Yearly Archives: 2021

Down its most clutch receiver and faced with playing one of the best pass defenses on its 2021 schedule, Alabama used Friday's win over the Cincinnati Bearcats to both reach the College Football Playoff final, as well as deliver a message on behalf of all Power 5 superpowers: The Bearcats were simply not ready for this kind of physical challenge. Alabama rolled up nearly 500 yards of offense against Cincinnati, but that feat had been accomplished several times against other opponents this year. The way Alabama did it, though, was demoralizing. Alabama rushed for 301 yards on a staggering 47 carries against the Bearcats, delivering a ground-pounding attack rarely seen in Tuscaloosa for much of the last decade – if not longer. Cincinnati's Luke Fickell deployed a 3-3-5 stack alignment against Alabama, a defense designed to limit what Heisman Trophy QB Bryce Young could do against an already stout secondary. That alignment, though, depended on Cincinnati's front six to contain Alabama RB Brian Robinson Jr. without additional help from the back. They didn't.

Alabama's crazy season has been given an extra shot of crazy as the Crimson Tide enters the playoffs – for the first time ever, a non-Power 5 conference team is in the final four. And that team, the Cincinnati Bearcats, will be Alabama's opponent. There hasn't been a playoff matchup like this before, and depending on how the Bearcats carry, or fail to carry, the banner for so-called “Group of Five” conferences – American Athletic (which Cincinnati represents), Conference USA, Mid-American, Mountain West and Sun Belt – this might be the last, at least unless or until the NCAA expands the playoff field beyond just four teams. Cincinnati comes into this game with some statistical weirdness on its balance sheet: the Bearcats rank 9th in scoring offense, for instance, but have the following rankings in total offense, rushing offense and passing offense – 44th, 47th and 52nd. For outsiders looking in at the Bearcats, most know about running back Jerome Ford because … well, he transferred to Cincinnati from Alabama. Many fans also know the Bearcats have two elite cornerbacks, but they can't name them (for the record: their names are Ahmad Gardner and Coby Bryant). Left to evaluate Cincinnati's body of work, the schedule produced a run of mostly comfortable wins, although the Bearcats were one-score victors over both Navy and Tulsa, neither of which would scare a team like Alabama. Cincinnati's “signature win” was by a 24-13 score over Notre Dame early in the season, the first in a series of four uninspired performances for the Fighting Irish.

Disclaimer: This is not an official University of Alabama document. The depth chart is taken from individual practice and game observations, and is color-coded. Seniors are in black, juniors previously on the team are in green, junior college transfers in their junior year are in purple, junior college transfers in their sophomore year are in yellow, sophomores previously on the team are in blue, redshirt freshmen are in cyan, and true freshmen are in red. NOTE: Because Alabama operates from multiple alignments on both offense and defense, 12 positions are listed on both sides of the ball to account for those specific alignments.

For all the media buzz about Texas A&M signing a “generational” class on National Early Signing Day, the end result was that Alabama fell from its typical spot atop NCAA recruiting class rankings all the way to … second place. And even that result is contingent on Alabama possibly adding WR Kendrick Law or DE Omari Abor at a later date. If Alabama gets to count CB Eli Ricks, who it got out of the transfer portal from LSU, then go ahead and flip the rankings. At the end of the day, Texas A&M did hold a lead in the TideFans.com / NARCAS 2021-2022 recruiting rankings – classes won't be officially ranked until after the traditional February signing period – with Alabama just behind. Georgia was a clear No. 3, and then as many as 15 other teams were in the mix to fill out the remainder of the top 10.

On the same field that Landon Dickerson was lost for the eventual conclusion of the 2020 Alabama football season, replaced by Chris Owens at center, Chris Owens came into this game against Georgia as somewhat of a marked man. Owens had come back for a sixth season in Tuscaloosa, was originally slated to play center (with Kendall Randolph at right tackle), and then an injury to Randolph late in camp mixed things up a bit. Randolph was moved back to his role as a short-yardage tight end, in large part to reduce his snap count while he healed. Owens took over at right tackle, and Darrian Dalcourt slid into the now-open spot at center. By the end of the year, both Owens and Dalcourt were in danger of losing their jobs, Dalcourt to injury and Owens to performance. It remains to be seen whether Seth McLaughlin, who has played phenomenally for six quarters now in relief of Dalcourt, will be Alabama's center when the College Football Playoffs start. Owens, on the other hand, would have stayed benched behind youngster Damieon George Jr. had George not struggled so badly against Auburn's elite defensive ends in the first half of last week's game. Owens came off the bench last week to, at the very least, stabilize the situation. The Alabama coaches elected to go for veteran continuity over the more physically impressive George in the SEC Championship Game against Georgia. And were they ever rewarded.

In almost every pregame preview in TideFans.com's history, we've provided an analysis of the opponent and saved the result for the summary section, and it's rare that we come up with a result that disappoints the Alabama fan base. You can thank Nick Saban for that one, because the Alabama program is on a pedestal and has been for most of the previous 14 seasons. It's good to be the king. This week, though, is different. Rather than force you to skip to the end to see what's coming, we'll get it out of the way up front: Alabama is going to enter this game as an underdog, and primarily (but not completely) due to the Crimson Tide's horrid injury luck in 2021, it's going to take a monumental effort to beat Georgia and advance to the College Football Playoff, although Alabama might accomplish the latter feat regardless.

Disclaimer: This is not an official University of Alabama document. The depth chart is taken from individual practice and game observations, and is color-coded. Seniors are in black, juniors previously on the team are in green, junior college transfers in their junior year are in purple, junior college transfers in their sophomore year are in yellow, sophomores previously on the team are in blue, redshirt freshmen are in cyan, and true freshmen are in red. NOTE: Because Alabama operates from multiple alignments on both offense and defense, 12 positions are listed on both sides of the ball to account for those specific alignments.

As a nod to the late Cecil Hurt, in regard to the story I had mostly ready to go when Alabama got the ball at its own 2-yard line with less than 2 minutes in regulation: “Give me rewrite!”. Cecil had once written about Alabama’s game-winning drive in the 2009 Alabama-Auburn game, calling it one of, if not the most important drives in the history of the program. At the time, Alabama was knocking on the door of a championship, but none of Nick Saban’s championships had yet been secured. Alabama had gone into Jordan-Hare Stadium as a heavy favorite in Gus Malzahn’s first year as Auburn head coach. Instead, it took a breathtaking last-minute drive and a Greg McElroy touchdown pass to Roy Upchurch in order to seal the deal and send Alabama on to an eventual title-winning matchup against Texas. It makes you wonder what Cecil would say about this one.

While Gus Malzahn was still Auburn's head coach, one of the truisms of the Auburn-Alabama game was that in years in which Auburn won 9 games or more, Alabama would struggle to beat the Tigers. Anything short of that, and you could pretty much mark up an Alabama victory. The Tigers come into this game at 6-5, but they are also hosting the game, and Jordan-Hare Stadium has been anything but hospitable to Alabama over the years. It is one of Nick Saban's rare pressure points, a nagging negative in an otherwise illustrious time at the helm of the Bama program. A few things are different, of course, in 2021. Auburn no longer employs Malzahn, for one thing. Leading the Tigers is now Bryan Harsin, who came to Auburn from Boise State, where he was thought of as a solid coach, but whose dour demeanor and early struggles on the recruiting trail have made a lot of Tiger fans very, very nervous. Auburn's struggles in the second half of several games have also raised the temperature, as Tiger fans try to ascertain exactly how good Harsin is (or isn't) at in-game adjustments.

Disclaimer: This is not an official University of Alabama document. The depth chart is taken from individual practice and game observations, and is color-coded....