Alabama Football: Crimson Tide only gladiator left standing in SEC West
Alabama football should not sweat the Iron Bowl match against Auburn. The Crimson Tide stands alone in the SEC West, after dispatching Arkansas. The Tigers, on the other hand, have been exposed.
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Is there no one else? … Is there NO ONE ELSE?
Russell Crowe’s famous lines in the movie Gladiator come to mind, as Alabama took care of the Arkansas Razorbacks last night in the Homecoming game. Over 101 800 people witnessed the 41-9 mauling, making Bryant-Denny Stadium look more like the Roman Coliseum. The Hogs served up their 270-pound, freshman quarterback Cole Kelley to the lions of the Crimson Tide defense, who chewed on him for five sacks.
The same could not be said for Auburn’s fortune in Death Valley.
Coming into yesterday’s matchup, Auburn sat only one game away from Alabama in the Southeastern Conference’s West division. Both were undefeated in the conference, but the Tigers had the only loss either team has suffered this season, against the recently defeated Clemson Tigers.
Auburn’s head coach Gus Malzahn may be starting to see tigers in his nightmares, because the LSU Tigers exposed how one-dimensional his team is. Both Alabama and Auburn finished their respective first quarters with 17-0 leads; however, Auburn could not sustain it.
Malzahn’s Tigers could not score more than two field goals the rest of the way, while LSU made huge plays to score 27 points to beat Auburn by four. The reason: Auburn can only run the ball. Their starting quarterback Jarrett Stidham is not a mobile QB. He loves to stay in the pocket when he can, which proved fatal. He completed only nine of his 26 pass attempts. LSU learned from the first quarter and made Auburn have to beat them with the pass, as they keyed in on rusher Kerryon Johnson.
Once LSU took the run away from Auburn, Stidham could not find an open receiver fast enough to make any completions or sustain drives with his legs. It’s hard to beat a team with a skill that Stidham doesn’t use. LSU just sat back and waited for him to pass. They didn’t need to intercept the ball; they just did not allow Auburn to earn the 10 yards they needed for first downs.
Alabama doesn’t have that problem.
The Crimson Tide were not only given the blueprint on how to beat Auburn, they also are proven gladiators in multiple disciplines. Quarterback Jalen Hurts beat Arkansas with his legs as well as his arm, combining for 196 yards and two touchdowns on 10 carries and 12 of 19 completed passes. Running back Damien Harris ripped through the Arkansas defensive line to score on a 75-yard run for the first play of the game; however, it did not matter who was running for Alabama, the results were the same:
It's a hot knife going through Swiss cheese when the Tide run through the Arkansas D line
— Brandon Nickel (@BrandonNickel36) October 14, 2017
Overall, Auburn is a distant second to Alabama’s undefeated reign in the SEC West, with a divisional loss and two losses total for the 2017 season. LSU is in the same position. After a narrow escape from Texas A&M (3-1, 5-2), last Saturday, Alabama is looking at LSU, Mississippi State, and now Auburn as merely hurdles to jump over to remain undefeated and keep their number-1 ranking in the playoffs.
Next: Five Things Learned From The Arkansas Beating
That is, until Georgia (4-0, 7-0) decides to enter the SEC championship as the East division’s top gladiator. Alabama wants a challenge? It will come from head coach Kirby Smart‘s team rather than Malzahn’s Tigers. They’ve been officially declawed.