Graphic created by the Birmingham News

As a sign that it must've been the slowest news day in the history of mankind, the number of Facebook fans of Nick Saban versus the number of fans of God in Alabama is front page material in the Birmingham News today. You'll also notice that Louisiana and Florida joined Alabama as the only Southern states who didn't have God in the #1 spot on Facebook.

While some people will surely point to this as a sign of the impending apocalypse and/or Alabama having their priorities extremely out of whack, the fact that Louisiana had the Saints as their #1 should show people that in a fit of celebrating their teams' achievements, the citizens of Alabama and Louisiana proclaimed their love by becoming a fan of their respective teams (or the team's coach in our case) on Facebook. As the article rightly points out, the "concept of 'fanning,' or joining what amount to online fan clubs, is just more common in sports than in faith." So, Alabama and Louisiana seem to have an excuse, but what about those heathens in Florida? Mass produced coffee from the other side of the country? Sounds like the glory days in Gainesville have surely come to and end.

Pastor Stephen Jones of Birmingham's Southside Baptist Church, however, seems to think that Saban claiming the number one spot in the state doesn't bode well for the future of Crimson Tide football:

"Alabama fans should expect a bad year"

Pastor Stephen Jones is a graduate of Auburn University.

So pretty much every key victory in the Crimson Tide's undefeated run through the 2009 season was followed by an opposing fanbase crying foul and insisting that their team really deserved to win. Sadly though, victories are still awarded to the team with the most points on the scoreboard when time expires.

But we here at Roll Bama Roll are nothing if not caring. We would like to not only address this horrible state of affairs but also offer a resolution to the ongoing debate about the lack of a playoff to determine the true champion. Thus we present the 2009 Moral Victory National Championship playoff in order to determine the coveted mantle of "The People's Champion."

As you are aware, the Alabama Crimson Tide won the BCS National Championship with a victory in Pasadena, California last week. While no team was able to beat the Crimson Tide on the football field this season, no less than four teams insist they should have won their particular game. The MVNC allows these teams and their claims to victory go head to head so it can be definitively decided which one has the best moral victory of the season.

Like last week, I implore you to appreciate La Taylor and then move along. Horror ahead.

The last few weeks have just about pushed me over the edge, and this week didn't help. Y'all better be appreciating my sacrifices to the Football Gods, 'cause this is getting tougher and tougher every week. Anyway, this week I give you the long awaited Pork Brains in Milk Gravy. Enjoy. I most certainly didn't.

LANGUAGE WARNING

I'm afraid to report that it was a bit of a down week for the meltdown column in terms of sheer volume. We didn't quite see as many meltdowns this week as we would like. As a general matter, fans of Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and South Carolina were really just happy that their respective teams played it close, and some things really just didn't materialize on some other fronts. 

Nevertheless, we do have three meltdowns this week, and they come from Auburn, Ohio State, and Texas A&M. And what they don't have in size, they make up for in quality (that's we she said). Auburn fans went nuts after losing ugly to Kentucky at home, who brought in a true freshman quarterback, Ohio State fans quickly imploded with an upset to Purdue, and with Texas A&M giving up 60+ points to a 3-3 Kansas State team, it looks like Aggie fans have just lost all hope. Combined, their plight is one great delight to the casual reader.

Now, as always, the language does get bad, and at times it gets VERY bad. If you don't like reading obscenities and the like, this column is not for you, and I strongly urge you to read on right now and skip this piece. You've been warned.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, it is meltdown time:

5-19. Why are you surprised?

I don't think we should get rid of Chizik now. But there is absolutely NO excuse for this loss tonight.  Maybe we shouldn't have hired him in the first place.

I'm not surprised at all...as long as Chi-Sick is our head coach, we will be mediocre...he'll be able to recruit well enough to get us to 7 or 8 wins most years...but he'll never win the SEC West, much less the SEC. He's mediocre...and we're seeing that already.

Until we put up the money to go after a big time coach that can put us back on the big stage like the turds did with ***** then we might be in for a couple of tough years with this program

Can we ever be a top-tier team with Jay Jacobs as AD?

We were an average team before JJ and we'll be an average team after JJ. I was blasted last week for saying we were comparable to Ole Miss, but it was and is the truth except Ole Miss is better than us at the moment.

I wouldn't call any program with one MNC in 118 years a powerhouse.

We were outcoached in a big way tonight.

Something is seriously wrong with Todd... I'd have to assume his shoulder is messed up again looking at how his deep balls were way underthrown. If this is the case it's time to sit him and start Caudle.

anybody still worried about losing Malzahn? HILARIOUS!

Wow... I had no idea we were this bad.

Did Malzahn smoke crack before the game? His playcalling suggests he did.

TIRED of the silly crap on offense.

Please graduate and have a nice life #5, #18, #12, #75, #4. Thanks for the memories.

R.I.P. to Auburn's passing game in 2009. You died waay too young.

Looking forward to 2010 with 2 new coordinators.

Chasing Jack with Jose. Not kidding....

we suck we suck we suck we will win 1 more game we suck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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As any of you who routinely check al.com first thing every morning may have seen, Greg McElroy apparently stole one of Jevan Snead's shirts at the Manning Passing Academy over the summer:

As Snead was reminiscing Monday, a thought hit him.

"He also has a shirt of mine from the Manning Passing Academy," he said. "I want that back. It made its way into his bag somehow."

Figuring that any shirt that would cause Snead to pine after it all this time must be a pretty special shirt, we put the crack RBR Investigative Unit on it and lo and behold, they came back with this:

I don't think he'll be getting that one back anytime soon.

Complain about the sweetheart all you want, at least you didn't just drink Clamato beer...

Unfortunately I didn't have access to The Girl's webcam last night, so you'll have to suffer with this grainy camera phone footage. For some reason my phone apparently only records for 23 seconds at a time so you only get to witness the beginning of the epic chug that finished the can off, but there's no way I'm chugging another can just to get it captured on video. Enjoy. I didn't.

If you wanted to capture the smell of  my collegiate experience you'd have to encapsulate the odor of stale beer and abject frustration slathered over the pungent odor of abiding penury. It's not something I'd suggest bottling and trying to sell but it seems someone thinks there might be a buck in doing just that.

Masik Collegiate Fragrances, of Harrisburg, PA, is producing a line of perfumes and colognes based on various universities and specifically targeting schools with strong football fanbases. Since they intend to charge $60 for each 3.4-ounce bottle of the stuff, they seem to be aiming for a slightly more affluent level of nostalgiac than myself.

For example, according to the company the "signature scent" for LSU involves a mixture of  Provencal Lavender, Oakmoss and Indonesian Vetivier. Which, no matter how pretty you word it up, doesn't quite seem to capture the essence of cheap bourbon and human sweat that sweltering September afternoons in Death Valley are likely to produce. And the absence of any hint of corn dog is downright unforgivable.

With that in mind, we humbly offer the following suggestions in creating the distinctive fragrances for the rest of the conference:

• Alabama: The pervasive aroma of The Process complimented by pungent notes of nostalgia. Currently contains a perplexing tendency to dissipate completely after extensive use.
• Tennessee: An abiding bouquet of arrogance and confusion with a persistent and unmistakable flavor of dismay. Excessive application will incur a secondary violation.
• Florida: The musky masculine smell of invincibility highlighted by the aroma of evangelical boy-man on the move. Possesses a persistent whiff of the regular misdemeanor arrest.
  
• Ole Miss: Magnolia and noblesse oblige on a luxurious foundation of preseason acclaim. A persistent hint of inevitable anarchy and trap-game disappointment.
  
• Arkansas:  An abiding atmosphere of pine sap and questionable defense. The head coach aroma has a distinct flavor of expertise and transience.
  
• Kentucky: A heady swirl of Bluegrass, bourbon and cussedness accented with a distinct flavor of December bowl game inevitability. 
• Georgia: A pungent mixture of big-game faceplant relieved by the sweet essence of low-expectation excellence. WARNING: Do not wear with Black.
• South Carolina: The redolence of slightly-better-than-mediocre performance accented by the inevitable flavor diminished aspiration. 
  
• Mississippi State: The heavy odor of rebuilding year fatalism with high notes of new regime confidence.
• Vanderbilt: A disarming mix of blue blood pedigree and frothy aspirations of repeat Music City Bowl champions.
• Auburn: A distinctive bouquet that reeks of bovine effluvia infused with the tears of defeat. Recently injected with the fragrance of delusional optimism.