In a move that surprised absolutely no one, Alabama linebacker Rolando McClain announced on Monday that he would be entering the 2010 NFL Draft. The unanimous All-American and Butkus Award winner was a permanent team captain for the 2009 National Champion Crimson Tide.

Where does Rolando stand in the history of Bama's great linebackers?

After spending about an hour and a half post game on the field at the Rose Bowl and in the Tide locker room, I took my time walking the mile or so back to my car. I puffed lightly on a cigar, and walked alone in complete silence, relishing in what had happened.

Alabama had just beaten Texas 37-21 to claim National Championship #13 in the storied history of Alabama football.

It's a damn shame Colt McCoy got hurt.  Although Nick Saban is a good head coach, and therefore like all good head coaches uses the media as a tool, not a confessional booth, I strongly suspect he was being sincere when he said that "you always hate to see a great competitor who's had a great career not be able to participate in a game that he's probably worked his entire career to be a part of." 

Nobody wanted to see that, not even Saban.  Texas fans are justified in feeling a little cheated, and in wondering privately among themselves what might have happened without McCoy's injury.  Maybe they can even channel their frustration into some kind of positive energy.

What they shouldn't do is come out publicly and say things like "If Colt McCoy hadn't gotten hurt, we would've won."  My Texas friends, nobody likes a whiner, and you ain't nothin' but a whiner when you say something like that.  It's hogwash, too, and I'll give you a few reasons.

Wow.

As I type this, I'm flying at 569 miles per hour somewhere over El Paso, watching Nick Saban's live press conference. And, I'm on the internet. To paraphrase Patton Oswalt, it's a miracle, and no one cares.

But that's not the real miracle today.

In a bowl game – and especially in a bowl game played nearly five weeks after the teams’ last game – the psych edge can really make the difference. Sometimes one team is ready and the other team isn’t (last year’s Sugar Bowl). Sometimes both teams are ready (Texas-USC BCS game). Frequently neither team is ready and they both kind of slog around until somebody wins by default (LSU vs. Penn St., Capital One Bowl).

Yesterday's Texas Game By Game article was really designed to give you a feel for what Texas did this season.  You guys probably already have a decent idea what the Tide did this season, but hopefully it will be at least a bit enlightening to look at it in the same format as yesterday's Texas article.

So let's do that.

How good is Texas?  Here’s my $.02: they showed some strong stuff during a five-game mid-season streak, and that team is the one Alabama had better be prepared for.  But really: are they that team, or are they the team that didn’t look so great at times early and late in the season?

We’ll know more soon, but in the meantime, let’s try to get a handle on this Longhorns bunch by looking at what they’ve done on a game-by-game basis.

The Alabama football team practiced on Sunday for the twelfth time in preparation for the Texas Longhorns and the BCS National Championship Game. The full pads practice was once again held at Orange County College and Costa Mesa High School.

Here's what you need to know:

The Alabama football team held its first practice in the state of California on Saturday. Don't let the calendar fool you... for the team this was a Monday practice. Though, for the first time all season, Bama practiced in pads during the first practice of the week. The practice held at Costa Mesa High School and Orange County College was the first of five practices that Bama will have leading up to Thursday's BCS Championship Game against Texas.

Here's what you need to know: