Be honest – this seemed inevitable, didn’t it?
Alabama vs. Georgia, for the national championship? Since the Southeastern Conference Championship game ended, didn’t Round 2 feel like a foregone conclusion?
Maybe it has felt that way since the start of the season.
Alabama 27, Cincinnati 6 in the first semifinal of the College Football Playoff (CFP) Friday proved a number of things.
One is that, yes, Cincinnati belonged – at least as much as any other team belonged. The soon-to-be a Power 5 conference member (the Bearcats move to the Big 12 by 2023) demonstrated they could hang with the No. 1 team in the country as well as anybody else could have in Dallas. While it didn’t feel like it from watching the game, the Bearcats were within two scores of Alabama, trailing "only" 17-6, through three quarters.
The non-Power 5 conferences had been waiting for one of their own to finally get into the national championship mix and proved that their best wouldn’t fare any worse than anyone else that has lost a semi-final game in the eight years of a four-team playoff. No. 4 seeds are now a combined 2-6 in the playoffs, with the two wins coming from then-No. 4 seed Alabama winning the national championship in 2018 and a No. 4 seed Ohio State winning it all in 2015. Average margin of victory when 1 beats 4? 23.6 points.
But all you needed to know about Alabama-Cincinnati was this: Alabama had enough points to win the game after its first drive, an 11-play (10 rushing), 75-yard drive for an opening touchdown.
The second thing is that the rest of the nation finally thinks the way the most obnoxious Alabama fans have for decades: that the Crimson Tide should always be playing for the title. Of course, delusional Alabama fans believed that even in the days of Mike Shula, Mike Dubose, and Bill (at least his name wasn’t Mike) Curry. The rest of the nation has started seeing the Tide as an inevitable part of the championship picture since Nick Saban won his first at Alabama in 2009, going on to win six titles while playing in eight championship games.
This was the sixth time that Alabama came into the playoffs as the No. 1 team and is now 5-1 in those games. The only loss came to eventual national champ Ohio State in the first four-team playoff in 2014. The next four Alabama wins all came by double digits: Michigan State (38-0), Washington (24-7), Oklahoma (45-34) and Notre Dame (31-14). Cincinnati fared no worse than that line-up of major conference blue bloods.
Overall, Alabama has an 8-3 CFP record, a 64-7 record against non-SEC opponents, and a 74-8 tally in nonconference plus postseason games. Cincinnati was just one more loser in those situations.
For years, college football fans wanted some kind of true playoff because they were tired of the same teams (or at least teams from the same conferences) winning the vote to be declared national champions (believe it or not young people, the NCAA football national championship was once decided by vote). Then the first version of a playoff came, and those same teams from the same conferences always won. Then the playoffs were expanded to four teams and, sure enough, the same conferences sent the same teams to the playoffs with the same results.
With apologies to Central Florida in 2017, you have to go back to 1984 - take a bow, BYU! - to find a consensus national champion not from a traditional “power’’ conference (including the very traditional but non-conference Notre Dame).
Georgia-Michigan in the other semifinal game was supposed to be the real contest but turned out to be even less competitive than Alabama-Cincinnati. Like Alabama, Georgia scored on the opening drive and but for a late, meaningless touchdown by the Wolverines, the Bulldogs’ first score would have been enough to win that game as well. The final, 34-11, only reinforced the obvious: Alabama and Georgia are the two best teams in the country.
Alabama spent most of the season ranked No. 1, while Georgia played like the very best team in the country until it ran into the Crimson Tide on the first Saturday in December, getting embarrassed 41-24.
Unfortunately for Georgia, Alabama has won seven straight against the Bulldogs, including a 26-23 victory in the 2018 title game when a then second-string quarterback named Tua something completed a pass on second-and-26 to an at the time little-known receiver named DeVonta Smith.
But ever since that crushing defeat, the Dawgs have been itching for another chance.
So now we’re set for Alabama-Georgia. About the only thing that could have stopped this was COVID.
But maybe even a worldwide pandemic is no match for the SEC.
Ray Melick is Editor-in-Chief of 1819 News. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to Commentary@1819News.com
