Tag Archives: BCS championship

The Bama Dilemma

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The plot thickens.

Last week, I pledged my collegiate football loyalties to the Crimson Tide of the University of Alabama, with the sure and certain belief that their season would implode with the magnitude of a supernova.

Okay, so there was a little snag.

In my defense, last Saturday’s Alabama vs. Duke was only televised on pay-per-view. Not feeling equal to explaining to my husband:

  1. Why I (of all people) was paying to watch a college football on TV, and
  2. Why said college football team happened to be ALABAMA

I thought it best to just postpone my loyalties, insofar as watching was concerned, for another week. Maybe I couldn’t watch the game, but I would still be routing for the Tide in my heart. What difference could it make, really?

Yeah, well, we all know how that turned out. Sorry, Duke. That 62-13 really smarts.

So here we are again. Game Day. Ready to start over. Except that today’s match-up is…damn.

Alabama at Arkansas.

Number 1 vs. Number 10. Tide vs. Hogs. Goliath vs. David.

What shall I do? Oh, what shall I do?

As evidenced by fifteen years of Arkansas loyalty, my team of choice always loses if I watch (or listen to) the game. As further evidenced by Alabama’s cruel and unusual crushing of Duke last week, if I don’t watch the game, my team of choice goes on to a landmark victory. So do I watch? Or no?

The fate of the universe rest on this one decision.

Okay, maybe not. It just feels like it.

I would love to watch this game. Almost as much as I would love to be at this game. Walking down the hill from a tailgate, following the surging crowds down Stadium Drive, climbing into the stands to be enveloped in a sea of red-and-white-clad fans.

But I think I’d better not watch.

I don’t want to be haunted by visions of that sea of red-and-white turning on me like a lynch mob because I was solely responsible for a humiliating defeat on our home field when I could, instead, have handed them a decisive victory over the Number 1 team in the country. At least if I don’t watch, it’s harder to hold me accountable.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

Oh, except: ROLL TIDE ROLL. And I mean that. With every fiber of my being.

Cardinal to Crimson, or My New Team

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Just in time for today’s Game Day festivities, I’ve selected the unlucky recipient of my new college football allegiance.

It’s taken some very deliberate consideration and the swallowing of certain deep-seated prejudices, no doubt, but the determination to spur on my Razorbacks to a long-awaited championship title is worth no end of personal mortification.

On that note, the runner-up.

The obvious choice seemed to be the University of Oklahoma. Their status as a football powerhouse aside, motivation to target the Sooners with my unfortunate loyalties was amplified by the draw of camaraderie with their massive fan machine. Many of my friends are rabid OU fans, presenting a vista of watch parties and maybe even an actual game. Can you imagine sitting in the company of 82,000 Sooner fans, sabotaging the game from within their midst just by sitting in the stands?

But I could never get away with it.

Even if my friends conveniently forgot where I went to school, I’ve already exposed my true motives. And I don’t have money to replace slashed tires, repair broken windows or dispose of dead animals nailed to my front door.

No, no. OU is safe from me. (Unless of course they face off with Arkansas, in which case I’ll be hanging from the rafters, singing “Boomer Sooner” at the top of my lungs.)

I’d rather turn my attention to the main obstacle to Arkansas’s championship prospects — and my new college football allegiance —The University of Alabama Crimson Tide. (Sorry, Katherine.)

Odds makers are favoring the Crimson Tide to go all the way. But the first hurdle to clear is the conference title: in Alabama’s case, the SEC.

To which conference does Arkansas belong? The SEC, you say? Hmmmm. My motives suddenly become clear.

Having taken a crash course in Alabama fandom, I’m waiting only for today’s game to put my theory to the test. If I’m right, there’s no telling to what depths the Crimson Tide may sink this year.

To which I can only say: “Roll, Tide, Roll.”

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