100* alabama -4
defense wins championships and this alabama squad is not only the best
defense in the nation but one of the better ones i can remember in a
long time. The crimson tide are ranked 2nd in rushing, passing
efficiency, scoring and total defense. They are the complete package.
Texas does have a great offense but the longhorns have struggled
against adequate or better defenses, namely colorado, oklahoma state,
oklahoma and especially nebraska (only 202 total yards) in the big 12
championship. If alabama can shutdown the offenses of arkansas, ole
miss, and florida in particular, it should able to do the same against
texas. There has been a lot of talk about the inexperienced greg
mcelroy, but you have to remember this guy is 29-0 as the starting
quarterback dating back to high school. During the season when he was
coming under fire he responded by completing more than 63% of his
passes, averaging nine yards per attempt, throwing eight touchdowns
and just one interception in his last five games. During that stretch,
he led a comeback win against lsu, was almost solely responsible for
defeating auburn and was mvp of the sec title game against florida.
Texas allowed several quarterbacks to enjoy fine passing performances
this season, including taylor potts of texas tech, oklahoma freshman
landry jones and texas a&m’s jerrod johnson. If this trio can have
success against the longhorns, so will mcelroy. And this is if texas
can manage to stop mark ingram. When this team can open up their
game with the run and pass they are almost impossible to stop and with
this team on the big stage tonight you will see one of their finer
performances. My final point is that nick saban is one of the best
big-game coaches in college football (11-7 ats against top-10 teams).
Saban has the reputation of being successful if he has a good team,
time to prepare and something to play for (unlike against utah in last
year’s sugar bowl loss). This was the case in 2003 when a
saban-coached lsu team, a 7-point underdog, dominated oklahoma in the
sugar bowl, winning the national title. Texas’ mack brown (only 8-10
ats in bowl games) did win a championship four years ago but, this
year, he faces an sec school with simply a better coach than him. An
sec team has won the last three bcs title games straight up and ats.
Better competition = better teams. Bama will have no trouble against
texas tonight.
