Alabama Football: Does the Tide have a trap game in 2017?
By Ronald Evans
Does Alabama football have a trap game in 2017? ‘The Sporting News’ thinks so; Mississippi State in Starkville. We disagree and explain why.
The Sporting News chose Alabama football at Mississippi State as the top trap game in 2017 college football. A total of 16 trap games were identified, in the story ‘It’s a trap.’
Some of their choices are plausible, given every season some top teams fall to lesser teams. The conventional wisdom of trap games suggests teams picked as favorites will struggle against a lesser opponent. Contrary to that presumption is the reality that a season has ebbs and flows and no team will play its best in every game.
The favorite plays below itself, the opponent delivers one of its best games and you get an upset. Defining trap games is just an opportunity to make a risk-free prediction that a certain game might be an upset.
Other SEC teams facing “trap games” according to Sporting News are:
- Florida at South Carolina on November 11
- LSU at Ole Miss on October 21
- Auburn at Arkansas on October 21
- Kentucky at Georgia on November 18 – the only game when the trapee is playing at home
Yes, we made up the word ‘trapee’ – it seemed fitting given this discussion. The only other observation worth sharing about the above list – we hope ESPN does not see it. If they do, we will all be inundated with spin about October 21 being ‘College Football Trap Day’ or some such nonsense.
Enough of our making fun of the Sporting News story, though we could argue they brought it on themselves. We will offer the Sporting News team a little tip – don’t ask Nick Saban for a comment.
Does Alabama football have a trap game in 2017?
Our answer is yes and no. First the no. In the Alabama football Nick Saban era going back to 2009, every opponent is “up” for the Tide. Virtually all opponents consider an Alabama game the most reputation enhancing opportunity of any season.
Alabama fans, players and coaches know this and should never be surprised when an opponent delivers its best against the Tide.
We define a trap game as the greatest possibility of a loss to a less than equal foe. Such a loss would be an upset but not a shocking one. And there is the obvious criteria, a trap game must include an underdog who can win.
That rules out Mississippi State. We are not ready to publish our 2017 game previews yet, but when we do a Tide loss to the Bulldogs will not be included. Dan Mullin has never coached a Bulldog win against Alabama. In March we profiled him as a WOAT Worst Coaches of All-Time against Alabama.
A trap game for the Tide in 2017? If we must pick one, it is Tennessee. Again no game preview yet, but Alabama football will play the Vols on its eighth straight Saturday of games.
We have all seen this before – 2009, same teams, same stadium, same brutal run of consecutive games. Terrance Cody had to block two makable field goals or the Tide loses. Now that was a trap game.
In case you missed it, we wrote about Mount Cody in our 30 Tide Greats who were 3-Star recruits.
If we offended anyone at the Sporting News, we hope they will accept our apology. We like their publication. RTR Forever!