Alabama Football – Looking ahead to Likely BCS Championship Opponents and Outcomes
By Larry Burton
In looking ahead to likely opponents that Alabama might face in the next BCS Championship Game, you need to look no further than they teams that populate the top of the polls right now. It is unlikely that any team not inside the top 10 right now would make it to that game. Looking ahead to the ones most likely to make it to Pasadena and what the outcome would be isn’t a realistic science, but we can guess at this point based on the games played so far.
First of all, you have to look at the winner of the Oregon – Stanford game.
Oregon, rated number 2, would be the easiest of the opponents in that scenario for one reason, defense. Alabama has it and Oregon doesn’t, at least not in proportion they’d need to stop a bruising perfectly balanced offense that could burn you with either the run or the pass. While Oregon has a high powered offense for sure, Nick Saban and company have had many teams come at them with a up tempo high octane offense and all of them lost.
Why?
Because they didn’t have the defense necessary to stop and offense that you can’t load up on. If you sell out to stop the run, McCarron will pick you apart and if you play a base defense, then they’ll run and pass. So far only the Tide has been able to stop the offense by doing it to themselves with penalties and turnovers.
All teams think they can handle Alabama in a championship game, then they get punched in the mouth. At least they won’t be embarrassed like Notre Dame or LSU.
The game would either go as the Oregon – Auburn game went in 2010, a close game but a loss for Oregon, but a more likely scenario would be a comfortable win by 14 or more points. Oregon with a very similar team, lost to the weakest SEC opponent that’s made it to the championship game in many years in 2010 and this Alabama team is much better than that Auburn team they lost to. They had trouble putting Washington away last week until the fourth quarter and Washington was only the 16th ranked team.
Clemson is another team with a wide open offense and a swinging gate defense. Like Oregon, Clemson can and would put some points on the board, but Alabama would put up far more.
When you win games and still give up 35 points to the only ranked team you’ve played, you’re in trouble. Yes Alabama gave up points to Texas A&M, but they held Ole Miss to zero touchdowns. Plus Clemson’s history and M.O. up to now is the team that starts off looking good and ends up with epic fails when they shouldn’t.
Clemson barely beat a Georgia team we now know isn’t all that great after all and they had trouble last week with Boston College who is a .500 team. Alabama would be a slap in the face reality check to these Tigers.
Ohio State – Oh please, just another chapter in the history of over rated Big 1o team getting slapped back to reality by an SEC team. Yes they can and probably would score against Alabama, but like the two teams listed above, they will look like a high school team trying to stop Alabama’s offense.
Urban Meyer may have to admit himself to the hospital after this game with more chest pains and treatment for a bruised ego since they would spend the week talking about these being the two best coaches in the business and the game revealing that Meyer wouldn’t be picked by Saban as an assistant. Alabama would beat them so badly and so thoroughly that it would damage the Big 10’s image for years.
Stanford – Likes to play ball like an SEC team in the Pac 10, but while that sounds like a good thing, playing like an SEC team and being as good as an SEC team are two different things. In this matchup, Stanford would see what a real SEC defense is all about. They do have a defense of their own that could cause Alabama some problems and of all the teams mentioned so far, my have the best defense.
Despite the fact that Stanford lost this weekend, if they defeat Oregon, they could be right back in the title hunt. Sometimes a loss makes a team rededicate itself and makes them a better team. Such was the case when Alabama lost a close game to LSU only to play them again the title game and humiliate them.
They are the most evenly effective offensive and defensive team so far in the list and if they beat Oregon to get to this point, will be brimming with confidence going into post season. The question would be if a one loss Pac 10 team could jump an undefeated Ohio State.
Florida State – When the glory days were over, they were over. Like Clemson, Florida State was pegged as the school who could be great, but always blew the chance to make the title game by dropping games they shouldn’t. For an epic example, you need to say nothing more than North Carolina State.
When I interviewed Jimbo Fisher early in his Florida State career, he said one of the biggest challenges he faced was making the team believe they were winners and that winning would be as natural to them as it was to Alabama players. He implied that this was a team always waiting for the other shoe to drop and not one like Alabama who would always find a way to win because the thought of losing wasn’t even in their minds.
Are they capable? Yes. Could they pull of the upset? Yes. But would they? No. Like Clemson, they had a tough time with little Boston College and the Eagles showed flaws in the Seminole team that others can exploit.
In the end, despite the mind numbing numbers that Jameis Winston has put up, he will watch Alabama and simply think of what could have been if he had signed with them instead of Florida State. Though Jameis made the best decision for him to showcase his great talent, he’ll regret the empty finger that all Alabama players have.
Louisville – Looks great against mediocre talent, will look like Notre Dame against Alabama. This could be an embarrassing game and to more to hurt Teddy Bridgewater’s NFL draft status than anything else could. Alabama’s offense would simply steamroll this weaker, thinner team.
This is a team that Rutgers was giving fits to until finally getting some cushion late in the game. No team that struggles with Rutgers could dream of hanging in a game with the Tide.
It’s not far from just speculation that Louisville is hoping for another higher rated undefeated team pull the BCS card so they can just go to a BCS bowl, pick on a lesser opponent, beat their chest and say, “We wish we could have gotten hold of Alabama!”
Yeah right. And Chihuahuas chase Greyhound buses too.
Like last year, the toughest game Alabama will play won’t be the BCS National Championship Game, but the SEC Championship Game and the remainder of the SEC schedule. LSU poses the biggest threat to the Tide and Auburn’s resurgence may present a problem if Alabama takes them too lightly. These are the things the Tide players must focus on and drive to complete. The BCS game will be as they have been, a welcome relief from the rigors of the SEC and a chance to show not just how good this Alabama team is, but how great the SEC’s best is against the best of the rest.
Larry is an award winning writer whose work has appeared in almost every college football venue. Now he primarily writes for Touchdown Alabama Magazine. https://twitter.com/LBSportswriter
