“I really like basketball,” said Auburn fan John during an in-person interview on Monday. “The way the ball bounces, and stuff, it’s really…it’s really neat. And who wants another football national championship, anyway? That 2010 season with Cam was so special…” John said, his voice and gaze trailing off into distant recollection. “We’ll probably beat Bama in basketball, too, so…so, that’s good,” John said before trailing off again.

“One thing I love about basketball is that the games are all played indoors, so that’s something to get excited about,” said Jenny, a junior at Tennessee.

“Well, the media time outs aren’t as long…which is nice,” said Ole Miss Rebel and Oxford, Mississippi resident Mason, tearing up slightly.

“The games don’t last as long and the tickets are cheaper. But the tailgating sucks, I can tell you that much,” said new Mississippi State basketball fan Adrian.

“2003, 2004, those are both vacant, so that’s low-hanging fruit,” said Cletus Beauregard, Bama’s 81-year old team historian via landline telephone interview late on Monday. “We look at it like the college football version of squatter’s rights. We’re basically telling the rest of the college football world: ‘Do something about it,’” Beauregard exclaimed.

The full list of newly claimed titles was shared with CFB News Now via fax and can be found below. Notes not appearing in quotations are CFB News Now’s:

• 1897 (A season in which the Crimson Tide played only one game)
• 1955 (Bama went 0-10 that season, but Beauregard notes—without citation—that the official record represents a typographical error in which the wins and losses were simply transposed)
• 1957 (One of Auburn’s two national championship-winning seasons; Beauregard simply noted, “Roll Damn Tide,” next to the year)
• 1966 (Coincidentally the same year Beauregard graduated from Bama)
• 1969 (No reasoning provided)
• 1977 (“Bear deserved a three-peat at some point, doggone it.”)
• 2003 (The first of two consecutive titles vacated by USC; Bama went 4-9 that season and missed a bowl game entirely)
• 2004 (The second of two vacated USC championships; Bama went 6-6 that season)
• 2010 (Auburn’s other national championship season; “Cam Newton doesn’t count,” Beauregard noted)
• 2021 (Beauregard notes that the Crimson Tide beat the eventual national champion Georgia Bulldogs in the SEC Championship game, and thus, through transitive logic, should also be awarded at least a share of the title)

When asked how the new national championship seasons would be displayed within the stadium amongst an already crowded row of 18 other somewhat legitimate titles, Beauregard said simply, “That’s a question for the facilities manager.”

“It’s going to be total chaos,” said Middle East historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Lawrence Wright via Cisco Webex early this morning.

“We’ve seen this a hundred times: when a strongman like Saban or Saddam exerts control of a region, no one’s happy, but at least we all know what to expect, and that’s total domination, total control.”

“When that regime is toppled, there’s a power vacuum that has to be filled. In college football terms, that means resurgent 5-5 Florida knocks off CFP-allergic Ole Miss, 5-5 Oklahoma makes Alabama look like its squarely in the middle of the Mike Shula era, and Auburn plays with a newfound sense of confidence knowing its overlord rival no longer has a monopoly on power. And Texas A&M, of course, reverts to the mean it knows so well: 8-4,” Wright exclaimed.

What happens next? Anything, says Wright.

“Extremist groups might rise up to seize control, so you might see Vanderbilt start to earn some real respect year-in and year-out. You might see Florida actually turn things around. Missouri might unleash the power of the Ozark tiger. Anything is possible, and we might not like the future we get, even though we all wanted it—except for Alabama fans, of course,” Wright concluded.