Alabama dominant, much as expected
ATLANTA – Resume complete.
Not that there really was ever any question about Alabama’s standing as the No. 1 team in college football. Most football analysts already considered ’Bama beating Florida in the SEC Championship Game to be a mere formality. Such is the state of Alabama’s dominance and the rest of the SEC’s collective mediocrity.
As expected, Alabama had little trouble Saturday, winning 54-16 in the 25th edition of the SEC’s showcase event.
About the only thing not fully satisfying to Bama fans was the 38-point margin of victory came one point shy of matching Auburn’s record set in 2010.
It was so predictable as to seem almost scripted. In fact, it followed the script of last year’s game, which Alabama won 29-15. Just as it did last year, Florida scored the game’s first touchdown. For a fleeting moment, when the Gators converted three third downs and drove 64 yards in their opening possession to score, then forced Bama to a three-and-out, it looked like it might at least be a competitive game.
Yeah, well, so much for that.
For the Gators, it went all too much like last year’s game from there. Shaun Dion Hamilton returned an interception 40 yards to the Florida 12 to set up a field goal. Then Minkah Fitzpatrick returned an interception 44 yards for a touchdown. Then Derrick Gore blocked a punt that Josh Jabobs scooped up and ran in for a touchdown. Even with Alabama’s extra point attempt getting blocked and returned by Florida for two points, the Crimson Tide held a 16-9 lead despite having minus-seven yards of total offense.
By halftime, it was all but over. Yeah, at one point in the third quarter it looked like Florida might make a game of it. The Gators had scored late in the first half and then had first-and-goal at the 2. But that merely provided another opportunity for Alabama to display its strength. Runs by Jordan Scarlett, Brandon Powell, and Scarlett again produced a net of zero yards. On fourth-and-goal, defensive end Dalvin Tomlinson harassed Florida quarterback Austin Allenby into throwing off-balance to DeAndre Goolsby, and the ball was deflected by Ryan Anderson.
Four minutes later, it was Alabama with first-and-goal from the 2. Bo Scarbrough punched it in. Just like that, instead of the score being 33-23 it was 40-16.
Alabama’s 25th consecutive win – a streak, you might recall, that began with that dismantling of Georgia last season – affirmed the Crimson Tide’s hold on the top seed in the College Football Playoff rankings. So the Crimson Tide will play one more game in the Georgia Dome in a playoff semifinal.
Whether it’s against Washington, Clemson or the Big 10 champ matters very little. The gap between Bama and everyone else had been decidedly wide all season, beginning with the Tide’s 52-6 thumping of Southern Cal in the season opener.
Not to say that Alabama is invincible. But whether anyone can beat Bama depends less on the opponent than it does on Bama.
“You don’t always get what you want in life, but you usually get what you deserve,” Alabama coach Nick Saban said in the trophy celebration.
Whether this will go down as Alabama’s best team ever remains questionable. The offense still struggles at times. As good as Jalen Hurts is for a true freshman, he still is a work in progress. The running game goes through spurts of unproductivity.
But it may be as dominant a team relative to the competition as the Tide has had in the modern era. With the pick six and blocked punt, Bama now has 14 non-offensive touchdowns. Ohio State is second in college football with seven. That doesn’t even include the scores set up by turnovers and special teams. This isn’t by happenstance. Alabama just has superior players all over the field.
Florida coach Jim McElwain, Alabama’s offensive coordinator for four seasons, called this team “the best team Nick has had since he’s been at Alabama.”
“I don’t see a lot of weaknesses, even in the depth. The thing I see is they’re built a little different. I think overall, just the overall team speed is just different. There are a lot of teams that can run with us. We’ve got fast guys. They bring the accumulated speed at spots where they were always big.”
The Gators are a beaten-up bunch. They exhausted themselves two weeks ago at LSU, then had to play Florida State. But Bama held them to zero rushing yards, thanks to Appleby being sacked for minus 32 yards and Johnny Townsend losing 11 on a fake punt.
For the second time this season, the Tide lost a key defensive player for the rest of the season. First it was safety Eddie Jackson with a broken leg. This time it was linebacker Shaun Dion Hamilton, who suffered a torn ACL. Just as Ronnie Harrison has stepped in for Jackson, Rashaan Evans filled in for Hamilton, and the transition was seamless. They held Florida to 70 yards in the second half without Hamilton.
“We’ve always considered Rashaan a starter,” Saban said. “He’ll be missed but we have a lot of confidence in Rashaan.”
That’s as dominant as a team can be.
This story was originally published December 3, 2016 at 9:11 PM with the headline "Alabama dominant, much as expected."