Saturday's America*

(* - With apologies to, and acknowledgement of, the late, great Dan Jenkins, who titled a compilation of his best Sports Illustrated college football stuff  "Saturday's America.")

Anyway ... Saturday's America will be in Tuscaloosa, Ala., tomorrow, and it will only be everything that makes Saturday's America the best America. It will be undefeated and No. 2 LSU against undefeated and No. 3 Alabama, and Denny-Bryant Stadium might actually sway a bit trying to contain it all.

The place will be a crimson madhouse, in other words, at least where it's not a purple-and-gold madhouse. The Tide will Roll, and the Tigers will Geaux. At some point Nick Saban might be seen to smile. At some point Ed Orgeron might say something a person not fluent in Southron Foo-ball Co'rch can understand. Even Our Only Available President will be there, which is the surest indicator of all that this is as Saturday's America as it gets.

The 'Bama student council has threatened its constituency within an inch of its season tickets not to give OOAP a hard time, exactly the sort of strong-arm freedom-of-speech muzzling of which OOAP would undoubtedly approve. That the council has since backpedaled madly from this stance likely doesn't make the gesture any less appreciated by the distinguished guest. These are his kind of people, by God.

And this is what college football has that the pro game doesn't: An Event that doesn't happen only at the end of the season, but square in the heart of it.

The Sunday game doesn't get what the college version gives us in October or November or December, because in the NASH-unal FOOT-ball League the games are just games, and the only Event happens the first weekend in February. They don't echo down through the decades, the way Notre Dame-Michigan State '66 does, or USC-UCLA '67, or Oklahoma-Nebraska '71. Or any number of Michigan-Ohio States, Texas-Oklahomas, Auburn-Alabamas, Yale-Harvards.

It takes an Event to lure a sitting president, and it's not like the first time this has happened. Presidents, including this one, have attended the annual Army-Navy game, college football's best and truest rivalry. And 50 years ago this fall, another president, one Richard M. Nixon, showed up in little old Fayetteville, Ark., on the first weekend of December, because Texas and Arkansas were going to wrap up the first 100 years of college football with, fittingly, the latest regular season game of the century.

Texas was unbeaten and ranked No. 1, Arkansas was unbeaten and ranked No. 2, and the Razorbacks damn near got 'em. Woo Pig Sooey led the Longhorns 14-0 in the fourth quarter before Texas quarterback James Street galloped 42 yards for a touchdown, Danny Lester picked off Bill Montgomery in the end zone, and Texas coach Darrell Royal riverboat-gambled on a rare deep pass to tight end Randy Peschel to set up the tying score.

Then the exquisitely named Happy Feller came on to kick the decisive extra point, and Texas escaped, 15-14.

All of those names, and more, are etched in gold in the Texas football catechism now, just as Bill Montgomery and Chuck Dicus are etched in gold in Arkansas'. And that entire gray day is pressed firmly between the pages of a memory book that, as of this fall, is fat with 150 years of such pages.

Notre Dame-Michigan State '66 is in there, Bubba Smith vs. Terry Hanratty 'n' them. USC-UCLA '67, O.J. Simpson vs. Gary Beban. Nebraska-Oklahoma '71, and Johnny Rodgers' epic punt return. A thousand others, including Notre Dame-Florida State '93 and Notre Dame-USC '05, both of which the Blob attended as a working journalist.

Nothing like either day, in the Blob's experience. They were parking cars in Mishawaka four hours before kickoff in '93. And Notre Dame Stadium has rarely made the sound it made down at the end in '05, No. 1 USC on the ropes as night came down hard and Matt Leinart tried to think as the roar beat down on him like surf on a rocky shore.

I was down on the N.D. sideline, in those last minutes, along with a pile of others. Joe Montana stood just off to my right. Andy Reid was somewhere in the crush. The entire mad place was an indrawn breath as the football came off Leinart's hand and sailed into the night ... and Dwayne Jarrett caught it downfield ... and then, a couple of hectic plays later, Reggie Bush pushed Leinart into the end zone.

I swear I felt the place sway, when that happened. I swear I did.