In my pre-season VT/Bama write-up, I said that Bama would be a much better team this season than last even though the pre-season magazines and most people were predicting otherwise. I also predicted that Bama would win the SEC West, beat Florida in the SECCG, and go on to beat the Big 12 champion in the national title game. Many laughed, but here we are.
First I would like to say that even though I’ve done quite a bit of statistical analysis on both teams, statistics won’t be the basis for this write-up. I will include some of what I’ve done in other posts in this thread for those who are interested. But statistics in bowl games are largely irrelevant IMO because bowl games are always out-of-conference games and each conference is really a league unto itself. In this case Texas plays in the Big 12 and Bama in the SEC, and those to conferences are very different in the way they approach and play football. Instead, I will focus more on how I think these teams matchup, and what effect I believe these matchups will have on the outcome of this game. See also my thread on ”Why You Shouldn’t Bet Against the SEC in Bowl Games.”
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Before I do so however, I just want to make the point that the best and most consistent formula for winning football games (at all levels) is not some fancy-schmanzy offensive du jour. It is lining up and physically dominating the opposition in the trenches. When you can do that week in and week out, it is by far the most consistent formula for winning, and consistency is a very good thing for those of us who wager. I could cite literally endless examples of this in both the college and pro game, but because we’re talking about Alabama anyhow, we really need not look any father than the Florida/Bama game wherein the Crimson Tide ran the ball 17 consecutive times in the 4th quarter without throwing a pass to close out the game against the #1 team in the country.
Bama is the epitome of smash-mouth football which explains why they have methodically won 25 games over the last two seasons. Bama has dominated every team they’ve played in the trenches thus far this season, and there really is no reason to believe they won’t do the same thing against a Texas team not accustomed to playing that brand of football. Bama is all about imposing their will on both sides of the ball.
Texas (much like Florida) employs a defense that is small but very fast, and is loaded with blue-chip athletes. This type of defense is very effective when playing against the spread offenses of the Big 12, but is ill-suited to stop a team that is as powerful at the point of attack as Alabama. Texas’s defensive coordinator Will Muschamp (a Nick Saban protégé) knows he has to match Bama’s physicalness in the trenches, but knowing and doing are two very different things. And the problem for Texas is that they are not accustomed to playing such teams, and they can’t replicate Bama’s power in practice. And if you can’t practice against it, I think your chances defending it successfully in a game situation are remote. Like I always say, you can’t fake being physical. You either have it or you don’t.
After playing Bama, Florida’s defense lamented about how difficult Ingram and Richardson (who is better than Ingram) are to tackle. In order for Texas to successfully defend Bama’s running attack, their D-line and LBers will have to play lights out, because if Texas has to rely on their secondary to consistently make stops in the run game, they will be in for a very long day. That is so because Texas is very light on the back end (175 lbs corners and 195 lbs safeties). There are no 220lb run stoppers in the secondary. Their secondary is essentially comprised of 4 conerbacks designed to defend the spread offenses they regularly face in the Big 12, not to stuff power RBs like Ingram & Richardson (have I mentioned that Richardson is better than Ingram).
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