Wednesday mystery meat.

Sex Panthers CB Champ Bailey returns an interception 70 yards for a score in this year's BAFL championship game.

· Lot of news in football lately -- Nick Saban taking the Alabama job, an absolute classic of a Fiesta Bowl -- but there was a bigger story to open the new year, and it was this: My fantasy team, the Sex Panthers, won the 2006 Big Ass Football League championship. The Panthers got a total of five TDs from the "Grits 'n' Gravy" RB combo of Larry Johnson and Willie Parker, and a sixth from Champ Bailey's interception of Ben Roethlisberger; it marked the eighth time in eight seasons that a Gillett-coached team made the playoffs, and made me the only coach in BAFL history to win two titles.

I know a lot of rumors have been going around that I'm mulling retirement from fantasy football. I'm not going to comment on those rumors right now; I'm just going to enjoy this big victory, spend some quality time with my family, and then ponder what the future holds. I will say that while I was approached by the University of Alabama about their head-coaching position, and they did make an attractive offer, I decided that's not where I need to be right now. But I thank them for their interest and wish them the best in their coaching search.

· Oh wait . . . their coaching search is over. Well, that's great, and good for them. But I have two questions for the Tide faithful currently going ga-ga over this, and they are as follows: 1) Do you honestly think Saban is going to stick around long enough to create that Bear Bryant dynasty that is apparently a mandatory requirement over there in Tuscaloosa? 2) Do you honestly think you couldn't have gotten someone just as good for a lot less money? Saban's record at LSU was 48-16 (0.750), which is certainly nothing to sneeze at, but neither is Mark Richt's (61-17, 0.782), Urban Meyer's (21-4, 0.840), or Tommy Tuberville's (72-29, 0.713, including a 3-2 mark against Saban).

Here's the problem with paying someone $4 million and change a year. Alabama's 2007 schedule includes home dates with Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, and LSU, any one of which the Tide could lose even with Saban at the helm -- and that's even before we get to Auburn, who will be returning a ton of talent on both sides of the ball. What happens when Bama loses their first game, even if -- or, hell, especially if -- it's Auburn for the sixth year in a row? I'll tell you what happens: A "WE'RE NOT PAYING YOU $4,000,000 A YEAR TO LOSE!!!!" shitstorm from Alabama's notoriously not-all-that-sweet-and-understanding fan base that continues indefinitely. And maybe that all ends with Saban's first SEC championship, but it starts up all over again the second Saban loses his next game.

And yes, as a UAB fan I will freely cop to being fist-through-the-wall livid that Paul Bryant Jr. deemed $600,000 too much for the Blazers to be paying Jimbo Fisher, but thought it was perfectly fine for Alabama to drop the monetary equivalent of a Boeing 737 in Nick Saban's lap. I do, however, hope everyone sees the irony in the fact that for all the meddling Alabama people did in UAB's coaching search over the past month, Alabama ended up hiring the guy on the losing end of the greatest victory in UAB football history. Thanks, Nick!


That's right, Saban! Whenever you want to sack up and play the Blazers again, Neil Callaway's waitin' here with his whuppin' stick!

· Here's something much more interesting than Nick Saban: courtesy of the M Zone, a USC Song Girl showing her booty.


That's just swell.

Now, upon Zapruder-like examination of the HD version, it was ascertained (to the great disappointment of the M Zone) that she was, in fact, wearing underpants. I've dated a few cheerleaders in my time, and from that experience I learned that cheerleader undergarments are regulated like Canadian firearms; I can say with the utmost certainty that there is no way any cheerleader, much less a Song Girl, would be allowed out onto the field of the Rose Bowl with anything other than the squad-approved spankies under her skirt. So, sorry to disappoint you -- that's not a naughty Song Girl doing her most authentic Britney Spears impression, or even a thong, just a code-red wedgie. But it's still awesome.

· I know what you're thinking: "Well, that was an interesting way of bringing together football and gloriously sculpted female rear ends in one post. But I bet you can't do it again." In fact, you are horribly, embarrassingly wrong. Here's Jessica Alba playing football in a bikini.

· While I was trying to be mesmerized by Jessica Alba's tushy just now, I kept getting interrupted by that impossible-to-find-the-"close"-button pop-up ad for the first season of "Two-a-Days" on DVD, which has literally popped up on every fucking Web site I've logged on to for the past week. Enough! Just by virtue of living in the Birmingham area I get as much of Rush Propst's relentless self-promotion as I can possibly handle; I'm not itching to subject myself to more. And when I want to see Jessica Alba in a bikini, then dammit, I don't want to see Rush Propst yelling at me, I want to see Jessica Alba in a bikini! So cut it the fuck out!

· Tomorrow the 50 Most Loathsome People in College Football begins its inexorable march from #50 to number one. Be there!


Will this picklewipe make the list? And now that you mention it, is this Michael Moore or Dennis Erickson? You won't know unless you tune in!