Alabama Football: Five Bold Predictions for Tide versus Blue Devils

Second-ranked Alabama football opens up Saturday against Duke in the Chick-Fil-A Classic at Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta. The Crimson Tide opens as a 35 point favorite versus their ACC opponent.

Since Dabo Swinney raised the College Football Playoff Championship trophy in Santa Clara, Alabama football had to look deep within to figure out what went wrong–only hours before. There were not many critics picking the Tide to lose.

The embarrassment Alabama received on that fateful night felt as though imposters raided the locker room and assumed the identity of Crimson Tide players.

Suddenly, the media and fans anticipated the beginning of the end, the dread death rattle slowly dissipating from the Crimson Tide lungs as the dynasty was dead. Instead of sulking, Saban went back to the drawing board.

Saban declared during the offseason that the Crimson Tide had to reestablish to the “Alabama Factor,”

"“To me, we kind of have the ‘Alabama Factor’ around here that has always helped us be successful,” Saban replied. “That’s having a team that plays with a lot of discipline, a team that everybody is sort of responsible and accountable to do their job at a high level and standard, and everybody puts the team first…. And I don’t think we played in that game with the ‘Alabama Factor.’ So everybody needs to understand that and respond to it. ”"

First up, Duke.

David Cutcliffe and the Blue Devils are looking to bring a dogfight to the uber-talented Crimson Tide. Cutcliffe is an excellent coach who always gets his teams to overachieve. A noted quarterback guru who has trained Peyton Manning, Tee Martin, Eli Manning, and Daniel Jones. The Blue Devils will be overly prepared but overwhelmingly overmatched by Alabama.