Come Down from the Ledge, Bob

South Carolina 35 - Alabama 10
I am on a great quest. I search like Lancelot for the Holy Grail and like Diogenes for an honest man. Oh, and like the Scarecrow searching for a brain.

Since early Saturday evening I have cast the light of my lantern into the shadows, seeking, to no avail, a post-streak reason to live. I want to be a Rational Bama Fan, one who knows that You Can Not Win Them All.

I need to find a Rational Bama Fan (RBF, for short) so I can talk this thing through and come to grips with this angst, this loserhood that has taken over my being. But RBFs have become the most rare of species this week, as shy as a piebald deer and as scarce as teeth at a Razorback booster meeting.

The “Why Us?” crowd is out in record numbers. There are plenty of them to be found. After reveling for three years in magazine covers, ESPN specials and lofty rankings, the hardest part of this football season for them has been whether the Tide’s running backs should be called “Fast and Furious” or “Shock and Awe.”

Now it seems the SEC has conspired to let everybody have an open date before playing Alabama. According to the Why Us? crowd, the vast Bama-hating conspiracy has brought us NCAA probation, secret witnesses, StripperGate, TextbookGate, AgentGate and now this: OpenDateGate.

These people believe that if General Lee had been given an extra week to scheme and rest the troops before Gettysburg, we’d all be laid back on the veranda right now, sipping mint juleps and wondering if we ought to pave the streets.

Let the Walk of Shame Begin

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. The public shaming of the once-mighty Crimson Tide will continue in the middle of the night Saturday, televised on the Texas Hold ‘Em & Skateboard Channel before a sparse homecoming crowd of drunks and insomniacs who found their tickets on the sidewalk outside the stadium.

The opponent is a team without a mascot, since the literary and forward-thinking University of Mississippi dumped the politically incorrect Colonel Reb, a dirty old white-bearded bastard who may have owned slaves way back. Ole Miss is getting with the program, moving into enlightenment and casting aside the plantation mentality and negative images of dumb jocks and win-at-any-cost desperation. That, and their quarterback is a quick-footed three-time loser felon imported from the west coast. Hotty Toddy! Run like you stole something!

If they can find a room at all, Bama fans must allow themselves to be gouged more than $200 a night (with a two-night minimum) for a sleep-cheap McFarland Boulevard fleabag. It’s either that, or drive all night and pull into Dothan just in time for the early church service that might be needed to salvage your worthless, hung-over loser Bama soul.

Or, you can try to dump your tickets. One of the unintended consequences of having 102,000 seats is that the gameday market value of the tickets will approach zero if fans have any reason whatsoever to stay home, like getting freight-trained by South Carolina and then letting Mammon-worshipping ESPN bully you into a dreaded time slot that puts you up against Saturday Night Live.

Current market value: $7.00 for the pair.
Could increase if Saban raises enough hell on his radio show.
Will go to $0.00 if there is a 20% chance of rain.

But of course the SEC and all of its “member institutions” worship the Dollar as well, so let’s play until midnight and pray that the drunks, who got wasted at the homecoming parade, passed out, then got wasted again by kickoff, don’t fall asleep at the wheel and splatter themselves across the state in a crimson tide of blood spilled in the name of cash, while the players, who get none of this action, are suspended for helping their friends get access to some loaner textbooks. Not hookers and blow, mind you -- textbooks. Little stores of knowledge and wisdom. This whole system is like something Stanley Kubrick came up with while he was smoking crack, and up until last Saturday we were on top of the whole damn thing!

Whew, letting it rip there, wasn’t I? 

Nate Davis. Yes, it's real.

And can you believe this? Some people’s entire self-worth is apparently predicated on their status as Bama fans! I worry about these people in a dark time like this. Take Nate Davis, for example. If you have been to Bryant-Denny Stadium in the past few years you’ve seen him -- a stocky, shirtless fellow who frequently sports a Scottish kilt and a houndstooth fedora. His entire upper body is covered in a growing array of tattoos proclaiming the dominance of the Crimson Tide (I can’t speak for his lower body, thankfully), and it is all topped off by Nate’s masterpiece, his entire back, waist to neck, shoulder to ham-like shoulder, covered by a full-color tat of Coach Bryant himself.

Here is a quote* from Nate Davis: "Through the University of Alabama, Coach Bryant and Van Tiffin, I found God."

There are no Rational Bama Fans. I hope Nate is doing okay this week.

Bidgood Bob is hurting, and this column is a cry for help. His prediction: Ole Miss is coming in rested (who isn’t?) and Bama is beat up. Not only are most Crimson Tide players not used to losing, Saturday night they will see empty seats for the first time. This is how death spirals get started. Take the Rebels (or whatever they are called) and the points.


* According to Warren St. John, bestselling author of the excellent book, Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer, from his site, Fanopticon.com