the only national championship preview that matters
(to me)


this is the day.

44 days following the beat-down of their outclassed, out-talented, and out-coached bitter rivals, the university of alabama plays for its second national title in three years.

i am ready.

i could bore you with a data/stats/analytics driven breakdown of what happened on november 5th versus what i think will happen tonight, but every name-that-sports-website has paid someone(s) to do that already. what's funny about that is you won't find a much bigger fan of data/stats/analytics than me. but, in this case, in how i feel things are going to shake down and shake out tonight, i don't really think it matters.

why?

it's all psychological. nick saban, in a recent interview, called out espn's tom rinaldi on the shaky notion that it's more difficult to beat a team twice in one season. in college football, there isn't enough quantifiable data to show any sort of realistic trends that would support the idea. think about it for a second. how many college football rematches in years past can you think of right now? one? two? three at the most? how did those turn out? do you think it matters how those rematches played out versus who is going to win the game tonight in even the teensiest, weensiest little bit? i don't.

the idea that it's more difficult to defeat another football team twice in one season is ridiculous, because the idea, in and of itself, is a media driven narrative. now, i will honor the thought that college athletes watch television. i will also honor and respect the thought that college-aged anyones can and are swayed by what they see on television, what people say about them, and what they hear they can and can't do. but, do i believe that even if the college athlete at lsu totally buys into the narrative and is totally anxious at his team's chances of beating alabama means any one thing once the game kicks off? i do not.

in football, there are three factors that i believe play the most realizable determinants in a football game. talent. coaching. execution.

who has the most talent? 

it's all in the eye of the beholder. if you are judging talent based on how many football players playing in tonight's game will play at the next level next year, espn's todd mcshay gives alabama the slight edge at 12-10. i think that's a fair assessment, and considering how the close the prediction is, i am willing to cede talent level in tonight's game as a push.

who has the better coaching?

again, which statistic would you like to rip to prove your case? nick saban has 2 national titles to les miles' one. les miles has beaten nick saban coached teams 3 times to two losses. neither group of coaches could defeat the other in regulation as recently as two months ago. although alabama fans would never admit it out loud, i am willing to say to you, today, that les miles has method to his mad hatted-ness and knows what he is doing, coaching-wise. if he does not, he has surrounded himself with a staff and coordinators that do. i am calling this a push, too.

who will execute more efficiently?

the question that will solve the riddle of this game. each team has a plan, their plan. each team, i suppose, firmly believes that if they execute their plan more effectively than their opponent, they will emerge the victor. those beliefs can be founded and supported by the respective successes of each team over the course of the 2011-12 college football season. they cannot, however, be supported by the outcome on november 5th, which, in my humble opinion, is where things get interesting.

i said as much in this post written on dec. 6.  to my eyes, alabama won the run of play on november 5th. what do i mean by run of play? it's something that i've talked about a lot, but something that i think still gets lost in translation because the majority in this country irrationally hates and does not watch soccer. their reasons being that the game is "boring".  ignorance is as ignorance does. winning you over on soccer can be another post for another day. while run of play is a fairly subjective term, the feeling of which team in any given contest is better is the most personal and objective of feelings. if i am the judge and the jury, which team does my gut tell me is the better team whilst watching any athletic competition? most often, the teams that win the run of play win also on the scoreboard. their style, technique, efficiency and execution supports their bid for goals/points/run in a more honest way than their opponent. the end result, the majority of the time, will fall in line with your gut telling you, "yep. they were the better team."

but not all the time.

november 5th in tuscaloosa was one of those rare exceptions to the rule. alabama ran the ball more effectively. alabama passed the ball more effectively. alabama defended the run more effectively. alabama defended the pass more effectively. for 53-57 minutes of the game, lsu, this team that is on the precipice of being crowned as one of the top five teams in the history of college football, was beaten. soundly. and i think they knew it. the most damning piece of evidence being the frustration of their heisman trophy finalist that led to the clothesline of dre kirkpatrick. teams winning the run of play do not react in frustration. teams that can feel they are not the better team do.

what i believe we will see play out tonight is more of the same. i believe alabama will have the best player on the football field in trent richardson. i believe alabama's defense, given 44 days to prepare for an offense they completely stifled two months ago, will contain lsu more effectively than lsu will contain trent richardson. i believe the want for revenge is a stronger motivator than is the want for recognition. and i believe that alabama's achilles heel in the first match-up, their quarterback, will be less terrible tonight than he was on november 5th. and make no mistake, aj was far less than average.

what i hope to see is alabama win by two touchdowns and turning the story the media is writing of this greatest team ever into a punchline. whether or not will happen remains to be seen.

if alabama wins, i do not care if it plays out the way i have seen it here.

if alabama loses, i will come back in a few days and try and analyze how wrong i was.

either way, i will entertain myself.

roll tide.