKS, ALABAMA WIDE RECEIVER: Just as easily as his girlfriend passed away, it could have been him. He was thrown hundreds of feet away and he survived. I mean, that's just by the grace of god.</s>TINKER: I know that Tuscaloosa is already very proud of us, but a win would be huge. Can't even put into words what it would mean.</s>LEMON: Carson Tinker is the long snapper and his field goal unit had some problems when they played LSU this year, didn't they?</s>CARTER: Yes, that was the big difference, Don. Those two field goal kickers for Alabama missed two of six field goals. Had they made two of those, we might be in a different scenario. It's a rare opportunity that you get the chance to play a team for a second time. So you know tomorrow night, the entire Alabama team is looking for redemption, especially those two kickers.</s>LEMON: I'll be there tomorrow. So excited. Thank you, sir. Maybe I'll get to see you before the game.</s>CARTER: Save you a spot, Don.</s>LEMON: Awesome. Awesome. Let's preview the game. A rare, regular-season match that will decide the national championship, of course. And Jon Wertheim is here, senior investigative reporter for "Sports Illustrated," author of "Scorecasting," coming out this week, by the way, in paperback. Make sure you pick one up. Jon, great to see you. This is the best sports segment I've ever done. Two sports segments. LSU beat Alabama in November. Should we expect another defensive battle tomorrow night, do you think?</s>JON WERTHEIM, SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER: I think we'll see some touchdowns in this game. It's interesting. As you said before, it's very rare we have a national championship game with a rematch. And you know, both teams have obviously had a long, long layoff. 45 days to sort of reassess things, to get healthy and, I mean, these are defense-oriented teams. I don't think we'll have some of these ball games that we've seen before that have gone in the 50s and 60s. I think we're not going to have another 9-6 special. Did you say you're going? You're going to be there?</s>LEMON: Yes, I am.</s>WERTHEIM: That's great. No cheering in the press box.</s>LEMON: I'm not going to the press box, I'm going. I'm going as a fan, not as a reporter. Maybe a tweeter. I'll be tweeting.</s>WERTHEIM: Good for you. I'll be following.</s>LEMON: So this is not going to happen. Let's just say in a really weird world, if Alabama does win, is there a BCS controversy on hand?</s>WERTHEIM: Oh, absolutely. If Alabama wins, they'll probably win the national championship without winning the division of their conference. On the other hand, I think this has been lost in this. If LSU wins -- and I'm not just saying this -- this is a great, great football team. They will have beaten eight top 25 opponents. They'll be undefeated, obviously. I think everybody's sort of talking about this what-if scenario with Alabama, but if LSU wins this, we need to be talking about this as one of the great, great national championship teams.</s>LEMON: I went to LSU. My mom is a huge Saints fan. So in the Lemon household, it's been a crazy couple of days. Can you imagine both us in front of the TV?</s>WERTHEIM: Oh, yes. That was just an amazing offensive performance last night. And, no, this is the Louisiana football segment here. But I think a lot of people are looking forward to the Saints/Packers game in the conference championship, saying, this could be the real Super Bowl. What a game that's going to be. We've still got one more round, obviously, but with green bay's defense a little sketchy and with New Orleans, that offense is just -- 600 plus yards is just a joke. This game two weeks from now could really be quite exciting.</s>LEMON: You mentioned that. So are the two best teams in the same conference?</s>WERTHEIM: Oh, I think so. I think a lot of people are lacking forward to this gape as sort of the -- we might get some more Tebow action, if we don't fall asleep on the New England Patriots. But I think if you were doing power rankings in the NFL right now, I think Green Bay, New Orleans go one, two. And it's better or worse that they're in the same conference, I guess.</s>LEMON: Let's move on. As much as I hate moving on from Louisiana teams, it's an important story, because I want to turn to Penn State now, Jon. They finally hired a new coach, Bill O'Brien, the defensive coordinate for the New England Patriots. Here's what he said about seceding Joe Paterno.</s>BILL O'BRIEN, NEW PENN STATE HEAD FOOTBALL COACH: It's a great locker room with a bunch of great guys who want to win. And we have the great foundation. Coach Paterno laid the foundation of football success and academic success and we need to get going and build on that.</s>LEMON: He's not a former Penn Stater, coach or a player. Did they choose an outsider on purpose, do you think?</s>WERTHEIM: Absolutely. And I think that they had to do this, for a variety of reasons. One of them is we still don't know who knew what and when. But I think just -- this scandal was really predicated, I mean, a real theme of this scandal was the insularity of this football team. And for them to have chosen an insider would have made no sense. And we have a lot of former players complaining that they went outside the family is just incredibly tone deaf. I think given the circumstances or landscape, that's about as good a coaching pick as you could have made.</s>LEMON: But some of the players, again, they're criticizing him and they were saying, oh, what were they thinking when they were doing this? All isn't well there. A lot of people aren't happy.</s>WERTHEIM: No, as if poor -- you know, as if Bill O'Brien didn't have enough challenges, "A," coming into this kind of scandal-tainted program, b, seceding Joe Paterno, he now has to sort of repair this fabric with the football program. But I just don't understand these former players outraged that they have the audacity to go outside the program, not to hire the interim coach, Tom Bradley. You know, hiring someone from outside the program, we knew this the first week of the scandal, that this was an imperative. And you know, the sort of response of these players, I don't get that for the life of me.</s>LEMON: All right, Jon, thank you very much. Make sure you check my twitter feed tomorrow night. It's going to be --</s>WERTHEIM: Have fun tomorrow.</s>LEMON: -- rolling, rolling. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. In a new credit card commercial, the sky's the limit. You've seen it. But did she really climb that thing? 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