Ken Rogers column: Welcome back, Textbook 5

TUSCALOOSA — Welcome back, Antoine Caldwell, Marlon Davis, Glen Coffee, Chris Rogers and Marquis Johnson.
Let me catch you up on what has happened while you’ve served your four-game suspensions during the school’s improper receipt of textbooks investigation.
The NCAA finally ruled Saturday that y’all can come back for the Auburn game.
Remind me to thank the NCAA for throwing us that bone. Who are those guys? FEMA? The storm has passed. Alabama’s roof is leaking, there’s water damage eight feet up the walls and people are looting flat-screen TVs right down Paul W. Bryant Drive. Maybe FEMA was serving a four-game suspension when Katrina took out New Orleans.
Anyway, you missed the best and worst of the 2007 season while you were gone. Today was the worst part, but there was a highlight.
It looked like we weren’t going to miss you at all. Tennessee came to town and got pounded. How dominating was it? Coach Saban smiled afterward. I saw it.
Ah, you should have been there. 41-17. We’d have probably played all the reserves, too — except they were starting for you offensive linemen.
Bama had two weeks to prepare for LSU and darned near pulled off the upset in a game that matched two one-loss teams in the SEC West. Yeah, good times.
Mississippi State — I know you remember them from last year — was seconds away from going down two touchdowns at the half. Unbelievably, John Parker Wilson, who missed you more than anybody, lobs a wedge up there to a cornerback, who takes it 100 yards to the house.
JPW got picked again to set up another Bulldog TD and Alabama got beat 17-12.
Then Saturday, in the last home game — for y’all, that was Houston — we played a team that lost to Tulsa by 18, Clemson by 23, Texas A&M by 40, Troy by 17 and North Texas by 10.
And we lost 21-14. Now I know why we didn’t put this on pay-per-view at night. Alabama wasn’t ready for prime time.
I’m not sure even you guys can fix this thing in a week. But I hope you win your jobs back and give it a shot against Auburn.
Maybe you, Coffee, can move the stack on fourth-and-2. Maybe he won’t need to with you, Caldwell and Davis, back up front.
You guys were missed in all three recent losses, when short-yardage conversions could have turned punts into time-consuming drives, resting the defense.
And maybe you would have saved your coach the embarrassment of comparing this loss among the worst of his career.
“I had one loss at LSU that was very similar to this,” Nick Saban said, referring to a defeat against UAB. “At this time in the program, we have not improved as a team since the Tennessee game.
“We haven’t had the continuity we need to have.”
Guys, y’all were the continuity. They missed you. Badly. I’m guessing you feel as bad as they do today.  It’s been a tough November for everyone.
With one game remaining, December can’t get here soon enough.