UNBEATEN AND MOSTLY UNTESTED
Rolling to 13-0, ’Bama yet to face much adversity
As the championships have piled up for Nick Saban, it remains a bit of an anomaly that he has coached only one undefeated team. His first championship team at Alabama in 2009 went 14-0, but the other four (including 2003 at LSU) all had a loss that ultimately proved purposeful.
In 2011, Alabama’s frustrating 9-6 overtime loss to LSU helped provide a blueprint for the titlegame rematch, which the Crimson Tide won in a 21-0 throttling.
In 2012, losing to Texas A&M and Johnny Manziel in November could have been costly, but in the big picture it helped pave the way for Saban to evolve his offensive philosophy, which is paying dividends now.
Last season, in a sloppy 43-37 September loss to Mississippi, Alabama figured out that Jacob Coker was its quarterback and watched him progress to the point where he made huge throws against Clemson in the national title game.
Despite Saban’s protest last week that “it’s never OK to lose a game,” it would seem that nobody is better at doing so and using it to help his team improve. But this season’s Alabama team hasn’t lost or come particularly close to it, either. Aside from a crazy late comeback by Mississippi that made things interesting Sept. 17, Alabama hasn’t had to go down to the wire once and will enter the College Football Playoff with a 13-0 mark after a 54-16 laugher against Florida in the Southeastern Conference championship game.
In some ways, it was the perfect Saban game: Alabama won in dominant fashion but left enough sloppy stuff on film offensively and defensively that Saban can spend the next four weeks ranting and raving and keeping everyone in Tuscaloosa on edge.
But if somehow Alabama falls short of a national title, it will be fair to wonder whether the Tide would have been better served getting challenged more regularly — or perhaps even defeated at some point — in the SEC.
Because when you look at the teams that will have a chance to knock out Alabama, all have faced a moment of truth in their season and become better for it.
Example A: Washington needed a wake-up call. This is a program that hasn’t been in the national spotlight for a while, and there’s a different pressure for players and coaches when they realize a Playoff berth is potentially on the horizon. While losing 26-13 at home to Southern California looked bad so late in the season, the Huskies responded to beat Arizona State, Washington State and Colorado by a combined 130-45.
Example B: Clemson, whose 43-42 loss to Pittsburgh on Nov. 12 was the culmination of a season-long struggle to focus and take care of the football, has been all business in three games since. The Tigers seem to be peaking as they enter the playoff off a 42-35 win against Virginia Tech in the Atlantic Coast Conference championship game.
Example C: Ohio State’s loss to Penn State not only helped Urban Meyer regroup with a young team whose level of play had been up and down in the first half of the season, but it also worked out well from a Playoff perspective to lose the Big Ten East tiebreaker. While everyone else in the mix had to play Saturday and risk injury or a loss, the Buckeyes got to kick back and watch without much concern that they’d be left out of the top four.
In many ways, the story of conference championship weekend is that there was no story. The teams that were supposed to win did their jobs and made it easy on the selection committee.
But the Playoff is a referendum on the greatness of Alabama.
Given the margins of victory week after week and the overwhelming nature of its defense, there already is a conversation about whether this is Saban’s best team ever or perhaps one of the best college football teams of all time.
On the other hand, there are factors that could make skeptics question whether Alabama is really as good as their lopsided scores indicate.
For instance, quarterback Jalen Hurts was 11-for-20 for just 138 yards against Florida and still isn’t anything close to a polished passer. The Gators, meanwhile, had success in the passing games at times — their opening drive for a touchdown was picture perfect — and showed that there’s at least a little vulnerability in the Alabama secondary.
A team that avoids turnovers and doesn’t give Alabama favorable field position because of big plays on special teams could have a chance to win. That’s easier said than done, and the more likely outcome is the kind of domination that leads to teams trying to do too much, making mistakes and paving the way for an Alabama runaway.
But that’s also what separates the Playoff teams from the alsorans in the SEC. There’s at least some excellence that suggests they’re more capable of playing the close-to-perfect game you need to beat Alabama.
FOLLOW REPORTER DAN WOLKEN