BREAKING: God Blesses Bama, Picks Tide to Repeat As BCS National Champs

In a stunning development that will likely leave Lee Corso and “Herbie” Herbstreit looking like tiny ants waving their itsy-bitty antennae in a desperate bid for attention, the Lord God Himself has broken His silence and declared His allegiance to the University of Alabama and picked the Crimson Tide to repeat as 2010 BCS National Champions.

Long suspected of rocking the Houndstooth beneath the dense billows of smoke and pillar of fire which conceal Him wherever He goes, God came out of the cloud yesterday and ended all speculation as to His true colors (Crimson and White) before the season even started.

In an Ocular Fusion exclusive, special correspondent Mike the Redneck caught up with The Rock of Ages over a few slabs of ribs at Dreamland BBQ in Tuscaloosa last night following His press conference at The Walk of Champions which featured a spectacular bolt of lightning that simultaneously struck the statues of Bear Bryant, Gene Stallings and the spot reserved for the new monument to current Head Coach, Nick Saban.

The Creator of All Things was incognito, sporting a low-slung Bama cap, Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses and a #22 Crimson Tide jersey, and was doing His best to kick back and blend in with the regulars–a difficult task considering His retina-burning luminosity which kept seeping out of His armpits and eye sockets and shooting corona-like laser beams onto the party of four from Eutaw at the next table.

MTRN: Lawd? Lawd? Is thahutt really you, Lawd?

YHWH: Shhhhh! Try to keep it down a little, wouldya? I’m trying to be inconspicuous.

MTRN: Heh, wellll, good luck with thahutt! Let’s start off with the kwestun thahutt I knoze on evrabody’s mind: Why now? and Why the Tide?

YHWH: That’s two questions, but that’s okay. Why now? I just wanted to let everybody know up front before the opening kickoff Thursday night where I stood so I won’t have to put up with the usual deluge of prayers and petitions. It’s not that I don’t care about what’s on my children’s hearts. It’s just that those reams of desperate “Sweet Jesus, Save us!” prayers and “Hail Marys” all aimed my way at once on 4th and long late in the 4th quarter put up quite a racket. A god can’t get any sleep under those conditions.

MTRN: But you ain’t s’posed to sleep, is you?

YHWH: Well, off the record, say would you turn that thing off?

MTRN: Wellll, of course! (crosses his fingers beneath the table)

YHWH: (leans across the table and whispers conspiratorially) Off the record, I do take some cat-naps sometimes, okay? No worries though, I’ve got y’all covered with legions of angels–my best people, in fact–when I’m out cold. But when you’re as eternal as I AM, you gotta get a little rest. Frankly, one day millions of years ago just doesn’t cut it.

MTRN: Wait, I thought it wuz 6,000 years ago. Did Pastor git it wrong ag’in?

YHWH: He meant well, bless his heart. As to the second question, I think it’s been pretty apparent, even to Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, that with four straight National Titles for the SEC I’ve been spending a fair amount of time down in Dixie in recent years. I’ve always had this thing for oppressed peoples, and with the NCAA acting more uppity than Pharaoh and The Crimson Tide writhing under its thumb all these years, y’all got my attention more than the others.

MTRN: So you hurd us after all! I thought you wuz a homer for Tebow.

YHWH: Uh, yes, I “hurd” you. Timmy and Urban represented ME well for a while, but they started going a little Hollywood there in the end. That’s why Timmy bowed his head and cried in Atlanta and Urban ended up with one helluva case of indigestion. (Heb.) (12:6)

MTRN: I thought thahutt un’ had you written all ova’ it. Lawd, I’m assumin’ Hotlanta tweren’t the first time you up and stepped in during a krucial moment. At what point did you first in, inter, interve, uh, make a difference? Lawd? Laaaaawd, are you thar?

YHWH: Enough of the theatrics, okay? I’m sitting right across from you, for Pete’s sake. Come on, think about it–two blocked field goals in the 4th quarter against Tennessee? How often does that happen?

MTRN: Is you sayin’?…

YHWH: That’s what I’m sayin’–that was ME. Or some of “MY people” at least. Cody can’t jump worth beans. He never laid a finger on either one of those. Go back and look closely at the tape.

MTRN: Lawd have mercy! If you don’t mind me askin’, which one of “yer people” wuz it?

YHWH: Clarence. He’s been spoiling for some action ever since he rescued George Bailey.

MTRN: I always liked that little feller! Now let me git this strait–The Tide gonna RE-pete as BCS Champions, raght?

YHWH: Uh, “raght,” you “hurd” it here first. But it won’t be without some Red Sea Moments along the way. In fact, there will be one very low time, a period of great tribulation and gnashing of teeth, before the Great Throng of Beer-Bellied Tailgaters shall drive their RVs through the crashing waves and park on the other side of the Quad.

MTRN: A “one-loss” BCS champion–ain’t thahutt sumthin’! Mind tellin’ me which un’ we gonna lose?

YHWH: Even I’M not in the loop on that one. I delegated that task to Jesus and he’s not telling ME.

MTRN: Is Mark Ingram gonna be okay, Lawd? LAWD? LAAAAWD HELP US!

YHWH: Sheesh Louise, I said keep it down! He’s going to be fine. I taught Dr. Jim Andrews everything he knows, and he taught that young disciple of his that did most of the work. And I was right there in the OR hovering over the two of them, just like I do in one of those kitschy, black velvet paintings that you can pick up at the flea market in Cullman.

MTRN: Oh God, yesterday Nike unveiled them thar new “Pro Combat” unis. They did. A lot of us Old School folks wuz a little worried thahutt they wuz gonna up and mess with success and change too much, but I have to admit, they come out lookin’ raght smarhutt. I’m assumin’ you had yer giant hand in thahutt un’ too, raght?

YHWH: Oh, absolutely. Gabriel and Michael handled most of the new styling details–those two are quite the natty dressers!–and The Grim Reaper designed the players’ gloves since he’s really into flashing signs. The houndstooth on the numbers and helmets, heh, well, that was MY idea.

MTRN: Nice touch, Almighty! Speakin’ of houndstooth, do you eva’ see him up thar’?

YHWH: Him?

MTRN: You knoze, The B’ar.

YHWH: Of course, that Him. Oh sure, we hang out all the time. There’s a Starbucks on the corner of every street of gold, and you can find us in one of those most mornings, kicking back with a steaming, free trade cup o’ Joe, reminiscing about The Good Old Days.

MTRN: Sweet Jesus, now thahutt’s some really Good News! One more kwestun, iffin you don’t mind. Them thar Barners–they not gonna take too kindly to you pickin’ us ova’ them. What you gonna say to them when they start complainin’–and you knoze well as I do thahutt ain’t gonna take long.

YHWH: I’ve spent some time thinking about that, don’t think I haven’t. I think what I would say to them is, “I have heard your pleas and smelled your so-called ‘fragrant offerings’ rising up from your barns and cow pastures down on The Plains, and you have been found really, really wanting.”

MTRN: Wow, thahutt’s strait and to the point.

YHWH: Tough, redemptive love. That’s just the way I roll–for eternity.

MTRN: You and Jesus and The Holy Ghost on the same page on this un’?

YHWH: Red, it’s just like the theologians have always said–or at least since the Council of Nicaea–we’re all in this together.

MTRN: Jehovah God, thanks for takin’ the time to have a little sit down over THE GREATEST, MOST LIP SMACKIN’ RIBS IN THE WORLD!! prior to the start of the season. I knoze yer a busy man, er, not exactly a man, but you knoze whuttamean. Roll Tide, SIR.

YHWH: Roll Tide, my son.

__________________________

In other preseason SEC football news, the Auburn Tigers were forced into their indoor practice facility yet again after a cloud of locusts so dense that it blocked out the sun descended upon the campus for the second day in a row.

Lee County, Alabama Extension Agent Bobby Joe Raines is perplexed: “There jist ain’t no scientific explanation fer it. We tweren’t supposed to git any locusts for another 10 years. This un’ has Crazy Old Testament God written all ova’ it!”

Roll Tide, Roll.