Remember, you read it here first...

The harsh reality of playing football in the Southeastern Conference is that a conference game against nearly any member school could involve a game against a top-20 team. They take their football seriously down there.

Doubt me? Look at the current BCS rankings: Kansas State, Oregon and Notre Dame fill the first three spots. Alabama is fourth, followed by SEC rivals in the next five slots.

          That’s what Alabama had to deal with last week. Having beaten the fifth-ranked LSU Tigers, Alabama got beat the next week by 15^th-ranked Texas A&M. The loss was the second in as many seasons for the Crimson Tide. Last year, ‘Bama came back from a loss to LSU to win the national title anyway and here is a way the Tide can roll back and win another glass trophy.

          Alabama: The Tide wins out its remaining regular season games and wins the SEC title game. ‘Bama struggles only with in-state rival Auburn. The Tigers have stumbled this year, but they’ll play Alabama tough every year.

          Notre Dame: The Fighting Irish lose to USC. Because the Irish refuse to become a full-time member of a conference, they cannot curry favor later with a conference championship game victory. Scratch this team from title consideration.

          Oregon: The Ducks win the Pac 12 championship game and remain undefeated.

          Kansas State: What? K-State falls to Texas in a strange contest which nobody seems to want to win. Each team commits five turnovers and the Longhorns win 21-17. K-State falls to fourth in the standings.

          Alabama’s victory in the SEC title game boosts the Tide back to second place in the BCS rankings. It goes into the national title tilt as the underdog. Oregon completes the year ranked first.

          Alabama coach Nick Saban has nearly a month to prepare for Oregon’s tremendous offense and defense. The Ducks have the best team speed in college football and enhance that speed with an up-tempo, no huddle offense. But Saban is among the most inventive and perceptive coaches in the college game.

          So it is old school versus new style, a matchup for the ages.

          On its first possession, Alabama breaks out the single wing, the attack which ruled the game in the 1930s and ‘40s. Momentarily confused, television announcer Brent Musberger calls the formation “The double-barreled shotgun.” The Tide marches down the field, eats up the clock and takes a 7-0 lead.

          Its defense playing with the tenacity of Hilliard’s Legion when the Legion stormed the heights of Horseshoe Ridge at Chickamauga, Alabama stops Oregon’s tremendous offense and ‘Bama gets the ball back. Reverting to its normal offense after Oregon’s offensive assistant coaches spent the time between possessions diagramming a defense to stop the single wing, Alabama again moves the ball and takes a 14-0 lead.

          Alabama does not use the single wing again, except once on a fourth down play (which it converts), but commentators later talk as if that’s the only offense Alabama used all night. Next year, 17 college teams will run exclusively out of the single wing. Saban never uses it again.

          The final score of what becomes a game for the ages: Alabama 24, Oregon 21.

          Remember, you read it here first.

 

          And thanks for reading.