Stewart Mandel on College Football’s Newest Dynasty, Nick Saban’s Alabama Roll Tide:
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — College football’s overlords need to hold an intervention, pronto, because this is becoming a serious problem. It’s clear now that no one can possibly hang with Alabama in a BCS championship game. And that’s an issue for everybody else, seeing as neither Nick Saban nor most of his marquee players seem interested in leaving Tuscaloosa anytime soon.
As the confetti poured down behind them at Sun Life Stadium, and as they tried to get changed in the locker room, Alabama’s players found themselves answering the same question over and over from reporters following their 42-14 demolition of Notre Dame on Monday: Having won three of the past four BCS championships, are the Crimson Tide a dynasty?
“Man, everyone keeps asking that,” said departing offensive lineman Chance Warmack. “We’re just a team hungry for dominance. You can put that in the paper.”
The BCS might want to put an end to these futile championship charades. How many more teams’ fans will fork over thousands of dollars for tickets and flights only to subject themselves to three-hour horror shows? How many more hours of programming must ESPN devote to building up an Alabama game that’s less competitive than A-Day? How many more idiots like this one will delude themselves into thinking one of Saban’s teams can be rendered mortal in a championship setting?
Maybe the real reason Chip Kelly turned down the NFL overtures last weekend was because he received a bat signal from the rest of college football: You’re our only hope.
It doesn’t seem to matter which team is challenging Alabama. Texas was an undefeated Big 12 champion when it faced the Tide in Pasadena in 2009; that game, like this one, was wrapped up early in the second quarter. Last year against LSU, the Tide played a squad we knew from a previous matchup was capable of beating them. Alabama shut out the Tigers, 21-0.
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