FORT WORTH, TX – I just love that commercial on ESPN, the one where everyone down in Bama ends their sentence with “Roll Tide” including after some guy’s funeral eulogy.
Because, for those of you who have never been to the Heart of Dixie, that is the actual state of affairs down there.
“I’ll have some BBQ and a cold Bud. Roll Tide.”
“I’m not sure they are going to fix the fiscal problem up in Washington. Roll Tide.”
“I think that Bear Bryant’s spirit has entered the earthly vessel of Nick Saban, creating the perfect college football coach via divine intervention. Roll Tide.”
“I gotta take a crap. Roll Tide.”
I was down in Tuscaloosa a few years back with my then 14-year -old daughter and a friend of hers. As such, I just had to sample one of the area’s famous landmarks, the Dreamland Bar-B-Que. Tucked in a working class black neighborhood on a hill side outside of the main drag, the Dreamland has been serving up pork ribs, banana pudding and cold suds and pops since 1958. Sho’ good eatin’. Roll Tide.
Anyway, my daughter, being a typical 14-year-old-teen-girl-picky-eater, decided she didn’t want any of some of the best pork ribs in America. So on our way out of town, we stopped at a Chick Fil-A so she could get her fill of Jesus-sanctioned, heterosexual fast-food chicken. At the take out window, the woman behind it spied the Dreamland t-shirt which I had just purchased and was proudly wearing and asked us if we had been there. When I answered in the affirmative, and also that my daughter preferred the offerings of her fast food emporium, she bellowed out “What’s WRONG with you child?! Roll Tide!”
You can not make stuff like that up.
And that leads us to… Bible-Banger versus Touchdown Jesus, mackerel snappers versus red beans and rice, North versus South, Blue versus Gray, Red State versus Blue State and hot blondes versus chubby chicks… All in the face off we have all been waiting for, Notre Dame versus Alabama.
One wonders if the shine is off the SEC a bit, as the rest of the league has not exactly been cleaning up during bowl season. LSU lost. Mississippi State got waxed by Northwestern. Florida was humbled by a Big Least (but soon to be ACC) Louisville.
And SEC newcomer Texas A&M should have their hands full with the Okies Saturday night in the Cotton Bowl. Everyone here in Tejas is all a Twitter over Touchdown Johnny and the Aggies.
The game should be a good one, and yours truly will be watching it at a party hosted by a divided household (he’s an Okie, she’s an Aggie and their kids are great athletes & good lookin’ but mediocre students… go figure). Couldn’t score tix to the game, which was most unfortunate. Nice to see that there is still some football being played at Jerry World, since the regular tenants decided to once again take an early vacation. Sorry, Cheesy Bruin.
But if A&M loses, then the SEC would have a 3-4 record in the bowls. There has been a long standing argument that the SEC teams schedule crappy non-league opponents during the regular season and thus are overrate. Perhaps we are seeing it come to fruition.
Bama did start out with a victory over Michigan… but their other non-league opponents were Western Kentucky (noted for being the home of a gay blob mascot and for mention in a good line about Grandma in a John Prine song) and Western Carolina. Not exactly a couple of football powerhouses. Roll Tide.
The Domers, on the other hand, had a tough schedule…but just squeezed by like a fat boy in a church pew all season long. They played four teams that ended up in the top 20, and ten of the twelve teams on their schedule made a bowl. Still, five of their victories were a touchdown or less.
Their stingy defense is led by a Polynesian Mormon linebacker (click that link) who does not drink, smoke, fornicate or change lanes on the highway without using his turn signal. And they do seem to have conjured up some mojo this year…that old ND mystique that just makes the ball bounce their way when the game is on the line.
So whose gonna win it?
Notre Dame 24 Alabama 23 in a replay of 1973’s Game of the Century.
Roll Tide.
