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• Use the team's logo as a cake topper. You can look online for college football logo cake toppers to purchase or make your own. One technique is to use colored marzipan or fondant to recreate the logo. A simpler option for those who don't have any fondant or marzipan experience is to simply bake a cake as usual, then insert one or several flags that have the Crimson Tide on them into mounds of icing.

Animal Idea

• The Crimson Tide mascot is an elephant named Big Al. Make a three-dimensional Big Al cake. Bake several sheet cakes, cool, and stack with a layer of icing between each. Then cut the stacked cakes into Big Al. To create all the finishing touches, use techniques and items such as candy, piping, colored icing and stencils. Print out a detailed picture of Big Al to look at as you work to get the details right.

True Hue

• The team colors are crimson and white. Get creative in using these colors to ice your Crimson Tide cake. Cover it with crimson and white icing swirls, loops, footballs, shapes such as triangles and circles, flowers, checkerboard patterns, stars, starbursts, zig zags, squiggles, figurines, balloons, hands making the "number one" sign, smiley faces, elephants or whatever you like. Or cover one half of the cake with crimson icing and the other half with white icing.

In Terms

• Bake the cake, frost with white icing, then use crimson icing to pipe on Crimson Tide-related words and phrases. You could pipe on the team name with "We're #1" or "Go Team" or something similar. Or use the names of all the current players or of famous past players. Or, just use an eclectic mix of fitting words: "elephant," "running back," "football," "NCAA," "champions," "Big Al," "quarterback," "Sugar Bowl," "Rose Bowl," "SEC" and "Bryant-Denny Stadium."