Why I love RBR and you should too.....

As much as I love this website all throughout the year, I felt the urge, to kind of explain to the newcomers to RBR some of the reasons why I think they should make this their home base for football season.

First of all, a little self-promotion of my history here at Roll Bama Roll.  I stumbled across this website several years ago while googling information about Alabama football to try to find more information and commentary than I had been able to glean off of al.com and other such sites.  At the time, OTS still had his own blog and I believe it was really only Todd here, though OTS made frequent guest posts (junta, if I'm wrong on this, feel free to correct).  I immediately really fell for the tone of the blog - it was fun and lighthearted, but still managed to deliver hard hitting information and commentary.  I lurked for a year or two before breaking the ice with my first scoop......reporting that Eddie Lacy had qualified.....and being the third one to do it.  As you know, this inevitably resulted in my taking a fair amount of abuse for my first post, and though the rebuke made me feel a little idiotic I have come to appreciate the way that this community's standards for non-repetition and high quality writing even by random posters keeps RBR on the cutting edge of opinion and information.  My next post was a fanpost called "To the Naysayers" and it was, thankfully, received with acceptance and since then I have mainly just dabbled in the commentary here and there.  I have thoroughly enjoyed all of the different and learned opinions of the junta as well as the fans of the site.

I have found myself thinking, with the explosion in popularity of this site, what really is so special about it?  After turning this over in my head I have come to the conclusion that the reason for RBR's success is without a doubt the guys who run it.  Todd's vision of what a Bama blog should be, and his sacrifices for and obvious love of Alabama, really make the site what it is.  This site was great when it was Todd plus a bunch of guest contributors.  However, it was missing something, and that something was the truly insightful writing of OTS.  If you can find someone on the internet who knows more about the workings of the Alabama football program and who is right about what he says more than OTS, well, don't tell me cause I'm not switching anyway.  Nico 2.0 brings a bit of popular culture to the equation, and kind of a funky counterculture type aspect to RBR, and I have always appreciated his different views. 

Where Todd, OTS, and Nico2.0 leave off, the incredible writers here have picked up.  Go ahead, I dare you to find someone on the interwebs who knows more about NCAA rulings and the way things work politically around college football than PeteHoliday......go ahead....I dare you.....and you can tell Pete.  Matt Dover is always bang on in any subject he writes about, and usually entertaining to boot.  The Rolando McClain of the writing staff, though, is Kleph.  I mean, this guy can write about any subject concerning Alabama football (and some about other things), and have the article sound better than any crap they publish in Sports Illustrated or any other such publication. 

Though I know we have had our discussions about coming down too hard on newbies and trolls here lately, one of my favorite parts of this site is the lively debates that inevitably follow any serious post on RBR.  There is no doubt that the community here is composed of simply the most knowledgeable and funny fans on SB Nation.  I love how we quibble amongst ourselves over small things - but have a rival troll come in and BAM.....we circle the wagons and shoot em down.  All of the posters on here make this place unrivaled for a sense of community in the blogosphere. 

As much fun as we have ragging on each other and screwing around on here it is the combination of that with the seriousness of the information here that make this the absolute best  source for Alabama football talk.  There never seems to be a case where RBR is not the first Bama site to post a breaking bit of news about our beloved team.  Not only this, but whenever I hear that something is happening from another source, the first thing I do is sit down at the computer to see what OTS has to say about it.  Aside from that, I love coming to RBR before a game to see what OTS is going to be right about this week.  For those of you that missed last season here and Todd's battle with strange food items from around the world, for God's sake YouTube it........it was some of the funniest content ever on RBR and no doubt contributed heavily to our 13th National Championship.  Another thing I love is Kleph's historical pieces during the off-season - they have enlightened me on so many things that I didn't know about Alabama's tradition.  The only regret I have about RBR is that I don't get to participate in the Open Threads on the Alabama games very often.  I haven't missed an Alabama home game since Van Tiffin's Kick in 1985, and I don't plan to start now.  However, the times when I have been able to tune in to the Open Thread, I have found it a really exceptional addition to my enjoyment of watching Bama on TV.  It is almost like being in the stadium, as the back and forth commenting with people around you who love Alabama as much as you do is one of the things that  makes going to a game in person so much fun - and the Open Threads almost re-create that feeling, with the added bonus of getting some on the fly insight from OTS and some usually hilarious stress reactions from Todd.

These are a few of the reasons that I love RBR so much, and I hope in the comments you guys will pitch in some of the reasons why you do too.  My enjoyment of football season would be dramatically decreased if RBR were not around, so I'm thankful to the junta and our fearless leader for making it what it is.  I know this was getting a little long winded, but thanks for reading it, I felt like I needed to express to everyone how much I enjoy Roll Bama Roll.  Keep up the good work guys, there are a lot of us out here in the Interwebz that can't go a day without our RBR fix.

Roll Tide

Philip August III