Post-Puberty Defeat And The Valor of Polish Calvary

The light of Monday morning broke through the windows of the Tuscaloosa Chuck E. Cheese to find a lone figure asleep in the ball pit. Mouth open, a half-eaten piece of rock candy stuck to his auburn hair hanging over a freckled face, he clutches a wad of ski ball prize tickets to his chest. Jefferson Davis Bryant (J-Bear to his friends), owner of the establishment, found him while closing up shop the night before.

Coming to grips with defeat through balloons.

"You want wake him?" asked the Ecuadorian cleaning staff.

"No, Consevella. Let him be. Just clean around him. The little guy's had a rough day."

Loss was unfamiliar to Greg McElroy. Undefeated since puberty, he coped in the only way he knew how-- the same way he had the last time a Greg McElroy quarterbacked team came up short. He binged on rock candy, ski ball and then cried himself to sleep in a corner of the ball pit while animatronic bears serenaded him with happy songs from a better time. 

Like Greg, the Alabama Crimson Tide are not a group that really knows a lot about losing, and that includes how to get the taste out of your mouth and move on. More likely than not, they're going to take the same route of frustrated English soccer fans and just take out their frustration by mercilessly beating the sense out of someone who can't really defend themselves. That's obviously the thinking of whoever set the kickoff for 8:00 pm CST. Some things aren't fit for the light of day, and Mark Ingram against the Ole Miss linebacking corps is likely going to be one of those.

But maybe...just maybe, they won't know how to bounce back. Like Drago in Rocky IV, the rest of the world has seen them bleed. With the unfamiliar taste of blood in their mouth, Alabama might come to the revelation for the first time that they are, in fact, mortal. With that lesson learned, they lose the edge, the swagger that previously drove their team. Sometimes loss metastasizes in more loss.

Ole Miss knows loss to the point where coping has become part of our unofficial motto of never losing the party. When you wake up on Sunday morning with that taste in your mouth, the best Listerine is the melted ice in last night's rocks glass. Gargle, swish, spit and get ready for the week to come. 

One of the great overlooked quirks of the invasion of Poland is that when the Nazi tanks rolled across the border, the Poles sent horseback calvary to meet them. These poor bastards straightened their uniforms, took a strong swig of vodka and actually charged tanks with horses. Not because they wanted to or even thought they had a chance of success; they charged because when it comes time for a fight, you're pride-bound to do the best with what you have. It's a Hell of a mentality, and it's one that you're going to need if you're going to be on the Ole Miss side of things tonight...along with a little good vodka and maybe a lance. Jerrell Powe didn't drive his moped all this way just to lay down. He's going to a club a fucker or two, and I'm riding with him. 

As for little Greg in the ball pit, play him home, boys.