Alabama Football: Toughest opposing quarterbacks are early Tide foes

Three months ago I predicted Alabama Football will not be undefeated in 2021. The prediction had little to do with how good the Tide will be in 2021. It was based on Alabama Crimson Tide history showing repeat, undefeated seasons are quite rare.

Over the last couple of weeks, my preparation for the soon-to-start season has included taking a close look at the Alabama Football regular-season opponents. A couple of the team previews are yet to be written and the posts published so far cover only half the opponents. But the closer I look at the other teams, the less sure I am about the Crimson Tide not running the table again.

The tweet below was a reminder about what it takes to beat the Crimson Tide. It only refers to games in Bryant-Denny but a broader point can be made.

The three Heisman winning quarterbacks mentioned were Cam Newton in 2010, Johnny Manziel in 2012 and Joe Burrow in 2019.

Taking a broader look, Alabama Football has lost 17 games going back to the 2008 season. Five of the 17 were to National Championship teams. Four of the losses were to Heisman Trophy-winning QBs.

Among the rest of the losses, a few came either because the Crimson Tide beat itself with turnovers or resulted from fluke plays by opponents. Two or three more losses occurred while good, but not great opposing QBs had exceptional games.

So what is my point? It is – an opponent can beat the Crimson Tide without a superlative quarterback performance, but doing so is rare. So rare, it is fair to say, the odds of beating the Crimson Tide without a stellar QB performance are almost too low for concern.

For Alabama Football, 2021 will likely be very different than 2020. The rebuild of the offensive unit, plus a new OC probably leads to a less open, less risk-taking offensive approach early in the season. That is almost certain to be true if the Alabama Football defense is the ‘much better’ one many Tide fans expect.

The schedule is also a factor. Miami and Florida will be good teams, but neither offense should be expected to unload on the Crimson Tide defense as Florida did in the 2020 SEC Championship game. If the Tide defense is much improved, a shootout will not be needed against Ole Miss. The Ole Miss defense could be better than last year and still be incapable of slowing even a more conservative Crimson Tide.

If the scenario described above is plausible enough to happen – why would Nick Saban and Bill O’Brien not hold a chunk of offense in reserve until the Texas A&M game? All the Tide’s weapons might not be needed to win in College Station. But the Aggies could have the best defense the Tide will face in the regular season.

A counterpoint to this premise is the argument fortune favors the bold. Playing too conservatively on offense might backfire in a game. But will it? There is risk a D’Eriq King or a Matt Corral, maybe even an Emory Jones could have a Johnny Manziel, Trevor Lawrence, Deshaun Watson game against the Crimson Tide. There are two reasons why neither will. Their teams do not have a level of talent comparable to Alabama. And, the Crimson Tide defense will be the fastest, toughest, most determined young men any of those QBs have ever seen.

It is like Bama Hammer’s Dakota Cox wrote there are no elite QB opponents for the Tide in 2021.