We’re late to this game (and we apologize - we’re always a bit slow), but thought we’d play ball with the Crimson and White roundtable. Tide Bloggers all from over are swapping questions, and this week, Third Saturday in Blogtober is hosting a fistful of questions:

1) Thanks to Roy Kramer legacy scheduling, Bama is in it’s “road year” when most of the great games will be on the road and season tickets basically are buy one (Iron Bowl) get seven free. You get to swap one home game for one road game. What’s your call?

The conventional wisdom says to bring Georgia home, but I think that’s still an incredibly rough game. Georgia may well be the best team in the conference; it’s possible they’re the best team in the country. Instead, I’d opt to bring the Arkansas game home. That moves that game from the “we can win if we play great” category to the “should win unless we play badly” category. We need more of those games.

The Arkansas game has also been an early indicator of how the season will go. Beat the Hogs and have a good season (at least go to a bowl), lose to the Hogs and the season turns for the worse. This is a big game for the Tide.

I’m swapping it for Tulane on the road. Any excuse for a trip to New Orleans is good enough for me.

2) After Clemson, our Non-Con schedule is pretty weak. You are able to trade any one them for any BCS team in the country. Who and why?

Let’s lose the Football Championship Series’ member Western Kentucky. The Hilltoppers (and any other DI-AA school on our schedule) must go. We get nothing for it (save full seats early in the season).

Instead of Western Kentucky, we add Nebraska. Another big name school in the midst of rebuilding, it’s an interesting matchup that would allow us to keep one in the win column (hopefully). Also, it’s another national spotlight sort of game. That’s never bad for the recruiting.

3) You can bring back one player from Alabama history to play in his college condition. Who do you want?

I don’t want to directly copycat the guys at Third Saturday in Blogtober, so I won’t say Cornelius Bennett. I’ll go with Derrick Thomas instead. We need help at linebacker. No doubt about it. Those are guys who can help us at linebacker. Thomas had the speed, power and skill to dominate a game like no other player I’ve ever seen.

It’s almost cliche in these circles now, but the Penn State game in 1988 prompted Brent Musberger to exclaim “Folks, this is the greatest individual defensive effort I have ever witnessed.” And it was. Thomas was frequently a marvel, but never more than that afternoon. The score was 8-3, and Thomas was directly responsible for 2 of those points when he sacked Penn State quarterback Tony Sacca in the end zone for a safety.

Also, Thomas had 2 individual seasons with more sacks (27 in 1988 and 18 in in 1987) than Bennett had in his entire career (15). Derrick’s career total of 52 is more than twice the 2nd place total on Bama’s all-time chart.

Certainly other Bama linebackers like Bennett, Demeco Ryans, Dwayne Rudd, and of course the great Lee Roy Jordan would be great choices. But in the modern game, there has been no linebacker that made more plays, or dominated in any way close to Derrick Thomas.

I miss DT.

4) Frankly, the idea of non-traditional food at a stadium is borderline sacrilegious. Still, the change is coming whether you like it or not, so it might as well benefit you. Gone will be the stale soft pretzels and nacho cheese. You get to pick one thing to replace it.

I disagree with the premise of this question, but I’ll tell you what I wish they’d bring. Hot garlic buffalo wings from Buffalo Phil’s or Wings. There’s no better wings in the world than those laced with a hot garlic sauce and these two are the best in the business about it. There’s discussion to be had about the regular flavors, but none about the hot garlic.

I don’t know if they invented the hot garlic wing at the Anchor Bar, but I’ve had that flavor at many many places over the years. There was a bar just off campus in Lexington that came close. I had a brief flirtation with Buffalo Wild Wings. Piranha’s Bar & Grill in Nashville does them up nicely with fresh Parmesan. But Phil’s and Wings continue to duel for my permanent affection.

Don’t ask me to choose just one or the other. I can’t.

5) Since we would never wish injury upon another player, let’s say the President calls and says you can send one player from an opponent’s team to Guantanamo Bay before the game. Who do you pick and why?

Since Clemson would still have a great rushing attack without either C.J. Spiller or James Davis, I’ll go with Georgia’s Matthew Stafford. The Dawgs still have Knowshon Moreno, but without Stafford you can afford to stack the box and limit what Moreno can do. With Stafford there, you have to play Georgia honest on defense. And that makes both Stafford and Moreno virtually unstoppable.

Georgia is also deeper at running back than QB; with Stafford breaking rocks in Gitmo with Salim Hamdan, the Dawgs would bring Joe Cox to the field. And that’s a funny name. Aside from that, he has a grand total of 39 pass attempts in college football. He did notably lead Georgia to victory of Colorado in 2006, but I fear him much less than the sure-armed Stafford.

And in Athens, we’re going to need all the help we can get.

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