Bama Looking Good

Photo courtesy of http://www.seedol.com

Alabama traveled to Fayetteville, Arkansas and got a big SEC road victory over the no. 10 ranked Arkansas Razorbacks last week. It was one of those statement wins that you look back at and say this is where the magic began brewing in a championship year. The defending champs looked good, and they looked like they were ready for another title shot.

Mark Ingram looked like he was back to normal with 24 touches for 157 yards and 2 TDs. Backup Richardson came in with 85 yards of his own. Greg McElroy managed the game enough to pull out the win with somewhat unimpressive numbers. His counterpart Ryan Mallett who the hogs were counting on for a big game started off well, but the 4^th quarter became a nightmare. Mallett who was off to a Heisman caliber season was picked off three times, twice by Lester, and once by Kirpatrick.

The Crimson Tide entered the 4^th quarter down 20-14 and on the ropes on the road. Just like all of last season, the Tide were able to count on their defense to get the job done. Alabama sat on the clock for the entire quarter on their two drives. The first drive went 16 plays, 66 yards for a 36 yard FG but took up 6 minutes. The second drive took 3:18 with 3 plays for 12 yards ending in an Ingram TD.

Alabama certainly has a challenging schedule remaining. They host Florida next week, followed by a trip to South Carolina the week after who is coming off a tough loss to Auburn. In November the Tide will have to go down to LSU and finish the season with Auburn, both who are ranked as well. This first win was against a good opponent was a good sign for another strong season.

As you can see, the SEC is completely stacked, and by far the best conference in the country. I hope even if the Crimson Tide suffer a loss, they do still have a shot at the title game. Like my colleague Bharath said in an earlier post, a team like Boise St. (as much as I like them) doesn’t deserve a spot in the national championship game when they’ve struggled with bubble teams like Virginia Tech and Oregon State.