Next up: Waterboarding Tommy Tuberville

This just in: Nick Saban goes nuts. The Associated Press witnessed the Alabama coach's descent into madness . . . and into total loss of perspective:

Citing the 9-11 terrorist attacks and Pearl Harbor, Saban said Monday his team must rebound like America did from a "catastrophic event."

In this case, that would be an embarrassing 21-14 loss Saturday to Louisiana-Monroe, dropping the Tide's record to 6-5.

"Changes in history usually occur after some kind of catastrophic event," Saban said during the opening remarks of his weekly news conference. "It may be 9-11, which sort of changed the spirit of America relative to catastrophic events. Pearl Harbor kind of got us ready for World War II, or whatever, and that was a catastrophic event."

Alabama's just getting ready to face No. 25 Auburn, its biggest rival, on Saturday.

A Saban spokesman said the coach chose the 9-11 and Pearl Harbor references to illustrate the challenges facing his team.

"What Coach Saban said did not correlate losing a football game with tragedy; everyone needs to understand that. He was not equating losing football games to those catastrophic events," football spokesman Jeff Purington said in a statement to The Associated Press. "The message was that true spirit and unity become evident in the most difficult of times. Those were two tremendous examples that everyone can identify with."

GET A GRIP, NICK. After Pearl Harbor, the United States had to rebound -- or, in the spinmeister's terms, evidence "true spirit and unity" -- in the wake of losing something like 2,700 lives and most of the Pacific Fleet.

After 9/11, the country had to bounce back from . . . well, you know what we've had to bounce back from. Do you think losing a (expletive deleted) football game compares in any way to the difficulty of overcoming either of those two horrific events?

What, is Saban now going to have some goons snatch Tommy Tuberville off the streets of downtown Auburn, Ala., and apply "enhanced interrogation" techniques until he gives up the Tigers'/War Eagles'/Plainsmen's game plan? All so the great elephant god, Crimson Tide, might prevail in the Iron Bowl and, thus, ignorance, hunger, poverty and violence be banished from the Gret Stet of Alabammer forever and ever, amen?

Lawdamuhcy, that Saban done lost his mind. Maybe he ought to run for president. He'd probably fit right in.