Take The Ten, Bet On Green

You didn't really think I was going to pick the Crimson Tide in tonight's BCS National Championship Game, did you? The wise guys in Vegas have the Irish as nine and a-half point underdogs, and usually those oddsmakers are very accurate. Should the Irish even bother to show up tonight?

Is the Pope Catholic?

I have read a lot of the pre-game analysis and listened to the talking heads. In general there are a half-dozen main reasons why Bama is such a heavy favorite. I have listed them below, along with the degree to which I buy into the prevailing theory plus the Irish answer to the problem.

Reason # 1. Give Alabama head coach Nick Saban several weeks to prepare for a game and he will out-coach the opponent. I rate this pearl of wisdom at about 75%. Saban has already won the national title three times (once at LSU and twice at Alabama). There is a reason he is the highest paid coach in college football. However, ND head coach Brian Kelly is a formidable offensive strategist himself, and ND boasts a defensive coordinator, Bobby Diaco, who won the Broyles Award as the best assistant coach in the college ranks. ND's biggest wins this year were built upon the team's defensive performances. As the saying goes, offense puts fans in the seats, but defense wins championships.  Saban is not the only coach who's been scheming over the past several weeks.

Reason # 2. Alabama's offensive line is possibly the best unit in the history of college football. My "truth rating" here is 90%. It is pretty hard to argue against the merits of a line that features two first team All Americans (LG # 65 Chance Warmack and C # 75 Barrett Jones) and a second team All American RT, # 76 DJ Fluker. All five of the Tide's offensive linemen are road graders. The Irish antidote is simply this: Notre Dame has the best front seven in the country, and therefore will be the stoutest opposition the Bama behemoths will have faced this season. The three ND players who are most important here are first team All American ILB # 5 Manti Teo, second team All American DE # 7 Stephon Tuitt, and NG # 9 Louis Nix. One of the key mano-a-mano battles will be Nix against Jones. If Jones needs help from his guards to keep Nix at bay, the Irish linebackers will be spending a lot of time in the Bama backfield.  I put the over/under on Teo tackles at 11.  He will be a whirling dervish all over the field tonight.

Reason # 3. ND's secondary will not be able to keep up with Alabama's super freshman WR # 9 Amari Cooper. This statement rates a veracity score of 60%. I agree with the football gurus that Cooper will be the best wide receiver on the field tonight, but is he better than Southern Cal's two speed burners, Robert Wood and Marqise Lee? ND's defensive backs were able to hang with those two Trojans.  One of ND's cornerbacks, # 26 KeiVarae Russell, is a true freshman who last year was a high school quarterback.  I expect Alabama to attempt to pick on Russell.  Hopefully Russell can keep up with Cooper.  If not, one of the Irish safeties will have to help out with a double-team.  That will open up the running game for Bama. If the Irish can force Alabama quarterback # 10 AJ McCarron to get rid of the ball within three seconds, that will negate Cooper's speed to a certain extent. Look for lots of blitzes ordered up by Coach Diaco out of ND's 3-4 alignment.

Reason # 4. Alabama's first team All American cornerback # 28 Dee Milner is a shut down corner and will take away half the field from ND's passing routes. My buy-in: 40%. Although Milner is a great DB, he can only cover one guy at a time, and I do not believe he will be able to prevent ND's second team All American TE # 80 Tyler Eifert from catching the ball. Although Eifert is a tight end, ND frequently uses him more like a wide receiver, splitting him out to the far hash mark and sending him on deep routes. Eifert, at six feet six, has a five inch height advantage over Milner. ND also likes to use RB # 6 Theo Riddick as a pass catcher out of the backfield. When ND has the ball in the red zone, look for ND quarterback # 5 Everett Golson to try at least one alley-oop to Eifert, even if Milner is manned up against him.

Reason # 5. Alabama's quarterback # 10 AJ McCarron is a wiley veteran who won't make the mistakes that have plagued ND QB Golson. My merit rating for that observation is about 75%. McCarron is a pro-style passer who is not asked to carry the team on his back. He is good at making pre-snap reads of the defense, and usually benefits from several seconds of protection which his stellar offensive line affords him. Golson, by comparison, has been more mistake-prone, although he has improved immensely during the last third of the season. Unlike McCarron, who is not a threat to run by design, Golson is a very mobile quarterback who must be accounted for by the Alabama defense. Golson is the kind of quarterback that Bama has had its problems with recently, e.g., Johnny Manziel from Texas A & M (the only team to defeat the Tide this season) and Jordan Jefferson from LSU last season. If ND falls behind early, I think Kelly will be willing to take more risks with vertical pass patterns, and hope that Golson has brought his A game to Miami.

Reason # 6. Alabama is from the SEC, and has therefore faced better opposition than ND. I have a hard time giving this theory a credibility rating of more than, say, 20%. Anybody who thinks the SEC is not the best of the BCS conferences is not thinking clearly. The national champion has come from the SEC for the last six years in a row. But consider the fact that this season was not one of the usual great ones for that conference. The biggest upset of the bowl season was Louisville, a two-touchdown underdog, clobbering Florida in the Sugar Bowl. Most football writers considered Florida to be at least the third best team in the SEC. Georgia, which almost beat Alabama in the SEC Championship Game, looked a little shaky for awhile against a ho-hum Nebraska in the Capital One Bowl. Three of Alabama's wins this year were against non-conference foes Western Kentucky, Florida Atlantic and Western Carolina, all patsies compared to the teams ND faced in 2012. (Well, okay, Wake Forest was pretty weak.) ND had to beat Oklahoma and Southern Cal on the road, and took care of business in overtime against a very formidable Stanford team under a South Bend monsoon. The Irish will not be in awe of playing a team from the SEC, nor will the bright prime time lights give them the jitters. More than half of ND's games were in prime time, and all were nationally televised.

My sister Michele and I were at the famous ND-Alabama Sugar Bowl Game in New Orleans on New Year's Eve 1973. No one except the Irish faithful gave them much of a chance to pull an upset against the top-ranked Tide. The hero of the game was a second string tight end, Robin Weber, who caught a desperation pass by Irish QB Tom Clements out of his own end zone, enabling ND to run out the clock for the one point victory. It was only the second pass Weber had caught all year. This year, Notre Dame's second string tight end is a six-seven sophomore from Fullerton, California named Troy Niklas (# 85). His main role is that of a blocker in Notre Dame's goal line/short yardage offensive package. He has played in every game, but has caught only five passes. Wouldn't it be something if history repeats itself tonight?

When you are a Domer you can dream with the best of them. My dream is ND 24, Alabama 23, just like the '73 Sugar Bowl.