By King Biscuit
Associated Press Reporter
TUSCALOOSA (AP) -- In a classic worthy of the Fifth Thursday In October, the University of Alabama football team maintained its hopes of a national and BCS championship with a 12-10 victory over Tennessee at Bryant-Denny Stadium.
The win raises Alabama’s record to 8-0. Tennessee also moves to 8-0, according to coach Lane Kiffin, who claims three moral victories and “0ne game where we just felt out of sorts and really tried to call in sick” as non-losses for the Volunteer program.
The game began on Saturday but was not concluded until Thursday night. Alabama had originally appeared to win on Terrence Cody’s second blocked field goal of the fourth quarter. Southeastern Conference officials decided to resume the kick with four seconds remaining after repeated calls from Kiffin’s father, Monte, who was giving gradual updates on his son’s refusal to eat his green beans as early as Sunday. By Wednesday, the elder Kiffin reported that his son was “alternately kicking and screaming and holding his breath.” Following an eventful Wednesday night that included the younger Kiffin “really turning blue and maybe swallowing his tongue,” according to his father, Monte, and a forceful demonstration by UT assistant coach Ed Orgeron, who occupied SEC Commissioner Mike Slive’s office and vowed not to bathe again until a rekick was allowed.
Questions about whether Orgeron had, in fact, ever bathed before were not answered as UT sports information officials did not return phone calls.
In a humanitarian gesture to save both the breath-holding Kiffin and Slive, who was pinned in his desk chair by a reeking Orgeron, from suffocation, Alabama head coach Nick Saban agreed to replay the final four seconds of the game.
The rekick was scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. but was delayed for several minutes as Kiffin complained that headsets on the UT sideline were not working. The issue was finally resolved only when Alabana agreed to turn off its headsets and Kiffin was given a nice blue Blow-Pop.
UT then lined up to attempt a potential game-winning 44-yard field goal. In a surprise move, Daniel Lincoln, the Vol kicker who had missed three times on Saturday, did not take the field. Instead, Oakland Raider kicker Sebastian Janikowski came on to try the kick which, according to Kiffin, was “perfectly within NCAA rules as I understand them.”
Janikowski’s attempt was interrupted by a protest from Raider owner Al Davis, whose appearance at BryantDenny Stadium prompted yet another delay. Kiffin spent several minutes curled in the fetal position, then awoke yelling “Daddy! Daddy! Bad man! Mad Maaan!” until a second blue Blow-Pop was administered.
Officials finally decided that Janikowski could not try the field goal, but agreed to Kiffin’s demands that Cody, the Crimson Tide nose tackle, also had to be removed the game and replaced by former Alabama wide receiver Brandon Brooks.
Lincoln then came on to retry his fateful 44-yard kick. His attempt rose less than two feet and was blocked by Brooks and former Auburn head coach Terry Bowden, whom Kiffin had insisted upon as a replacement for Julio Jones.
Unlike Saturday, however, the loose football was not recovered by Alabama but was scooped up by Tennessee freshman Bryce Brown, who raced to the Alabama 5-yard line, where he stopped while his handler, Brian Butler, hastily set up a 1-900-telephone service where, for $19.95 per call, fans could find out whether Brown intended to run into the end zone or not.
The delay proved to be the Vols’ undoing. Just as Butler gave Brown clearance to score the winning touchdown, a “spontaneous” celebration involving three orange Ferraris, rapper Lil’ Wayne and the Solid Gold Dancers, erupted in the Tennessee end zone. A close examination of the replay video indicated that Lil’ Wayne’s first obscenity was uttered just before Brown crossed the goal line.
“I feel like dyin’” a distraught Wayne said in an after-party interview.
The result was a 15-yard celebration penalty against Tennessee, which was forced to retry the field goal from the Alabama 42-yard line, a 59-yard attempt. Lincoln was too emotionally distraught to continue. At last, all sides agreed that former Tennessee coach Phil Fulmer could attempt the kick.
Fulmer’s kick appeared to be good, but officials ruled that several of the fomer coach’s “love handles” had lapped over the sideline boundary during his attempt, resulting in a failed rushing play and making it fourth down.
Saban, who at this point told sideline reporter Erin Andrews that “this is the most @$#%$!-up %&@& I have seen since I left Louisiana, then agreed that Kiffin himself could try the fourth-down kick.
The attempt travelled less than 10 yards in the air, although Kiffin immediately began a celebration dance and shouted “It’s good! It’s good!,” a contention he maintained in his post-game press conference.
“It would have counted if Urban had kicked it,” he said. “It would have counted if Nick had kicked it. But it doesn’t count for me, while Alabama and Florida live on.”