Introducing Your Week 4 Opponent: Alabama Crimson Tide

With less than 2 months until kickoff, its time to roll through the upcoming FSU schedule with little-known and untrue facts about the Noles’ opponents in 2007. Enjoy.

The Esteemed and Sublime Football Team of Alabama was founded in 1831 as a developmental program for Johnny Unitas’ great Baltimore Colts teams. The irony that Alabama produced Joe Namath is not lost on Unitas. As the football team lacked any competition at the time, a formula was set up to award the program with National Titles, with x representing the current year A.D.:

NT = (x – 1831) / 3

This formula is still utilized by the NCAA today.

Publication detailing the National Title Formula. 

The earliest Alabama football teams were coached by a zygote dubbed “Paul William Bryant.” In fact, every team fielded by The Esteemed and Sublime Program has been coached by Bryant in some form or another. See the chart below for details:

• 1831 – 1850: Zygote Form, 6 National Championships by formula
• 1851 – 1883: Blastocyst Form, 10 National Championships by formula
• 1884 – 1912: Embryonic Form, 10 National Championships by formula
• 1913 – 1957: Human Form, 14 National Championships by formula
• 1957 – 1983: Bear Form, 26 National Championships by animal combat
• 1983 – Present: Poltergeist Form, 1 National Championship by transubstantiation of Gene Stallings

William Bryant, preparing his 1908 National Championship team. 

In 1951, the NCAA was formed, and the Alabama football program created a subsidiary school in order to compete with other educational institutions. The program named Paul Bryant as the school’s president, dean, and admissions officer, and Bryant taught all classes at the university until he assumed bear form in 1957. After that, tasks were delegated to measly humans.

It wasn’t until 1977 that the Esteemed and Sublime Program took on a mascot. At the urging of yacht rock group Steely Dan, the program adopted “The Crimson Tide” as its thematic mascot, represented by an 8-ton African Elephant named Musth, swathed each Friday in the blood of Alabama’s previous opponent. Musth served as the face of the program honorably and admirably until 1984, when he choked to death on a roll of toilet paper, after being forced to clean the bathrooms of Bryant-Denny Stadium by Joe Paterno.

Musth, entombed below Bryant-Denny Stadium.

There are many subplots to this year’s FSU-Alabama contest, one being the myth that Bobby Bowden once wanted to coach at Alabama, and that Bryant, in bear form, was one of Bowden’s heroes. In fact, it was Bryant that brokered Bowden’s contract with Lucifer in 1985, granting Bowden unprecedented success on the football field in terms of total wins. Clauses in Bowden’s satanic pact included that Bowden never coach Bryant’s beloved Esteemed and Sublime Program, and that all of Bowden’s offspring be blessed with perfect mediocrity. Another stipulation was that Bowden could never lose to Alabama in Tallahassee. Bryant, now taking the form of current Alabama head coach Nick Saban’s left eyebrow, thus warned Saban of the deal, and the game was moved to a neutral site in Jacksonville.

Previous opponents: Clemson, UAB, Colorado

~ by Halleck T. on July 19, 2007.