Tennessee-Alabama analysis canceled due to bovine conspiracy

I've always been suspicious of the cows.

Ever since we assembled the trampoline and put it in the backyard two years ago, the cows in the pasture behind our house have been acting strangely. You can see in their eyes a growing jealousy of my two daughters who have spent countless hours jumping and laughing and playing on the bounce machine. Sure, they look like they're just going about their business, grazing, defecating, occassionally mooing, but in the midst of all of their ostensible plodding, I'm becoming more and more certain that they are instead plotting, conspiring.

And last night must have been the designated time to execute their outlandish scheme because when I awoke, the trampoline had been moooooved. I can't tell exactly what happened because the security camera I had trained on the pasture since the day I first suspected the cows were up to something malfunctioned last night. Coincidence? I think not.

I know it was they who attempted to steal the trampoline away to the pasture for their own pleasure. Fortunately, cows, as a species, are not known for their ambition, and so they apparently aborted the scheme halfway through. The trampoline was half in and half out of the pasture, straddling the barbed-wire fence. It must have been the steel post sticking through the middle of the tarp, anchoring the thing to the earth, that thwarted the plan. I must admit, it was the thing that almost kept me and my wife and oldest from getting it back to its proper location this morning.

When we'd gotten it back to where it belonged, I watched the cows. Most were avoiding my gaze. Jackson the mule, though, was staring straight at me. He knows something.

So although I don't have any evidence, I'm convinced it was the cows. Either that or the 60 mile an hour winds.

Anyway, that explains why there will be no analysis from me of last night's Tennessee-Alabama game except for the following:

• Wayne Chism's headband: missing
• Other headbands: orange
• Officiating: um, okay
• Chris Lofton: woo for three in a row!
• Score: 93-86