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If you have been watching the multitudes of bowl games over the holidays, there were two particular games which stood out as being huge letdowns for college football fans.
Both of the so-called “College Football Playoff” games were simply duds.
As I told one of my long-time friends a week ago, my sole rooting interest in the two games was to avoid a rematch of Alabama vs. Georgia in the championship finale coming up one week from today.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m a lifetime SEC football fan and love nothing better than seeing an SEC team being crowned as the national champion. It’s just that I enjoy the title game more watching an SEC team playing (and beating) a team from another part of the country for the national title.
Hailing from Louisiana, I obviously prefer to see LSU win (the Tigers have won three titles in the past 18 years). However, if LSU isn’t in the championship game, the tradition among SEC fans is to put your differences aside for just one night and pull for your conference to continue opening up another can of SEC brand Whoop@$$ on another conference opponent.
For the last 15 seasons, the Southeastern Conference has grabbed the national championship trophy an astounding 11 times. Alabama (6), LSU (2), Florida (2), and Auburn (1) have put a virtual choke hold on the championship belt on behalf of the SEC. The ACC has claimed three of the other titles (Clemson has 2 and Florida State 1) while Ohio State remains the lone winner from north of the Mason Dixon Line during that span.
If you were hoping for either Cincinnati or Michigan to square-off against an SEC opponent in the national championship game, you were sorely disappointed by both of Friday’s national semifinal games.
In the opening game, Cincinnati (which came into the contest 13-0) learned the answer to the old Wendy’s commercial, “Where’s the Beef?” in the opening series against 12-1 Alabama. The Crimson Tide (whose offensive line outweighed Cincinnati’s defensive front by over 50 pounds per player) ran the ball for ten consecutive plays to start the game. Alabama then attempted its first pass of the game and found a wide-open slot receiver for the game’s first score.
Wait a minute! Wasn’t this the same Alabama offense which ran the ball for just six yards on 26 attempts against a 6-6 LSU team a little over a month ago? Yes, and it was the same relatively weak Alabama rushing attack which only netted 40 yards in 22 attempts against 6-6 Auburn in the Tide’s regular season finale.
For the national semifinal game last Friday against Cincinnati, Alabama rushed for 301 yards as senior running back Brian Robinson, Jr. toted the pigskin for a career high 201 yards on 25 carries. Alabama’s Heisman Trophy quarterback Bryce Young literally had the night off as he only passed for 181 yards in the game.
Alabama clobbered Cincinnati 27-6 and put most of America in a sleeper hold for the second half of the game. The odds makers had established Bama as a 14-point favorite coming into the game. They were right. This football game was downright boring for most fans to watch (even a few honest Crimson Tide fans will agree with me).
The second national semifinal was expected to be a hard-fought match-up between 12-1 Big Ten champion Michigan and 12-1 SEC runner-up Georgia. Georgia had been “exposed” by Alabama in the SEC Championship game three weeks earlier, and Michigan was excited to be appearing in its first national semifinal in school history. Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh and this team of Wolverines would likely try to follow Bama’s blueprint to take down the Dawgs.
Except that it just didn’t happen.
Georgia chased Michigan out of Miami with an overwhelming 34-11 win on Friday night. The Bulldogs raced to a 27-3 halftime lead and, like in the first national semifinal game, put the television audience to sleep for most of the second half. Only a late fourth quarter touchdown with four minutes left in the game by Michigan made the final score look a little more competitive than this game actually was.
Georgia’s much-maligned former walk-on starting quarterback Stetson Bennett did another of his Drew Brees imitations in the game against Michigan. He completed 20 out of 30 passes for 313 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions. The vaunted Michigan pass rush wasn’t able to sack Bennett one time in this blowout win. Even moreso than Cincinnati in the first semifinal game, Michigan never, at any point, looked like it was going to win this game.
So, this year’s two titans of the SEC will square off for the national championship game in Indianapolis one week from today. No matter who wins, the SEC is your national champion in 2021. That makes it 12 SEC champs in the last 16 years.
The SEC’s college football dominance has become predicable and, sadly, a bit boring, too.
The current four-team College Football Playoffs are proving that an expansion to 6, 8, 12, or 16 teams just isn’t going to matter in most years. The only thing it might do is to allow three or, God forbid, even four SEC teams to play in the national semifinals!
Though that might make many SEC fans chuckle, you can bet that ESPN (who pays a fortune to televise these games) will have a big say in the final verdict on a possible playoff expansion. ESPN needs to sell a ton of very expensive commercials to a national audience just to break-even from their investment in these games. ESPN’s worst nightmare would be to have three or more SEC teams in the national semifinals in the first year of an expanded college football playoff system. Oh, the horror!
I think this year’s All-SEC finale may quell the push for an expansion of the number of teams involved in the College Football Playoffs.
As for next Monday’s rematch game between Alabama and Georgia, there is no doubt that 75% of America will be rooting for Georgia to finally win their second national championship (and first since 1980) and end Alabama’s recent reign atop college football. Georgia head football coach (and former Alabama defensive coordinator) Kirby Smart desperately wants to become just the second former assistant coach under Alabama’s Nick Saban to beat his mentor. Saban holds an incredible 25-1 record when going up against his former pupils. Only Jimbo Fisher (now at Texas A&M) was able to break the streak earlier in the 2021 season by handing Alabama their only loss of the season.
You don’t have to remind Coach Nick Saban about that loss, either. He never forgets.
Alabama trounced then-undefeated Georgia 41-24 just a month ago in the SEC Championship game on the artificial turf in Atlanta. The rematch scheduled for next week will also be played on artificial turf at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.
Though both teams feature large offensive and defensive linemen, the Alabama team speed was very apparent in the first match-up of these two dominant college football teams. Georgia simply cannot match Alabama’s speed on the artificial turf and hope for a different outcome.
Instead, I think the Dawgs must target Alabama’s best defensive player (All-American defensive end Will Anderson) and attempt to run the ball right at him all night long. If Georgia should add a blocking fullback to their current offensive scheme, Anderson’s effectiveness on defense may be lessened. By establishing an effective ball-control running game against Alabama, Georgia’s passing game should also open-up for Stetson Bennett. Georgia must control the time of possession in this rematch in order to win the game.
Though Alabama easily won the first match-up with Georgia by 17 points, the Vegas odds makers have somehow installed Georgia as a 3-point favorite in this All-SEC national championship game rematch.
I disagree. Bama coach Nick Saban still has plenty of tricks left in his bag awaiting Georgia next week. We’ve seen it so many times over the years. Nick Saban is the most prepared football coach in the country. Georgia must quickly re-invent themselves for this rematch.
Though I will be pulling for a competitive championship game which is decided in the fourth quarter next week, Alabama’s Road Runner (beep beep!) is still the champion until Wile E. Coyote (Georgia) finally beats them.
As wrestling great Ric Flair says, “To be the man, you’ve got to beat the man. Wooooo!”