The stage has been set.
Tonight at Camping World Stadium in Orlando, FL the Tide will face off
against Bobby Petrino’s Louisville Cardinals.
The game will air on ABC at 8:00 PM Eastern.
Louisville has battled the boys from Tuscaloosa exactly three
times. The series record is 2-1 favoring
Bama. Cards fan will tout their victory
over the Tide in the 1991 Fiesta Bowl, but that was when Howard Schnellenberger
was their coach. Coach Saban came to
Bama in 2007.
You’ve undoubtedly seen the Snickers™ candy bar commercials
like the 2010 version
featuring actors Betty White and Abe Vigoda getting throttled on the gridiron
and then being given a Snickers™ to transform them into their true selves after
being told, “You’re not you when you’re hungry.”
Somebody needs to give Petrino a Snickers™ because he was
obviously delusional when he said at the team’s kickoff luncheon, “I believe we’re going
to go beat ’em, so I need everybody else to believe that. And we will go beat
’em.”
The Cards no longer have Lamar Jackson under center. The Tide, according to Bleacher
Report, will play both Jalen Hurts and
Tua Tagovailoa at QB tonight. Tua
appeared in 8 games last season completing 63.6% of his throws for 636 yards,
eleven TDs and two INTs and who can forget the heart-stopping Hail Mary pass to
DeVonta Smith giving Alabama its fifth national championship in nine years
against a feisty Jawja Bulldawg team?
WHAT. A. GAME.— SEC Network (@SECNetwork) January 9, 2018
Tua Tagovailoa to DeVonta Smith ... BALLGAME!!!@AlabamaFTBL WINS THE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP!!!! pic.twitter.com/WxmHdRazCQ
ESPN’s Matchup Predictor gives Alabama an 86.5% chance of
victory. That’s pretty bold.
Outmanned and
outgunned, the Cards will have a hard time with Bama. Their personnel losses
are substantial this season and it will be hard for them to replace the players
that have moved on. Only one of their top five tacklers is returning and only
four of the top 10 are back. That means that there will be a lot of
inexperience for the UL defense this year and while, in time, those guys may
learn the ropes, asking them to jump into the fray against the likes of Alabama
is sketchy at best.
There’s simply no
comparing the defensive talent fielded by Alabama with the roster for
Louisville. Since 2016, the Cardinals have finished 38th, 34th, an 32nd nationally
in recruiting, a far cry from the perennial top-ranked recruiting classes
customary in Tuscaloosa.
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