Holy guacamole, y'all, we somehow made it through the unforgiving, ridiculously post-apocaplytic, barren wasteland desert we call "the offseason". As part of the unofficial Alcoholigarchy 'round these parts, I've come up with a few drinking game rules for the season. Play along if you dare, the more the merrier.

**Aside: I was going to make a rule that we had to drink each time ole' Verne mispronounces somebody's name, but I like y'all, and I don't want to kill anybody. Let's just say we drink whenever he says "How DO you do?"

Here we go:

Drink every time you hear "First down Alabama!" because these things should be celebrated properly.

When the graphic displaying the top 10 teams in the nation shows on your screen, raise a toast to our conference of champions, and enjoy one drink per SEC team.

Drink once for each time there's a replay. If the ruling on the field is confirmed, drink again from a different angle to make sure you did it right the first time. If the ruling on the field is overturned, review your initial drink in your mind and figure out what you could've done better.

Drink every time you hear the words "BCS Buster" or "Conference Realignment". Two drinks for the word "Trickeration".

Regarding the cheerleaders, when the camera pans across them to head to commercial break, drink once for blondes, twice for brunettes and for redheads, upend your glass, because we all know that the redheads rule them all.

Drink once any time an unlikely player makes a touchdown (lookin' at you, long-snappers), twice if it's one of the big ugly guys we all love so much.

Every time the lovely Coach Dr. Lou Holtz appears to do his announcer thing, raise your glass to your lips and drink until your urge to malign him subsides, because seriously people, I love that man.

Drink one drink each for unrecovered onsides kicks, blocked kicks, shanked kicks, kicks returned for touchdowns, or any of the other instances of kicks gone horribly, terribly wrong.

Drink each time one of the following things happens:

* Coach Saban gets angry and either throws his headphones or spanks somebody.

* Coach Spurrier frisbees the visor.

* Coach Miles either mismanages the clock, eats the foliage, or, God forbid, makes a seemingly rational decision.

* Coach Kiffin affects a blank stare.

* Coach Dooley does something to make you realize once again that he seems to be a fine, upstanding citizen of the planet and you feel yourself softening your attitude towards tennessee (don't do it...DON'T GIVE IN).

* Coach Chizik shows his (nonexistent?) teeth.

If I missed any, y'all let me know.  Roll Tide everybody!

Comon.

Building on BigBamaLafayetteLA's post from yesterday, it's time to make a plan.  We're one week away from what will God-willing be a glorious football season and we've got to figure out how to appease the football gods.  Lord knows last year's photo mosaic debacle wasn't enough to do the trick.  I know we enjoy it when Todd consumes awful things and films the process for us, but that's been done already...do we really want to test the likelihood of BCS Championship lightning striking twice?  I'm pretty sure there's no way our fearless Blogtator can top this.

You're all beautiful and most of you seem to have exhibitionist tendencies, maybe it's time to put your money where your pretty mouth is.  What if we, the RBR commentariat, take it upon ourselves to propel our beloved team to victory?  

Speaking of pretty, the lovely and talented Mr. Spock Jenkins has assured me he's willing consume some weird German ickiness to cement our victory over the disgusting tennessee volunteers.  Stuck in the Plains lives in Hawaii...you just know there's some exotic awesomeness out there.  Maybe some horrible Hawaiian grub is what it'll take to beat LSU.  AlabamaJammer...in Arizona, right?  Pick up some cactus and ingest it for the team and we'll surely manhandle the Hogs.  I nominate BR07 take care of the Barn, since his hatred of them is awe-inspiring.  Bammer, of course, will have to eat oatmeal.  

It doesn't have to be food, necessarily.  I am willing to drink all the tequila in Texas if it'll help (given LittleSis's love of the stuff, I'm guessing she'd aid in this pursuit?).  Maybe we go for cocktails this year?  Though, to be honest, I'm not sure I've ever met a cocktail I didn't like.

What say you, brothers and sisters?

Seriously, people, I am a huge fan of alcohol. Alcohol makes everything and everybody more attractive, more fun and more interesting. It also goes a long way towards easing the pain of having to watch your most hated football rival play for a national title. But there's a bonus to drinking alcohol that hadn't occured to me until I saw this little gem from your favorite debate master and mine, Pete Holiday:

I like to believe that alcohol is killing only the weakest brain cells, therefore making my mind more agile (survival of the fittest, chain as strong as its weakest link, etc.)

Is it possible that in addition to all the other lovely benefits of drinking alcohol, it could actually be making us smarter? Sweet. In pursuit of higher intelligence, I'm totally going to appropriate his sage Darwinistic-drinking-as-it-applies-to-brain-cell-death theory and abuse it as if it were my own.

To that end, here are some rules for the drinking game I'll be playing during the BCSNCG. I hope y'all will play along with me:

• Take one drink every time you feel the urge to swear at your tv, significant other, family pet or RBR brethren in frustration because really...f**k Auburn.
• Each time the announcers compare Cam Newton and Tim Tebow take one drink. If they mention God in the same sentence (thus completing the Holy Trinity), say two Hail Marys and douse yourself with holy water. And then, in the spirit of giving, fix me a drink.
• Take two drinks for every yard Cam Newton "falls".
• When you see the Oregon Duck doing those push-ups after they score, take one drink for each time you kick yourself for not hitting the gym.
• Should any AU player channel the Cal Golden Bears and fake an injury to slow down the"bullet train" Oregon offense, take the opportunity to drain your glass and get a refill. Those Oregon f**kers are fast...this may be the only chance you get.
• Each time the refs blow a call in Oregon's favor, take the total number of cheap shots the ironically-named Fairley got away with during the regular season, divide by pi, and drink that many drinks to Karma and her awesomely bitchy self.
• When the cameras pan the stands of the AU faithful, raise your glass to dentistry and take one drink in honor of each missing tooth in their moronic gaping maws.
• Each time the incredibly hot Oregon cheerleaders engage in high flying acrobatics take one drink per revolution per girl.

If you think of any I've missed, post them in the comments.

Roll Tide, family. And Go Ducks.

P.S. Sweetie? Your Spock-tacular version of the BCSNCG Drinking Game rules should be arriving for you (along with your attire for the event) via carrier pigeon any minute now. Better rest up.

P.P.S. I can't, in good conscience, post rules for a drinking game without at least a nod in the general direction of the adage that recommends that "people who are driven to drink should always have a friend to drive them back."

OK, like any good Bama fan I've been studying the team roster and trying to memorize the depth chart before the season starts.  But I need some help.  What do the various names (Sam, Will, Mike and Jack) for the linebackers mean? And is this something universal in football or is it a Coach Saban thing? And are we as deep as we look at this position?

Thank you in advance for your help :) 

Ok ya'll, I'm a little worried.  I know it's not important where we're ranked, and I know the only important game is the next game, and I know it's all about the PROCESS, but I, for one, have really been enjoying this season, and I've really loved seeing this team I have worshipped since childhood at the top of the polls (which, by the way, has made me extremely unpopular here in Texas). 

That being said, I've been trolling the internet looking for answers to this question and coming up empty handed.  So I'm going to pose my question my fellow Bama fans:

Since we have a bye this week, if Texas Tech wins this weekend will they jump us in the polls?