All About Alabama...Week 6 of CFB

Last week when Alabama beat Georgia, it wasn’t so much about showing us how great the Crimson Tide are as it was exposing Georgia for the team that they really are. Their quarterback may have the best arm in the country according to some, but he isn’t the best at his position. So can we put the “Matthew Stafford is the greatest” rumor to rest now? Stafford had 274 yards in the game, but in the first half (you know, the one that set the tone of the game and made Alabama’s victory a foregone conclusion) he had just around 60 yards and ended four of their five drives with two incompletions, an intentional grounding penalty and an interception. The majority of his yards came in the second half with Bama leading 31-0. John Parker Wilson, on the other hand, had just 205 yards, but he averaged 12.8 yards, completed over 80% of his passes and didn’t have any turnovers. Something about this Alabama team reminds me eerily of Ohio State last year (albeit JPW is considerably more experienced than Todd Boeckman was)—a quarterback who is relied upon to manage the game and not make mistakes, but not expected to win the game as that’s left to the running game and the defense.

And with that said, my warning to Alabama is to watch its back. The #2 ranked spot was a bad omen for seven teams last year (and it all began this exact week last year). And while I don’t believe that we are going to see a repeat of 2007, this last week of September was surprisingly similar to last year’s final week of September when three of the top five teams were defeated.

This week Alabama plays Kentucky at home. Kentucky is 4-0 (although against four weak opponents), they’ve allowed just one sack all year and are averaging over 200 yards rushing per game in their last three games. The quarterback situation is working its way out with Mike Hartline, who has only officially been the starting quarterback since Curtis Pulley was kicked off the team in early August. And while they may not be the fourth least penalized team in the country like Alabama, they’re 22nd, which is a far cry from Georgia who had 10 penalties for 81 yards on Saturday.

And, yes, I realize Bama has the 3rd best rushing defense in the country and held Georgia to a team total of 50 yards on the ground last week. But, the Bulldogs only ran the ball a total of 16 times since they were playing from behind the entire game. So while Hartline will be relied upon immensely to move the ball through the air, I’m not convinced that Kentucky won’t be able to run the ball at all. As we saw last week, Oregon State entered the game against USC with the 83rd ranked rushing offense facing the nation’s 6th best rushing defense and Jacquizz Rodgers proceeded to rush for 186 yards and two touchdowns.

It would be hard to imagine that Nick Saban doesn’t have his team mentally prepared for this game and especially with Kentucky’s #1 ranked scoring defense in the country he has something to help motivate them. But I don’t think the Tide is as good as they showed us in the first half last week. Georgia really fell apart. Sometimes teams that aren’t used to losing just aren’t good when it comes to facing adversity. This was a Georgia team that had won 11 games straight (it had been the second longest active streak among FBS schools next to BYU). Alabama is favored by 16.5 points--I think that’s a lot and I would take a chance on Kentucky to cover here.