Alabama football fans know the drill. Anytime a team with a pulse plays the Tide, national media fall over themselves predicting a tough game for the Tide.
Chirp, chirp, chirp, the sound is so loud because it comes from voices through media platforms. The national media loves predicting an impending fall by Alabama football. It is happening again with the Ole Miss game.
We understand punditry survival requires amassing attention. Apparently espousing nonsense is lucrative. No doubt it is easier to do than careful evaluation leading to a sound conclusion. We accept entertaining being part of the sports media landscape but sometimes it just goes too far. Not wanting to single out folks trying to make a living, we will not use names.
We will say this week, one guy, with a lot of paired letters in his name, picked Ole Miss to beat Alabama. Make no mistake, he is entitled to be wrong. We suspect he knows better. He and others just can’t lay off an opportunity to predict an Alabama football failure.
The theory behind an Ole Miss win is the Tide inexperienced secondary will crumble against those NWO boys. There is no question, the Ole Miss ‘Nasty Wide Outs‘ are NFL-good. As Nick Saban said earlier this week, the Ole Miss offense is better than last season. It needs to be, considering last year against the Tide it could not muster a touchdown.
We have no argument that Jordan Ta’amu is better than Shea Patterson. We know the JUCO transfer running back is good, but he will be going against a real defensive front for the first time this season.
The big problem for Ole Miss will be the inability to stop Alabama football at either running or passing. What a few confused souls in the national media don’t yet get is the explosive nature of the Crimson Tide 2018 offense. With Tua at the helm, the Tide, for the first time in forever, is built to win shootouts. And we don’t mean squeak by – we mean explode.
Ole Miss will score points, perhaps a lot of points. Saban will hate it, but his offense will score more. How many? However many are needed.
As in any college football game, an improbable result could occur Saturday night. Alabama football could end up on the low end of the scoreboard. If that remotely possible result transpires, it will be because the Crimson Tide beats itself, with turnover after turnover.
Otherwise, predictions of Crimson Tide defeat will quickly dissipate into a muggy northern Mississippi night.
The doom-sayers will recover quickly and by Monday will be arguing Jimbo has the Juju to take down the Tide. We doubt it, but we’ll spend next week looking at all the possibilities against the Aggies.