Alabama's Dy-Nasty

Credit to ESPN.com for coming up with the best headline of the night (or morning).

And credit to Tom Rinaldi for inducing the first real, live, genuine smile from Nick Saban that's ever been recorded (see above screen capture). Until this, it always seemed almost painful for Saban to force out a grin after his team tattooed another in a big game. This one made him seem like an actual human for, oh, about 2.5 seconds.

Of course there were a lot of people hoping beyond hope that Notre Dame would knock off Alabama to continue a shaky bowl season for the big, bad SEC. Until Texas A&M scorched Oklahoma the other night with an otherworldly showing from Johnny Manziel, it was fun for the anti-SEC folks to trumpet the SEC's struggles as excessively as the pro-SEC folks have trumpeted the SEC's accomplishments.

But narratives change quickly in college football, and Clemson fans should be fully aware of that. The Tigers were killing everyone on their way to a great season ... until they lost at home to South Carolina and it became a failure of a season ... until they knocked off LSU in dramatic fashion to make it a great season.

Alabama was a juggernaut that made the plays it had to make to get out of LSU alive ... until it lost at home to Texas A&M seven days later and became a vulnerable team that was the product of a uncommonly weak schedule. Those vulnerabilities were supposedly accentuated when Georgia went up and down the field and came within a whisker of beating the Tide in the SEC title game.

And then last night happened. It was an utter pillaging, and it was much more than the product of a Notre Dame team that didn't look like it belonged on the same field. Gene Wojciechowski is right: As much as we'd have preferred Oregon or, heck, Texas A&M to match up with Alabama last night in hindsight, the truth is that the Tide would've destroyed anyone. They were that good, that prepared, that determined, that nasty.

Give Nick Saban a month to prepare and it ain't going to be pretty. Take a look at opponents' rushing totals against the Tide in their last five bowl games:

Notre Dame 2012: 32
LSU 2011: 39
Michigan State 2010: -48
Texas 2009: 81
Utah 2008: 13

It's true that Utah didn't need to run it in the Sugar Bowl four years ago. The Utes carved up the Tide through the air in a stunning 31-17 victory. But the quickest route toward crushing a team's spirit is shutting down their running game (not to mention shoving it down their throat with your own running game), and last night Notre Dame's spirit was broken before the game even began because Brian Kelly didn't even try to run the ball.

That wasn't the surprising part. The most notable development came in the form of Alabama's offensive line and running backs making supposedly great players in Notre Dame's front seven look like JV players. Kirk Herbstreit kept talking about missed tackles by Manti Te'o and others, but it was more a case of the Irish getting tossed around like rag dolls.

It's never good when the game's most dramatic, compelling moment comes before the actual game. But that's what happened when, for whatever reason, both teams had to come out of the same tunnel and Notre Dame's players had to watch Alabama proceed past. It was heavy stuff. After the Tide was on the field, the Irish began its procession and the camera zoomed in on Te'o as he walked through the tunnel. He was the picture of intensity, a gladiator headed into battle. You started to get goosebumps. Then Te'o and his friends were fed to the lions.

It went something like this.

Not even the most biased Notre Dame fan in the world can make a claim that things would've been different had the refs not called the penalty on that fumbled punt by Alabama. This was just men against boys.

So the Alabama narrative is different now. They got lucky in Baton Rouge and Atlanta, and they got outplayed by Johnny Football in Tuscaloosa. But now it's three crystal footballs in four years for jolly old Nick, and this Crimson Tide program puts the "nasty" in "Dynasty."

You don't have to be an SEC apologist to admire what's gone on (and will continue to go on) in Tuscaloosa. It's possible to be simultaneously sick of excessive SEC hype and in awe of excessive Alabama dominance.

A few links from last night's feeding:

-- Andy Staples says there's only one way to stop the endless SEC chants: by beating them in the BCS title game. And good luck with that.

Yes, SEC fans can be obnoxious like that. But guess what? They have every right to be. Monday's 42-14 Alabama win gave the league its seventh consecutive national title. And the scariest part is that no other league even seems remotely close. I'm sorry, folks outside of SEC country, but a few facts are incontrovertible. They smoke better barbecue than you. Their women are prettier than your women. They play football better than your schools play football.

-- Matt Hayes' column has some interesting stuff.

The last time a program won three of four national titles, Nebraska was in the waning years under legendary coach Tom Osborne (1994-95, ’97). The Huskers haven’t won a national championship since, and lost by 23 points to Miami in the national championship game following the 2001 season.

This Alabama team, with Saban’s maniacally-demanding style at the forefront, isn’t going anywhere.

Alabama recruits and develops players better than any other team in the nation. Alabama plays big games better than any team in the nation. And Alabama rebounds from a loss better than anyone.

In the last two championship seasons, Alabama is 8-0 following November losses, outscoring their opponents 304-84 (38-10 average). In the last two championship games alone, the Tide won by a combined 63-14.

And check this out:

Meanwhile, Alabama stretched its championship game dominance all the way to the 100th minute, holding Notre Dame scoreless until late in the third quarter and after it had built a 35-0 lead. LSU failed to score on the Tide in last year’s championship game, and Notre Dame did because, frankly, Alabama got bored.

“We lost focus,” said Tide linebacker Nico Johnson. “That was disappointing. We shouldn’t have let them score. That’s something that will haunt us for years.”

Wow.

-- Richard Dietsch breaks down the broadcast, including the awkward moment when Brent Musberger and Herbstreit drooled over A.J. McCarron's girlfriend.

Musburger: "Now when you are a quarterback at Alabama, you see that lovely lady there, she does go to Auburn, I want to admit that, but she's also Miss Alabama and that's AJ McCarron's girlfriend, okay. Wow, I'm telling you, quarterbacks, you get all the good-looking women. What a beautiful woman."

Herbstreit: "Wow. AJ is doing some things right in Tuscaloosa."

Musburger: "So if you're a youngster in Alabama, start getting a football out and throwing around the backyard with pops!"

-- Staples gives his final Top 25, and Clemson is just outside the Top 10 at No. 11.

-- And interesting stuff on the messy legacy Saban left behind with the Miami Dolphins.

Do you like Nick Saban? Can you? That's the question for the equipment manager, and he tells of arriving for work early one morning at the same time as the coach. It was still dark outside. Quiet.

The equipment manager, Tony Egues, reached the door to the Dolphins complex first, held it open for his boss and then said the two words that came to symbolize Saban's scarred Dolphins legacy.

"Morning, coach,'' he said.

Egues, who is no longer with the team, doesn't remember if Saban answered. What he remembers is Saban's lieutenant, Scott O'Brien, nicknamed "Dr. Doom," soon telling him never speak to the coach unless addressed first. Ever. Got it?

LW