The Friday Random Ten gives its annual salute.

Next week's Friday is Christmas Day, at which point y'all will certainly have more fulfilling things to do than read a blog post (I'm damn sure gonna have better things to do than write one), so the Friday Random Ten will almost certainly be taking a hiatus. So this week seemed like a perfect time for one of Hey Jenny Slater's annual traditions: a tribute to the Sexy Santa costume.

We begin with Lucy Pinder, Rosie Jones, and Chanelle Hayes, ringing in the holiday season the way the British do best.



Here's the beloved Tennessee Titans cheerleading squad, decked out for Christmas (and for an unholy mudhole-stomping of the Rams) last week.



Holly submits this teal-and-rhinestone'd take on the Sexy Santa outfit, as observed on the Jacksonville Jaguars cheerleaders during the Jags-Colts game last night



Followed by Alessandra Ambrosio, also an annual HJS tradition, for obvious reasons.



And Katy Perry, whom Holly is gonna kill me for putting up here:



And . . . whoever these chicks are:





Finally, this might be stretching the definition of a Sexy Santa outfit somewhat, but hey, they're Australian and it's summer down there, so whatever.



Merry Christmas, everyone -- may your days be merry and bright, and may all your Christmases be low-cut and marabou-trimmed.

Here's the Ten:

1. De La Soul, "Say No Go"
2. Beck, "Replica"
3. The Who, "Squeeze Box"
4. Underworld, "Faxed Invitation"
5. R.E.M., "Daysleeper"
6. Beck, "High 5 (Rock the Catskills)"
7. Richard Cheese, "Sunday Bloody Sunday"
8. Peter Gabriel, "Steam"
9. Opus III, "It's a Fine Day"
10. Beck, "Soul of a Man"

It's the holidays, folks, so go nuts -- Random Tens, Christmas wishes, Sexy Santas to whom you might be partial -- in the comments.

The Old School Plus One tackles 2009.

Last spring I tossed out my own solution to the BCS/playoff dilemma with an idea I called the "old-school plus one," which dispensed with both the arbitrariness and obscurantism of the current BCS system and the cumbersome dead weight of an overly extensive playoff setup. Basically, it'd work like this: The elite-level bowls, after sending out their automatic invites to the various conference champions, get to invite whichever other teams they want. Rather than the ridiculously arcane selection process mandated by present BCS rules, the bowls could invite whichever teams they thought would sell the most tickets and/or create the most exciting matchup; it'd basically be the same free-for-all we had before the Bowl Coalition got started in the mid-'90s, with some teams potentially being sought after by multiple bowls and getting to pick the invite they preferred. After all the bowl games were played, the teams would be re-ranked -- simply going by the AP poll, no coaches trying to game the system or computer rankings needlessly complicating matters -- and the top two teams face off in a national-championship game.

For the most part, I think this system would've worked well in sorting out some of the thornier controversies of the BCS era, but I thought I'd try applying it to the 2009 season -- in which we still have five undefeated teams as of mid-December, but only two of them getting to play for BCS title honors -- to see if we could get better matchups and a more definitive path to the championship.



THE PRE-BOWL SITUATION
1. Alabama (13-0) -- SEC champion
2. Texas (13-0) -- Big XII champion
3. Texas Christian (12-0) -- Mountain West champion
4. Cincinnati (12-0) -- Big East champion
5. Florida (12-1)
6. Boise State (13-0) -- WAC champion
7. Oregon (10-2) -- Pac-10 champion
8. Ohio State (10-2) -- Big 10 champion
9. Georgia Tech (11-2) -- ACC champion
10. Iowa (10-2)

THE BOWL MATCHUPS
Rose: #7 Oregon (10-2) vs. #8 Ohio State (10-2)
The Rose Bowl goes with its traditional matchup of Big 10 and Pac-10 champions -- and completely removes itself from the national-title picture in the process. But that's never stopped them before.

Sugar: #1 Alabama (13-0) vs. #3 Texas Christian (12-0)
Alabama goes to New Orleans as the SEC champion, and the Sugar jumps on undefeated TCU rather than taking a more geographically distant Boise State team or setting up a Bama-Florida rematch.

Fiesta: #2 Texas (13-0) vs. #6 Boise State (13-0)
This one's tricky, because the Fiesta probably would be very interested in the prospect of a Lone Star State showdown between undefeated Texas and TCU teams. But Boise State's fan base has been very good to the Fiesta Bowl in the past (not to mention this year -- more than 80 percent of BSU's ticket allotment for the 2010 Fiesta had been snapped up within four days of Selection Sunday), and the bowl would still get an undefeated team even if the Sugar Bowl snapped up TCU first. Plus, given what happened the last time an undefeated Boise team met up with a Big XII champion in Glendale, this matchup would almost certainly generate a ton of media buzz.

Orange: #4 Cincinnati (12-0) vs. #5 Florida (12-1)
The Orange Bowl has the option of picking either the Big East champ or the ACC champ for its automatic tie-in, and I think they'd go with the higher-ranked, undefeated Bearcats over Georgia Tech, given how loath ACC fans have been to even travel as far as Jacksonville or Tampa for a conference-title game (and how Cincy fans snapped up a much greater percentage of their ticket allotment than Virginia Tech fans did for last year's bowl).

WHAT (I THINK) HAPPENS: Oregon dispenses with Ohio State in an ultimately irrelevant game. In the shocker of the postseason, an Alabama team whose defensive coordinator signed a contract to become Georgia's DC two weeks prior feels a strong sense of deja vu as they walk into the Superdome, take another undefeated Mountain West squad for granted, and get upset by TCU, 24-20. Texas also does one of their usual early-game sleepwalks but manages to survive their mid-major opponent in a shootout. And Florida's defense powers them to a win over Cincinnati. (Subplot: Would Brian Kelly stick around to coach the Bearcats through the postseason, regardless of his intentions to take the Notre Dame job, if he thought UC still had a glimmer of hope for a national title?)

After the bowl games shake up the rankings, Texas is #1, followed by TCU, Alabama, Florida, and Oregon. The two Texas teams thus get sent to Pasadena (hey, the in-state battle ended up happening after all), where the Horned Frogs score the potential tying touchdown in the final 90 seconds of the national-title game, then eschew the extra-point kick for a shot at a two-point conversion and the win -- and make it, winning 29-28 and bringing home the national-championship trophy.



Now, all this is conjecture, and do I really think TCU would upset Alabama or Texas? I don't know; depends on what day you ask me. And you'll also notice that only two of the matchups are actually different from what we've ended up with in 2009 -- Alabama and Texas each have to face a mid-major before getting a shot at the national title, rather than just shunting TCU and Boise State to face each other at the BCS's "kids' table." But I threw the TCU upsets into my hypothetical situation to shed light on a couple of larger points -- first, with four of the five undefeated teams paired up against each other in bowl games, you'd really have to work hard to come up with a way to explain why the "plus-one" winner shouldn't be crowned the national champion. Second, with the mid-major "BCS busters" having an actual shot at the national title, rather than just being set off to the side to play a glorified exhibition game, you'd silence the Orrin Hatches of the world who, accurately or inaccurately, think their states' teams are being unfairly excluded from the process.

The only real possibility for a monkeywrench to get thrown into the works here is if Cincinnati upsets Florida, meaning that there'd still be one 13-0 BCS-conference team (which, like Alabama, had knocked off the Gators) still "on the outside looking in" with respect to the national-championship game. But I think my larger purpose still has been served: If the top bowls were freed from the strictures of computer rankings, automatic qualifiers, and the BCS's ridiculously convoluted rules for which bowls get to pick teams in which order, we'd not only get better, more meaningful games, but we'd also get an even more definitive national champion.

Your comments and suggestions, as always, are welcome in the comments, and that goes for any differences of opinion you might have on the bowl matchups themselves.

Strong advice.

OK, it seems a few people may have missed the point of the thought exercise I posted yesterday (and yes, the Mystery Defensive Coordinator I described was indeed Charlie Strong). The point wasn't to compare Charlie Strong unfavorably to Bud Foster (or to any of the people who've been talked up as candidates for our vacant DC position), and it definitely wasn't to make any comment one way or another on Strong's race. The point really wasn't about Charlie Strong at all; mainly, it was to show just how easy it is to twist facts a certain way when you're talking about a given coach's suitability for a given job. "Facts," as Ronald Reagan once may or may not have meant to say, "are stupid things."

With every candidate who's been mentioned for our DC position, Bud Foster being only the latest, there are any number of members of Bulldog Nation who will step forward to voice their dissatisfaction by picking out bad individual games that candidate had or a less-than-sterling record against a certain opponent. I realize that no candidate is going to satisfy everybody, but at the same time, no candidate is going to be perfect, either. Any coach or coordinator can be selectively portrayed as deficient or downright incompetent if you pick out the right info to tar him with; hell, Charlie Strong is a guy for whom I think any one of us would've been willing to auction off one of our nieces or nephews, yet if all you knew about him was what I told you in yesterday's post, you'd think he was a borderline mental defective best suited for Division III, if that.

By the same token, if all I told you about Willie Martinez was this, this, this, this, and this, you'd be begging us to not only hire Willie Martinez back but give him a raise and a ten-year contract extension. But as David Hale makes clear, Mark Richt didn't let his knee jerk based on individual games when making the (very difficult) decision to fire his longtime assistant and friend. Rather, he did what many of us bloggers have done -- he looked at Martinez's overall body of work over five years, saw the consistently negative trends in terms of yards and points, and did what needed to be done. It was a hard-fought, well-thought-through decision, and I have every confidence that the hiring of Martinez's replacement will be just as thoroughly considered (even more so after reading Hale's post). I hope the rest of Bulldog Nation will be, too.

That includes considering every candidate's body of work as a whole, rather than just deciding "I don't like the look of that guy" and then cherry-picking individual performances to show what a schmuck he is. Everett Withers's UNC defense got clocked by FSU and N.C. State? He still directs the sixth-ranked defense in the country (and managed to help the Tarheels to eight wins despite an offense barely averaging 310 yards a game). Vic Koenning got 66 points dropped on him by Texas Tech earlier this year? He still pulled K-State's wretched defense from 117th in the nation last year to 40th this year (and if never getting unloaded on by Texas Tech is a criterion for being a good DC, Dick Bumpas and Will Muschamp would both be off the list).

It also includes having some faith that Richt is going to make the right decision and not just throw a contract at the first DC who bats his eyes at us. Whether or not you think he's the absolute best choice out there, the fact that we've reached out to (and come so close to snagging) a guy like Bud Foster -- one of the most respected names in the business and a guy whose professional relationship with Frank Beamer stretches back more than 30 years -- shows that we're very serious about this hire and are prepared to spare no expense or effort in finding the top guy. We can debate the pros and cons of individual candidates or suggestions to our hearts' content, but there's no point in panicking or bringing the wrath of god down on any of them (particularly when three out of any four rumored candidates circulated in the mainstream media or blogosphere were probably pulled right out of some writer's ass to begin with).

I leave you with one more thought exercise: Would you be happy with a defensive-coordinator hire whose only previous DC jobs had been at Central Florida, Central Michigan, and DI-AA Western Illinois, and who was rumored to be a job-hopper we might not be able to keep more than three or four years anyway? I'm just saying, it might not be as bad as you think.

Thought exercise.

While I work on a playoff-related post, and while Georgia continues to hunt down a defensive coordinator, I've got a thought experiment I'd like to try out on y'all, particularly if you're of the Dawg persuasion. This was inspired by the recent news (since put to rest) that highly respected Virginia Tech defensive coordinator Bud Foster was officially in the mix for Georgia's DC job, and more specifically the reaction of one of my friends to the news. I'll explain the point of this in a subsequent post later on this week, but for now I just want y'all to ponder one question.

It's December 2, we've just fired Willie Martinez, we're casting about for a new DC, and there's a guy who's been bandied about as a prospect for the job. He's coached in the SEC for the vast majority of his career, including the last 10 years straight. In his first defensive-coordinator job, his team didn't win a game all season long. At the second program where he served as DC, his team won two conference titles in seven years, but they lost to LSU four times, Auburn twice, Tennessee twice, and Ole Miss three times; he's even managed to lose to Mississippi State. (Just for good measure, he's also lost to Georgia twice.) In one season, his defense gave up 30 or more points in five different games, including a bowl-game loss to a Big 10 team; he's 2-3 against the Big 10 and a so-so 7-5 against the ACC. Every year he's talked about for a number of head-coaching openings at DI-A programs, but he never seems to get any of them. And the last game he coached for his current program was a three-TD loss to an SEC rival in which his team gave up more than 30 points.

I don't want you to guess the identity of this coach. All I want you to do is answer the question, Do you want this guy to be our next defensive coordinator?

Better know a defensive-coordinator candidate, part II: the wild-cards.

After last week's initial rundown of defensive-coordinator candidates ranging from the exciting to the unrealistic to the just plain suicidal, I perused the resulting comments thread, along with a few other blogs that have been speculating on the coaching search. And I came across enough new names that it seemed like a good time for a second round of DC candidates. Most of these guys are unknown-enough quantities (to me, anyway) that I didn't feel confident slotting them into the "want"/"don't want" categories from last time, though, so instead I'm just throwing them all out there as possibilities and letting y'all fill in the blanks in the comments, if you've got any enlightening info or strong opinions one way or the other.

I can, however, take two names I've seen thrown around and strike them off the list post-haste. First, Virginia Tech DC Bud Foster has no Georgia ties that I'm aware of and has been a Frank Beamer disciple for basically his entire career; he's a virtual lock to at least be interviewed for the VT head-coaching job whenever Beamer retires, and even if he doesn't get it, there will be plenty of HC offers coming his way, enough that he doesn't have to worry about making a lateral move. Sorry, but he ain't comin' to Athens. I've also seen people mention Ron Zook, who is, against all conceivable logic, still employed by Illinois, and was mediocre enough as Florida's DC that Steve Spurrier -- whose disinterest in anything other than offense was already well-known -- saw fit to demote him to special teams. I am quite relieved to say we don't need to expend much mental energy hashing out the chances that he'll be coming to Athens, either.

But here are some guys who might yet be on the table:

Manny Diaz
I heard a rumor today that Diaz, the DC at Middle Tennessee State, was on our list of candidates for secondary coach but possibly even for DC. Diaz is currently in his first year as a coordinator after having coached some excellent defensive units at N.C. State under both Chuck Amato and Tom O'Brien.
Pros: He's young and energetic, the kind of guy who could stay at Georgia a long time (assuming someone else didn't try to snap him up first, either for a DC job or a head-coaching position). He's done well in his first year in Murfreesboro, taking a Blue Raider defense that had been frequently awful over the last few seasons and fashioning it into a squad that finished first in the Sun Belt in passing yards allowed, pass efficiency, and scoring D. Not a big name yet, but consider that Brian VanGorder's last three DC jobs before coming to Athens were at Central Florida, Central Michigan, and DI-AA Western Illinois.
Cons: A "diamond in the rough" though he may be, he still doesn't have much experience under his belt, which would make him a puzzling choice for a brand-name program supposedly capable of opening up the checkbook and bringing in a well-established coach. It's a long way from the Sun Belt to the complex schemes and elite-level talent that the offenses of guys like Urban Meyer, Gus Malzahn, and Bobby Petrino would be throwing at him.

Ellis Johnson
Johnson was brought in two seasons ago to turn around a South Carolina defense that had started to sputter. He's also served as the DC at Mississippi State (2004-07, during which time his defenses were about the only thing the Bizarro Bulldogs had going for them) and Alabama (1997-2000).
Pros: With all due respect to Dawgsports' MaconDawg, I think he underestimates Johnson's body of work at South Carolina a little. The Gamecocks were 110th in the country in run defense the year before he arrived -- remember Darren McFadden going over three bills against them in November '07? -- and were all the way back up to 43d after one year of his coaching. Both of his first two South Carolina defenses finished in the top 15 nationally in yards allowed.
Cons: Johnson's defenses may have been the brightest spot on the field for Sylvester Croom's Mississippi State program, but that's not saying much; his best finish in the SEC was fifth overall in terms of yards allowed. And as many good games as he's had at South Carolina, he's also had some real clunkers (56 points allowed to Florida last year; 41 this year to a Georgia team operating at nowhere near full efficiency).

Travis Jones
You may remember Jones as a four-year letter-winner as a defensive lineman for the Bulldogs during the Ray Goff era; he graduated in 1995 and returned two years later as a grad assistant, where he coached future superstars Richard Seymour and Marcus Stroud as freshmen. Currently the assistant defensive line coach for the (undefeated) New Orleans Saints.
Pros: Well, there's the pull of the ol' alma mater, for one. Jones also worked as the DL coach and recruiting coordinator for LSU in 2003 and '04, during which time he coached guys like Chad Lavalais and Marcus Spears on the way to a national title. His recruiting chops would be a huge benefit if, as many people predict, we lose Rodney Garner over the course of this defensive reorganization.
Cons: Would the pull of the alma mater be enough to tear a guy away from a Saints team that's 12-0 and has every reason to think it'll be representing the NFC in the Super Bowl? He may not be interested in even talking to us until mid-January, and that's a long time to be leaving our recruiting efforts twisting in the wind. Has been in the NFL ever since joining Nick Saban's jump from LSU to the Miami Dolphins in '05 and may have his eye on an upward path through the pro, rather than college, ranks at this point.

Vic Koenning
Currently the co-defensive coordinator and DBs coach at Kansas State, Koenning's experience on the defensive side of the ball stretches back nearly 20 years and includes stops at Wyoming, Troy, and Clemson.
Pros: Koenning's defenses at Troy, Clemson, and K-State have all been terrific. Only twice have his squads finished outside the top 20 nationally in total defense -- his first year at Troy, which was only the program's third year in DI-A, and this year at KSU, in which he still managed to haul the Wildcats from 117th in the country in total D up to 39th. Has probably gained at least a passing familiarity with our recruiting area from four seasons at Clemson.
Cons: Supposedly he bolted Clemson for KSU because Clemson wouldn't give him the head-coaching job; that and his three years of experience as Wyoming's head coach (even though he only went 5-29) lead me to believe he'd only be interested in upward moves from here on out -- particularly now that he's coaching at his alma mater and thus has a good shot at the Wildcats' top job once Bill Snyder, who just turned 70, retires.

Mike MacIntyre
Second-year defensive coordinator at Duke University and, as of November 18, your reigning National Assistant Coach of the Year. Was a grad assistant at UGA while earning his master's here in 1990 and '91.
Pros: Well, the National Assistant Coach of the Year thing is a pretty big one. Duke's national ranking of 66th in total yards allowed isn't spectacular, but it's not bad considering the paucity of talent on the Blue Devils' roster, and it's a damn sight better than where they were before he arrived (92d in the nation, giving up 424 yards per game; that figure is down by more than 50 yards for '09). Also coached under Bill Parcells for four years with the Dallas Cowboys.
Cons: Do we really want to hire a guy who only has two years of experience as a coordinator? Do we really want to go poaching anyone off of Duke's coaching staff at all? And grad degree notwithstanding, do we want to hire a guy who got his bachelor's degree from Georgia Tech (and played there as a free safety and punt returner in '87 and '88)?

Bob Sanders
Presently serving as defensive coordinator (though who knows for how long, now that Dick Jauron has been fired) with the Buffalo Bills; before that, he was defensive coordinator and DEs coach for the Green Bay Packers. Before that, he spent 11 seasons on Steve Spurrier's staff at Florida, where his defensive lines ground us into hamburger on a regular basis.
Pros: In his capacity as a DL coach, his lines have been almost uniformly terrific; mentored a trio of NFL first-rounders (Jevon Kearse, Kevin Carter, and Huey Richardson) with the Gators. Soon to be available, too, given the state of flux in Buffalo.
Cons: Hasn't coached college ball since 2000, and as we've seen, success in the NFL doesn't necessarily translate into (and has been, in some cases, a hindrance to) success at the college level. Less consistent as a coordinator than he was as a DLs or LBs coach; the Bills, for instance, are dead last in the NFL in run defense at the moment and only midpack in QB sacks. Also has the taint of a stint at Georgia Tech on his record, even if it was a long time ago (heh, "taint"), and at 56 years old he may not be the kind of energetic firebrand we're looking for.

So there are a few more names for you to toss around -- I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on them in the comments, along with, as always, any new suggestions you might have. With recruiting heating up and ratcheting up the importance of getting a name locked down, I expect we'll be hearing rumors ramp up accordingly over the next couple weeks.

Poll dancing, week 14: Last stop before Shreveport. Er, I mean, Pasadena!

Conference-championship games (and a few others) were played, Tim Tebow's tears were shed, Evan Williams egg nog was consumed straight from the bottle. This will be the last BlogPoll ballot before the final submission after the bowl games, and since there were so few games of actual consequence, the changes to the ballot will be slight (and there will be no new SEC Power Poll ballot this week either). But anyway, here's what I was able to cobble together:

Games watched: Oregon-Oregon State, Alabama-Florida, flipped back and forth between Texas-Nebraska and Georgia Tech-Clemson.



The next five: Tennessee, Utah, Arkansas, Georgia, Oklahoma.

Dropped out: Houston (15).

· Alabama jumping into the top spot shouldn't be too controversial; frankly I'm surprised that anyone at all would have anyone above them (even though five voters in the coaches' poll did). Moving TCU above Texas despite the Longhorns' Big XII title win might be, but I stand by it: Texas has looked lousy in two straight games now, and they were two games in which the 'Horns should've been putting up their very best effort(s), knowing that the national-title hype spotlight would be aimed squarely at them. It's one thing to screw around for a quarter or two and then mercilessly pound an opponent, as UT has done numerous times this season; it's another to get chased into the final minutes by a pair of Big XII also-rans. I don't think that kind of effort would permit Texas to outlast a team as talented as TCU, and it's certainly not going to do anything against Alabama in a month's time.

· Georgia Tech jumps back into the top 10 thanks to their ACC title win, which I'm probably giving them too much credit for (it is the ACC, after all), but at the same time there's really no reason to rank them below Virginia Tech at this point.



· California and Southern Cal each take a seven-point dive for losing in embarrassing fashion in the final week of the regular season (USC's ended up in the Emerald Bowl, did you hear?), and thus begins discussion of teams who maybe shouldn't be ranked at all. How much credit do the Golden Bears and Trojans deserve for playing in a tough conference when their record in said conference is only 5-4? Are Ole Miss and BYU really deserving of their rankings, and if not, who deserves to go above them? I actually raised Nebraska two spots for nearly pulling off what would've been the biggest upset of the weekend, but should I drop them out of the poll entirely for fielding that godawful offense?

· In the end, I only dropped one team off my ballot entirely -- Houston, for finally coughing up one inexplicable upset too many. The Cougars can only coast on their early Big XII upsets for so long when they start losing games like this to beatable C-USA opponents. They're replaced by Dan "Rust Belt Tebow" LeFevour and his Central Michigan Chippewas, who actually won a conference title this past weekend.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Outrage? All reasonable offers will be considered between now and the final submission deadline on Wednesday morning.

V-T Day.

ATLANTA, GEORGIA -- As the explosions of the epic Alabama-Florida battle were gradually silenced on the frigid plains of the Georgia Dome, a new commotion arose -- the voice of a freed people celebrating their liberation from a once-unstoppable force:

"WE ARE FREE! WE ARE FREE!"

The brave, crimson-clad soldiers of Alabama's most elite fighting force did more than vanquish Florida's feared Gators -- they unshackled an entire nation, set free a society that had spent four long years under siege from an inescapable despot that reached into every aspect of their lives to control them. The Tim Tebow Übertreibungswaffen that had subjected them to the most sickening depths of hype and overexposure finally lay in smoldering ruins, and football fans across the country were free to rejoice.

"I dreamed this day would come," said Atlanta resident Georg Kozpecl, who identified himself as a member of the "Red and Black Resistance Army" that had fought the Tebow machine with only sporadic success over four grueling years. "Finally, my family will be able to watch 'College Gameday' without being subjected to the grinning idiot's face or hearing people laud his 'humanitarianism.' Lies, I tell you. His reign has been filled with nothing but cruelty, and we are grateful to God almighty to be freed of him."

Fans of teams across the Southeastern Conference and, indeed, the totality of Division I-A took to city streets all over America, shouting "Long live players other than Tebow!" and slapping posters of the Florida quarterback with the soles of their shoes. A statue of the 6'3", 240-pound Tebow erected in Bristol, Connecticut -- headquarters of the quarterback's massive propaganda operation -- was toppled by a mob of citizens sometime Saturday night.

The location of Tebow himself is not known at this time; he is thought to have retreated to his base of operations in northern Florida, perhaps to plan one final assault on New Orleans, the Bugle-Inquisitor has learned. However, rumors continue to spread like wildfire that Reichsführer-UF Urban Meyer has fallen ill, potentially cutting off the head of the Gator war machine. In addition, Thom Brennaman, Deputy Reichsminister of Propaganda, has been found dead in his basement, dead from a self-administered cyanide pill.

CRIMSON TIDE EFFICIENT, "RUTHLESS" IN ONSLAUGHT

Those who witnessed the Alabama fighting force spring into action in the streets of Atlanta told of a well-oiled machine that was "ruthless" in dispensing with both the offensive and defensive forces of the once-invincible Gators. Lieutenant General Mark Ingram drove fearlessly across the Georgia plains, mowing down defenses once thought to be impregnable, while General Greg McElroy supported the invasion with the rapid establishment of air superiority and (continued on page A-3)

We regret the error, boyyyyeeeeeee!

Oh, Washington Post, you may have turned into a sclerotic, neocon-infested dung-heap shadow of your former self, but at least you have the good manners to be entertaining.