"RBR at the Movies" is a new feature I've cooked up to help get us through the offseason and/or bye weeks/slow news days, etc. I know we have the biggest game for our program in nearly two decades coming up in a few weeks, but right now things have slowed a little bit. Ingram's won the Heisman, but the team isn't practicing, and we're still several days away from the first bowl games, so I figured I'd go ahead and throw one of these out here. Anyway, consider this column the cinematic version of Kleph's RBR Reading Room. I'm primarily going to cover football movies at first, but really any sports movies are up for review. To kick things off (no pun intended), a documentary...

When I first saw the black & white image and the title Harvard Beats Yale 29-29, I assumed it was going to refer to some bizarre incident where the game was decided by the flipping of a coin because it was getting too dark for the game to continue or something like that.

It turns out that that couldn't be further from the truth. Thecontest in question is from November 23, 1968 and featured both teams coming into the rivalry game undefeated. Despite both teams having perfect records, Yale was favored in the game as they'd cruised through most of their schedule that season; a 25-13 win at Cornell being the closest they came to defeat. Harvard on the other hand had some close calls: a 9-7 win at Princeton and a few other games that were only decided by a touchdown. Harvard were considered to be overachievers in 1968.

Though the production value of the documentary feels a bit low at times (interviews being done in people's kitchens with coffee makers, etc. in the background instead of a simple studio setup) the story itself is fascinating. First of all, Tommy Lee Jones played in the game, so that had my curiosity factor up right off the bat. Add to that these interesting side stories and you've got a compelling story on your hands: one of the Yale players was a roommate of George W. Bush, another Yale player was dating Meryl Streep at the time of the game, a bunch of the Harvard guys were friends with Al Gore and it turns out that Gary Trudeau of Doonesbury fame based the character of B.D. on Yale quarterback Brian Dowling who was captain of their squad in 1968. It's also interesting the way the Vietnam war and the politics of the era play into the retelling of the game. Some of the players were anti-war protestors while some of their teammates were veterans of the same war being protested.

The film interweaves modern day interviews with the players with highlights from the 1968 contest. Storylines with various players are developed and just like a Hollywood movie, there are protagonists and villians. One need not be a fan of either team to enjoy this documentary. Even though Ivy League football is an afterthought in our day and age (as it largely was when this game occurred...only one player off of the two squads became a professional), these two former powerhouses are fierce rivals and that's never going to be diminished regardless of what caliber the overall quality of the teams is. Despite many of them being New England old money, these guys had a passion for their team and a true hatred of their opponent, which is really the recipe for any great rivalry. That's something we can all relate to and ultimately what makes this film successful.

In this fanpost about the Alabama vs. Purdue basketball game, attendance at the game was something brought up...as is often the case with our basketball program. Coleman Coliseum holds 15,316 and 12,477 were on hand to see us play the (at the time) #5 team in the country. That's roughly 81% full to see us take on one of the best in the land. We're unquestionably a football school with everything else being way behind as far as the level of attendance (I'm talking percentage of capacity here as nothing can obviously compete with football numbers-wise) and the level of intensity.

Since Alabama's football playing days in Birmingham are over, it makes me wonder if they should perhaps dedicate themselves to playing a basketball game in Birmingham on an annual basis since there's a lot of history between the University and Birmingham. Obviously, you'd keep all of the conference games in Tuscaloosa at Coleman Coliseum, but considering that Tuscaloosa more or less turns into a ghost town during the winter break, it seems like moving a game against a marquee opponent to the BJCC might be worth looking into. There's obviously a much bigger population base in Birmingham and it probably isn't too expensive or cumbersome to get the team to the Magic City from Tuscaloosa. The BJCC holds 17,654 for basketball games, which is, admittedly, too large for our program, but if you're going to have a bunch of empty seats anyway, might as well mix it up and do some "local barnstorming." Perhaps they could make it a big annual event for the local alumni society or something.

I know this is out of left field and I know neither party would ever go for it, but it'd be pretty awesome to have an annual game at Bartow Arena (capacity of just over 8,000.) That place gets absolutely rocking during games since it's so small and even on the last row of the arena you feel like you're on top of the action. Anyway, now back to reality...

I looked back at the last 10 years or so to see the attendance of games in the month of December (and early January) against "name opponents" to see if the idea was worth exploring:

03 JAN 2009: 9,988 for Georgia Tech (65% capacity)
13 DEC 2008: 9,316 for Texas A&M (61% capacity)
01 JAN 2008: 9,316 for Clemson (61% capacity)
01 JAN 2007: 11,538 for Oklahoma (75% capacity)
22 DEC 2005: 10,621 for North Carolina State (69% capacity)
11 DEC 2004: 11,751 for Temple (77% capacity)
30 DEC 2003: 10,714 for Wisconsin (70% capacity)

For some reason, attendance numbers weren't available for a home game against Providence in the early 2000s, nor for the game in Birmingham against Georgetown a few years ago (the box score on RollTide.com lacks the attendance figures and the box score on Georgetown's site doesn't exist.) Oh yeah, it's not a typo on the Texas A&M and Clemson attendances being identical, I checked it multiple times. Admittedly, this is a small sample size and some data is missing (no attendance figures for 01-02, 02-03 seasons), but we're not even cracking 2/3 capacity on some of these games. I know some of that had to do with people's frustration over Gottfriend's coaching, and some probably had to do with games being played on New Year's Day, but the numbers aren't what they could be. I'm very much in the camp of the games should be on campus and for the students, but since they're playing when school's out of session, why not move one to Birmingham once a year?

Others have posted about the trip, but I figured we should create one central location to talk about travel, tickets, etc. Please give it the necessary recs to get stickied in the recommended section.

I meant to have this on the main page by about 6 or 7am today since Todd texted me yesterday to ask me if I could have this up today. I told him yes and then my interwebs promptly crapped out. Anyway, now that OTS has some stellar stuff up, I'm just going to leave this as a fanpost since tomorrow, is you know, the most epic SECCG ever.

1. Korpiklaani - "Bring Us Pints of Beer"
2. Nine Inch Nails - "14 Ghosts II"
3. Melvins - "Spineless"
4. St. Vincent - "Laughing With A Mouth of Blood"
5. The Hold Steady - "Positive Jam"
6. RJD2 - "The Proxy"
7. Björk - "Earth Intruders"
8. Starflyer 59 - "2nd Space Song"
9. Crystal Castles - "Reckless"
10. The Gun Club - "Sleeping in Blood City"

Song #1 is probably one of my favorite singles of the year for the sheer "over the topness" of it if nothing else. Folk metal from Finland. If we win the game on Saturday, it's the official RBR song of the weekend as far as I'm concerned. Check it out here. #4 has to feature the biggest dichotomy ever between sound of the song and the title. Such a mild sounding song for such a brutal title.

Anyway, you know the drill...

I know several other conferences still have games to play next week and we have the SEC Championship game this weekend, but the SEC as a whole finished up regular season play on Saturday night. Ten teams finished the regular season bowl eligible. Alabama or Florida will play in Pasadena for the national title with the loser going to New Orleans for the Sugar Bowl. Since the SEC will put two teams in the BCS and the conference has eight non-BCS bowl tie-ins, every bowl eligible team will go bowling this year. Let's take a brief look at what the various teams accomplished (or didn't accomplish) at the regular season's end:

Alabama: For the 2nd year in a row, we've finished at a perfect 12-0. We had some close scrapes with our bitter rivals, but anytime you finish the season 12-0, you can't really complain. We have two more games left, the SECCG game against Florida and then a BCS bowl trip to either Pasadena or New Orleans.

Auburn: Year one of the Chizik experiment went much better than many people expected. Much of their success can be attributed to Gus Malzahn's high powered offense. Many of their failures can be attributed to a pretty porous defense (and yes, for the Tiger fans lurking...we realize you held us to below 100 yards rushing.) The Tigers will go bowling, but the announcement as to where won't come until next week.

Arkansas: Who really knows what to make out of 7-5 Arkansas this year? They scored a lot of points (40+ in seven games and 30+ in nine games), however, they gave up a ton of points too though (only giving up less than 20 twice against FBS opponents.) Despite losing five games, they only got blown out once (at the hands of Alabama of course.) Petrino appears to have them pointed in the right direction and I'm sure they'll play the spoiler's role some in the future. They're going bowling.

Florida: The Gators finished the regular season 12-0. They had a close scrape with Arkansas and made a ton of mistakes against Mississippi State...those two games featuring prominently in the vast SEC officiating conspiracy of '09. That being said, even though they weren't the offensive juggernaut of 2008, they still went undefeated and will still be a heck of a challenge next weekend. Oddly enough, Alabama will only be the second ranked team Florida has played all year. Florida is BCS bound and will go to either New Orleans or Pasadena.

Georgia: The Bulldogs finished the season at 7-5 and turned in the worst performance of the Mark Richt era. They got humiliated by two of their three main rivals (Florida and Tennessee) and narrowly won against Auburn. A home loss to Kentucky late in the season had UGA fans cursing the football gods (not to mention Willy Martinez.) Thanks to GT crapping the bed, Georgia has likely escaped a fate of going to the Papajohns.com Bowl. Giving the pecking order of bowls, UGA could likely end up in Atlanta for the Peach Bowl. Both parties would likely be quite happy to have the Bulldogs essentially have a post-season home game.

Kentucky: Though it probably doesn't feel like it to them, Kentucky is in a bit of a golden age for them. They're 30-21 from 2006 to the present and will be going to their fourth bowl game in a row. Not even Coach Bryant got them to six wins four years in a row. Yes, I know more games are played now than back then and I'm not even remotely trying to insinuate that Rich Brooks is even vaguely in the neighborhood of Coach Bryant, but hey, you've got to give the man his due. He's taken them to a bowl game four times now and has the Wildcats' program playing at a respectable level.

LSU: LSU finished the season at 9-3 with losses to Alabama, Florida and Ole Miss. There's certainly no shame in losing to the #1 and #2 teams in the country, but they could've/should've won the Ole Miss game. Miles' monumental clock management error against Col. Reb has LSU fans up in arms despite finishing the year with the third best record in the conference and a likely trip to Orlando for the Capital One Bowl. LSU's late win over Arkansas shows that this clock management issure has perhaps been corrected.

Mississippi State: Though they finished the year at 5-7 and have the second worst record in the conference, things are looking up in Starkville. If it weren't for some tough out of conference scheduling, they'd likely be going to a bowl somewhere (they had non-conference losses to Georgia Tech and Houston.) Compared to recent history, only getting blown out three times is a bit of a victory for MSU. Though their season is over, they ended things on a high note by hanging 41 points in a victory over Ole Miss in the Egg Bowl.

Ole Miss: In the preseason, the Rebels were picked as a  BCS sleeper, but that all came crashing down with an ugly/incompetent loss to South Carolina in their third game. They finished with an 8-4 record record (though they had two FCS teams on their schedule) and ended up third in the division behind Alabama and LSU. It's not where they want to be as a program, but it's light years ahead of where they were with the Orgeron behind the wheel.

South Carolina: Carolina had some ugly wins this year (NC State) and some ugly losses (Tennessee). Most people expected them to be sitting at 6-6 after their rivalry game with Clemson. The Gamecocks reached way down though and smacked the Tigers around to the tune of 34-17 and go into bowl season at 7-5 with some momentum on their side. It's clear Spurrier is never going to take this team to greatness, but they're still good enough to ruin your season...just ask Ole Miss.

Tennessee: The Mouth of the South managed to get his first Volunteer squad to 7-5 and gave us one of our biggest scares of the season. Hopefully some low rent Big 10  or ACC team will beat them senseless in their bowl game.

Vanderbilt: Welcome back to reality smart kids. Hope you enjoyed 2008. If their future is anything like what it was between their last two bowl games, the Commies won't be in the post-season until 2034.

So, there's 11 more games featuring SEC teams left in the 2009 season, the championship game and ten bowl games. One team will be playing for the national title and the other nine playing for pride.

ed. note: For those of you that picked up a copy of Yea Alabama 2009, you'll remember reading a story I wrote called "The Things We Do For Love" where I chronicled a lot of the ridiculous scenarios I've found myself in while trying to get to various Alabama games. Too bad I didn't save that article for the 2010 edition, because my trip to Starkville this past weekend easily qualified to be in it and hands down would have been the crown jewel anecdote in the article.

Let me just start off by saying that, yes, I realize hitchhiking in this day and age is an exceptionally bad idea. On Saturday, November 14th just a bit before 3:00 p.m. in western Alabama, somewhere between the tiny hamlets of Gordo and Reform (populations of 1,677 and 1,978 respectively according to the 2000 census) my friend Wes' car broke down (some of you may remember Wes from this post.) It's a 21st-century-made specimen of fine German engineering and has faithfully taken us to games in the past. As a matter of fact, the deal I struck with him was I'd give him the game ticket for free if he was willing to drive. That was the level of faith I placed in the ability of his automobile to take us to and fro sans incident.

The car began having trouble accelerating as we rolled down US Highway 82 and we saw a small garage that was still open as we began noticing the problem. We turned around and pulled in just as they were closing up shop. Nice folks that they were looked at the car for a while, but stated they didn't know much about this type of car, but recommended we not drive it any further. They kindly told us we could leave the car there if we wanted to since it was unlikely we'd be able to find anywhere this late in the day on a Saturday that would be able to work on it.

Get-It-Changed Oil & Lube in Gordo, AL

While Wes spoke with the proprietors of the oil change place, I took out my cellphone and began calling everyone I could think of that might be going to the game or who knew someone that might be going to the game. I called comer4tide and chinesedentist, but neither of them were going to the game. Chinesedentist (Bo), said he knew some folks that were going and that he'd make a few calls. I called Alabama ManDance and T.J. from Tower of Bammer and they too got on the phone and started working their contacts. I called a friend that went to Mississippi State, I called Todd and Kleph. I pretty much ran through my entire phonebook.

After what seemed like an eternity of making phone calls, we decided to ditch the car and start walking...with our thumbs out. We knew the car wasn't going to get fixed that day, so we might as well get to the game. We were most of the way there, we already had tickets...it seemed like the logical thing to do.

As I stated at the beginning of this article, hitchhiking is a very bad idea, but here's our rationale for why we felt okay about it.  We were decked out head to toe in Bama gear and nearly every car we saw while trying to figure out what to do had Bama flags flying from the windows or Bama magnets on the door or Bama stickers in the windows (and often all three.) By our reckoning, someone in that line of cars would realize that we were fellow fans stuck between a rock and a hard place and that we just wanted to get to the game. After a couple of miles of walking and hundreds of cars passing us by with that "Well, we'd like to help you and we know you're probably okay but sorry we're driving on anyway" look on their faces, we saw a pick-up truck pull into a business a short distance up the road. We both figured it was simply them stopping in to shop, but they turned around and we had a flutter of hope that they were coming back for us.

Continue reading this post »

More photos » by Donna McWilliam - AP

TCU is out to earn a BCS bid.

Browse more photos »

Sorry this is getting posted on a Friday evening, but hey, better late than never (busy week, real life, etc.)...

We've hit that part of the season where I'm pretty much on edge. We're 9-0 and have three games left before the SEC Championship Game. One of those games (Chattanooga) should be a win you can bank on. The other two games are against divisional rivals. We'll be favored in both of them, but we still have to go out and win them. Both of those games are on the road. Since the SEC title game is locked down in both east and west, I don't really care what goes on from here on out in the conference except for our games, Florida's games and Auburn's games. With that in mind, here's the five non Alabama games I'll be watching this weekend. Rankings are BCS rankings and all times are central:

WEST VIRGINIA (25) at CINCINNATI (5)
Friday, November 13th - 7:00 p.m. - ESPN2

Everybody's zeroed in on the Cincinnati vs. Pitt game on December 5th as the de facto Big East Championship Game. Fact of the matter is though that West Virginia, statistically, isn't eliminated from the race to be Big East champs. They've only lost one conference game and have Cincinnati and Pitt both on the schedule. If WVU wins out, they're BCS bound. It's highly unlikely, but hey, this is the Big East where weird stuff can and does happen.

FLORIDA (1) at SOUTH CAROLINA
Saturday, November 14th - 2:30 p.m. - CBS

I'm sure we'll here about 12 trillion comments about the return of Brandon Spikes, Tebow, Urban Meyer getting fined and the fact that Steve Spurrier is coaching against his old team. Oh well, turn the sound down and enjoy.

AUBURN at GEORGIA
Saturday, November 14th - 6:00 p.m. - ESPN2

Set your DVRs for Barn vs. Dawg on the deuce. As many others have noted, this one should be worth watching for the Malzahn vs. Martinez coordinator match-up.

UTAH (16) at TCU (4)
Saturday, November 14th - 6:30 p.m. - CBSC

Truthfully, this is the game of the week, or at least the one that has the most riding on it for several different teams. This game likely decides the conference winner and will either propel TCU into the BCS (their two remaining games are against hapless New Mexico and Wyoming, who have a combined record of 4-15 so far) or will pave the way for Boise to make their 2nd BCS  appearance. Either way, a BCS bid is getting locked down for someone after this game.

ARIZONA STATE at OREGON (14)
Saturday, November 14th - 9:20 p.m. - ESPN

With our game starting at 6:00 p.m., you can't help but think the beginning of this one is going to be preempted. Anyway, the Ducks are back in Autzen and need to regroup after their up and down past two weeks. Please Ducks, for the love of all things good, get it together and win the Pac-10.

More photos » by Gail Burton - AP

Ken Niumatalolo led Navy to their second win over the Irish in three years.

Browse more photos »

Assorted ramblings after week 10 of the season. Alabama analysis will be coming soon...

• We hope that Jahvid Best's injury is "only" a concussion and not spinal. That was a seriously nasty spill he took and it was quite scary to watch. You never want to see someone injured and we wish him a speedy recovery.
• With Iowa's loss, six undefeateds remain: Alabama, Boise State, Cincinnati, Florida, TCU, Texas 
• With Iowa's loss, it puts Ohio State back in control of their own destiny to win the Big 10. The Buckeyes and Hawkeyes meet next weekend and the winner still controls their own destiny in the race for the conference title.
• Looks like Temple is going bowling for the first time in 30 years.
• I don't care if it was against Tulsa, Case Keenum put up some sick numbers against them. 40 of 60 for over 500 yards and he led them to a late comeback. 
• It was upset city this Saturday for ranked teams: Iowa, Penn State, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Oregon and Cal all lost to teams that were unranked or ranked lower than them. Several others including USC, Cincinnati, Georgia Tech and Wisconsin survived scares. Boise State got a bit of scare too on Thursday, but not like the others.
• Michigan lost to Purdue to slide to 5-5 for the season. With their remaining two games being at Wisconsin and hosting Ohio State, they Wolverines are likely looking at a 5-7 season and a second season in a row of no bowl game. We really do need to send Rita a gift basket.
• You've gotta think Charlie Weiss' days at Notre Dame are numbered. 1-2 against Navy over the last three years (0-2 in South Bend.) I imagine they'll get at least one win out of their remaining three games, but if they lost all three to Pitt, UCONN and Stanford, I wouldn't be terribly surprised either. That would leave them at 6-6. 
• They must really want USC to win at least a share of the conference championship out in Pac-10 country. The race continues to be tight after Oregon lost to Stanford tonight. Maybe it's just been so long since anyone else has won it that nobody remembers what it's like to play with weekly pressure.
• The SEC has five teams that are already bowl eligible (Alabama, Florida, LSU, South Carolina, Auburn.) Though Ole Miss has six wins, two of them are against FBS teams, so only one of them counts towards bowl eligibility. Ole Miss, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee and Kentucky are all one game away and Mississippi State needs to pick up two more wins to go bowling. Vandy, at 2-7 is done on November 28th.
• UAB hammered Florida Atlantic to pull to 4-5. With three games left against Memphis, East Carolina and UCF, UAB could get bowl eligible. Even if they didn't get an invite, making it to 6-6 would be huge for them. They probably aren't going to win at East Carolina, so they'll need wins at Memphis and at Legion Field against UCF. 
• Duke needs one more win to get bowl eligible. It'll be no easy task though, their remaining games are against Georgia Tech, Miami and Wake Forest. It would be their first bowl appearance since 1995. Regardless of whether the Blue Devils go bowling or not, Cutcliffe clearly has them headed in the right direction. In less than two seasons, he's eclipsed Duke's win total over the five previous seasons.
• Troy looks on pace to at least share a part of the Sun Belt title for the fourth year in a row.
• Don't forget there's more football on TV on Sunday. Nevada at San Jose State on ESPN at 7:30 p.m.