Never had a chance.

Remember Georgia’s first blackout debacle – the 2008 ‘Bama game?  Most of us thought the rout in the first half occurred because Saban had his team well prepared and Richt’s team had its proverbial head somewhere else.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

It was the chips (h/t Team Speed Kills).  Not potato chips or poker chips, but “… tiny holographic patches worn on the skin at Chinese acupuncture points that, according to the company that supplied them to Etheridge, Sports With Alternatives To Steroids (S.W.A.T.S.), help the body maintain and replenish its energy supply.”

That may sound like bunk to you or me, but follow this.

… Both coaches were unsure of Ross and the technology. It took several months of texting before Ross would gain their trust. But it was an unexpected display on the college level that jolted S.W.A.T.S. into NFL locker rooms.

On September 27, 2008, No. 10 Alabama went on the road to take on No. 3 Georgia.

“Tonight Alabama is going to triple chip against Georgia and beat the ever living s— out of them,” Ross texted Lynn. “And the chips are going to be the reason why.”

A few months earlier, Ross says he passed along his chips to some University of Alabama student-athletes. One of those was star running back Glen Coffee, who says he did try them. According to Ross, some members of the Crimson Tide football team were wearing the chips the night they took on Georgia, which went into the season ranked No. 1. (Reached by phone, Alabama sports information director Jeff Purinton told ThePostGame.com, “Alabama has nothing to do with this guy.”)

By halftime, the Crimson Tide was rolling over Georgia, 31-0.

“Okay prophet,” Lynn texted back to Ross, “you have my attention.”

That’s what you have to love about America.  This, too.

… The University of Alabama sent a letter to Ross in 2009 ordering him to avoid contact with all of its student-athletes. So he decided to leave the college ranks and focus on the NFL.

Enter Christopher Key. He met Ross through the personal training business in Birmingham. Key has a degree in kinesiology and has owned gyms. Ross introduced him to the chips in 2008, but Key was skeptical. “I thought he was crazy like everyone else did,” Key says. But after researching and testing them, he got on board. Key, an Alabama grad, became the college arm of S.W.A.T.S. Key pitched the chips under a different name, “Mojo,” and says he tried to get his alma mater to consider officially using the chips as a team, but to no avail.

So Ross and Key decided to show Alabama the hard way that the technology worked by taking it to the Crimson Tide’s biggest rival.

Key says an Auburn booster introduced him to several team doctors. After hearing about the technology, they approved the use on several players, including Zac Etheridge. That was in July 2010 — and the players-only meeting soon followed. Many players began wearing the chips. Auburn kept winning.