Tide up in nots
With likely CFP miss, Alabama finally facing some questions
OR THE first time in the College Football Playoff era, there will be no Alabama. No Nick Saban. No Crimson Tide.
The sport’s goliath, which has won it all five times since 2009, won’t have a hand in deciding the national championship. And for the first time since Saban elevated Alabama to kingly status, there are legitimate questions to be asked about the program.
Questions about Saban’s defense. Questions about who his quarterback will be. Questions about this program’s dominance. Even questions about the man himself, at the age of 68.
Look, a lot went wrong this year for Alabama and it still came within three points of toppling Auburn in the Iron Bowl and remaining in the playoff hunt through championship weekend. The defense was decimated by injuries, most notably the torn ACL suffered by All-American linebacker Dylan Moses in August. Star quarterback Tua Tagovailoa wasn’t 100 percent for the loss to LSU and then suffered a season-ending hip injury the following week. Alabama wins the Iron Bowl going away if he’s under center.
Still, Saban’s calling card in Tuscaloosa has been his defense, the unit that would squash even the most dynamic offenses. It was unrecognizable this year, allowing 18.8 points per game, the most since his first season at Alabama in 2007, and that was against a soft schedule that has included just two ranked opponents. It allowed 46 points to LSU, the most a Saban-coached Crimson Tide defense has ever given up. Three weeks later, Auburn hung 48 on Alabama. Even if 14 of those points came on pick-sixes thrown by Mac Jones, Tagovailoa’s inexperienced backup, it still allowed 354 total yards to the Tigers’ 146th-ranked offense, unable to stop them when the game was on the line. Go back to last year’s playoff, when Alabama allowed 34 points to Oklahoma and 44 to Clemson in a rout, and this defense has been trending the wrong way for a while.
It’s too early to say Saban’s reign is over. His recruiting remains elite. He lost two games this year by a combined eight points. But he’ll likely lose his quarterback, possibly star running back Najee Harris and top receivers Jerry Jeudy, Henry Ruggs III and DeVonta Smith are eligible for the NFL draft, too. Florida and LSU are gaining steam as national powers while the Crimson Tide is beginning to lose its championship aura.
For the first time in a decade, it’s fair to question the future at Alabama.
Championship weak
Last year’s conference championship games were a bore, irrelevant or lopsided aside from the SEC title game, and next weekend could feature a repeat of that sad slate. Clemson is an early 28-point favorite over Virginia. Ohio State is giving 18 points to Wisconsin and would still likely be selected to the playoff if it were upset.
The SEC Championship game holds all the intrigue, LSU facing Georgia. A Bulldogs win would almost certainly assure them of the No. 4 spot, rendering the Big 12 and Pac-12 games irrelevant. An LSU win, and those games would be significant, since the winners would be jockeying for position for the last playoff berth. Otherwise, only one of the big five conference championship games really matters. Again.
Between a rock and a Harb’ place
You can look at Jim Harbaugh’s Michigan tenure in two ways. He’s failed to reach the sky-high expectations set for him, failing to reach the playoff or win the Big Ten. He’s lost each time to Ohio State, blown out the last two years. He also has a chance, with a bowl game victory, to notch four double-digit win seasons in his first five years in Ann Arbor. Michigan had one such season in the eight years preceding Harbaugh’s arrival.
The program is clearly in a better place now than when he arrived, recruiting at a high level and winning far more than it is losing. But the program is also in no-man’s land under Harbaugh — good, but not good enough to be a title contender, hardly belonging on the same field as Ohio State.