It's early on, but Tide playing like a champion

TUSCALOOSA | One has to wonder how they sleep at night. Do they toss and turn, or do they just lie in bed and hope it’s not all a dream?

That could be any of the University of Alabama football players after this season’s amazing first five games and meteoric rise through the polls, with the Associated Press proclaiming the Crimson Tide the second-best team in the land.

This wasn’t supposed to happen, at least not yet.

Not in just Nick Saban’s second year, when his first recruits to the Capstone still can’t legally walk into one of its neighboring taverns.

Not when the roster has so many anomalies, like a starting secondary composed of a former walk-on running back, a former star baseball pitcher, an athlete who otherwise would be at Florida Atlantic and a cornerback who first needed some time at a military prep school.

How could they be sleeping? They’re probably too busy pinching themselves after being launched into the national spotlight, and show no signs of leaving soon.

“It’s kind of hard not to pay attention to it, but at the same time you need to keep a level head,” senior safety and co-captain Rashad Johnson said. “Teams in the top five, three lost last week. It could easily be the case this week. We know that we’re No. 2, but we’re going to take it with a level mind.

“There’s a lot of improvement we can do as a team. Every unit can get better.”

While the players have been taking on the persona of their head coach, Saban, the rest of the college football world is left in states of awe and wonder.

Awe at the dominating fashion the Crimson Tide has gotten off to a 5-0 start, outscored opponents 185-67, and crushed not one, but two, top-10 teams.

Wonder as they speculate whether Alabama has the potential to play for the Southeastern Conference and national championships — which is exactly the kind of thing Saban doesn’t want to be heard in the locker room a few days after No. 1 Southern California lost at Oregon State and No. 4 Florida fell at home to Ole Miss.

“It’s the same old thing,” the coach said. “You can read what (quarterback Mark) Sanchez said at USC about not being prepared for the game or what (Florida’s) Percy Harvin said about “how we let this happen.” It’s up to the UA players and the staff to deal with human nature and overcoming being satisfied with what they have done up to this point.

“When you get satisfied and fall in love with yourself, you get complacent, you lose your desire, you don’t prepare, and you don’t have the mental intensity that you need to perform well,” Saban said. “The last game showed that as well as anything. Once you lose it, momentum swings, it is hard to get back.”

Still, ESPN.com’s Mark Schlabach is now predicting a national championship of Alabama vs. Oklahoma, while his comrade Bruce Feldman has the Tide facing Missouri. That’s why one of Saban’s messages to his team this week was to ask if anyone knew who was No. 2 on Sept. 29 last season. It was Southern Cal, which on this weekend a year ago lost at home to Stanford despite being a 40-point favorite. Also, No. 3 Cal went from being 5-0 to finishing unranked.

“That’s just a number for right now,” junior linebacker Cory Reamer said. “It doesn’t matter until the season is over. The BCS rankings aren’t even out.”

The initial Bowl Championship Series standings, which will determine what two teams play for the national championship, won’t be released until Oct. 19, but Brad Edwards, a college football researcher at ESPN — the man who is considered a BCS guru — has already figured them out.

In short, the BCS formula is made up of three components, the coaches’ poll, the Harris Interactive Poll, and an average of six computer rankings. The coaches have Alabama fourth, and Harris places the Tide third. But the computers have a clear-cut favorite and it’s not Oklahoma.

“Alabama is easily the No. 1 team with the computers,” Edwards said. “There’s no question, if they win out Alabama will be in the national championship game.”

Actually, at this point even with two losses over the course of the rest of the season the Tide would still likely play in a Bowl Championship Series game, especially with the program’s history and traveling fan base. In baseball the tie goes to the runner, but with bowls the Tide has a huge advantage over almost anyone.

The only question is whether Alabama can get there.

The case for UA

It only took both the offense and defense about one series against No. 9 Clemson in the season opener at the Georgia Dome to establish that the Tide is pretty good. It started after Alabama took the opening kickoff, with the offensive linemen squashing their orange counterparts from the get-go.

“They haven’t said much since then, they’ve just gone out and whipped people,” senior quarterback John Parker Wilson said. “They have a quiet confidence about them. They know they’re good.”

The defense followed suit. After unveiling junior college transfer Terrence Cody, nicknamed “Mt. Cody” at nose guard, the front seven dominated. Clemson tallied zero rushing yards on the ground, and last week Georgia managed 50. Combined, prize running backs James Davis, C.J. Spiller and Knowshon Moreno had a paltry 54 yards on 17 carries against Alabama, and the trio was pounded as hard as their quarterbacks.

“They’ve gone out and smash-mouth kicked fanny on everybody they’ve played, basically,” Kentucky coach Rich Brooks said. “They’ve not only beaten people, but destroyed them.”

Brooks also called Alabama’s 74-0 scoring advantage in the first quarter, “Scary.”

That’s because the Tide hasn’t been doing it with gimmicks, flash, or with any kind of drama. It’s just lined up and applied beat-downs, the kind that make opponents not want to be there. The offense has thrived on long, sustained, backbreaking drives, and hasn’t run a single trick play yet — not even a reverse.

“It’s kind of amazing it’s happened this quickly with Alabama,” said Edwards, who compares the team’s physical play to that of Nebraska in the 1970s. “Less than a year ago they couldn’t pick up key short yardage against Louisiana-Monroe.”

In similar style, the defense hasn’t had to dig deep into the playbook either.

“We didn’t run our whole package,” junior defensive end Lorenzo Washington said about the Georgia game. “We didn’t even blitz much.”

Perhaps that’s what made the jaw-dropping 31-0 first half score at Sanford Stadium so impressive. Not only did the preseason No. 1 team know what was coming, but so did the throng of reporters who all became quick believers.

What really got them, though, was the realization that the Tide may only get better as the season progresses. The defense has only two senior starters, and many of the young receivers are just beginning to come into their own.

“I feel like we just outwork people,” senior center and co-captain Antoine Caldwell said. “I can’t speak for everybody, but I feel like this year no matter who is out there we’re about to dominate. There’s no doubt, no ifs, ands, ors about it. I can’t always say that I’ve always had that (attitude).

“It seems like everything is slowed down so much this year. Whatever look they give you, you feel like you’ve already seen it before it even happens.”

The case against UA

For just about every reason already mentioned, there’s a counter-argument why Alabama won’t be able to keep this up.

Critics claim Clemson was clearly overrated. Arkansas may not win an SEC game. Georgia was No. 1 but had started dropping in the polls before even having an “L.” Consequently, they argue Alabama hasn’t been truly tested yet, but it certainly will be before the season ends.

What will happen when the offense has to try and pull out a victory, say, in the final two minutes?

“That’s when we’ll learn a lot about this team,” said Edwards, himself an Alabama graduate. “That’s the big test I’m waiting for.”

What will happen when an opponent is able to physically match up, or the lack of depth catches up with Alabama?

So far injuries have been almost non-existent, although junior left tackle Andre Smith (knee) and senior right guard Marlon Davis (hamstring) both missed a game.

“A team can get too worn out and banged up playing that way,” National Football Foundation historian and legendary sportswriter Dan Jenkins said. “Of course, in (Paul W. “Bear” Bryant’s) day everybody tried to play that way, but his teams did it best.

“I don’t think the Tide can seriously challenge for the national championship this season. You get too beat up in the SEC. But look out in the future.”

Consider the two national titles most closely associated with the current program.

In 1992, the Tide had very few injuries during its undefeated season. Nose tackle James Gregory was sidelined two games by a knee injury and linebacker Michael Rogers missed the Sugar Bowl following a car accident. Otherwise, the team’s most notable absence that season was David Palmer’s three-game suspension.

Likewise, LSU didn’t have many injuries when Saban won the 2003 national championship there.

“Not that I remember,” Saban said.

Meanwhile, the Tide has a recent history of letdowns. After beating up on Clemson, it was flat the following week, a 20-6 victory against Tulane.

Last year, after squeaking out a dramatic victory against Arkansas, Alabama lost to Georgia in overtime with the subsequent hangover lasting through the Florida State defeat. Although Alabama crushed Tennessee, it lost the next four games.

“(There’s) the motivation of where we were last year, us losing in the fourth quarter a lot,” junior cornerback Javier Arenas said.

The seniors, all nine of them, which combined with the 26 newcomers (including 15 true freshmen) who have played — making Alabama one of the youngest teams in college football — also recall something else.

“I remember when we were 9-0 (in 2005) and it kind of feels like this,” Caldwell said. “I think that’s the hardest thing to do, to be able to sustain your success instead of bounce back from failure.”

The survival test begins

So Alabama’s chances hinge on staying healthy, staying focused and staying hungry, just like it does with every other team. So far, the Tide’s done it as well as anyone else, but the players would be foolish to believe things won’t get harder.

Offensively, the running game needs to keep grinding away in conjunction with potent passing. New weapons must be found, but not at the expense of blockers like senior tight end Travis McCall, perhaps the most underrated player on the roster.

“The first two years I was here we couldn’t run the ball at all, or near as well as we would like to,” Wilson said. “This year, we’re establishing the running game, establishing everything up front. It’s making everything else easier and our whole team better.

“I think we’ve shown at times we can be pretty good. At times we’re not as good as we would like to be. The first half and second half (at Georgia) tell a lot, what kind of team we can be and what kind of team if don’t play well we’re going to end up being.”

Senior leadership at quarterback is another key, a luxury many other teams don’t have. So far, Wilson has only one interception. Last week he missed on just three attempts.

“I thought his game management was incredible,” junior left guard Mike Johnson said. “John Parker brings an attitude to our offense of, ‘This is what we pretty much need to do, and we need to get it done.’”

Defensively, Alabama has already seen opponents give up on trying to run up the middle, but that only means the Tide will be tested other ways. Last week, the Bulldogs came out three wide and no fullback, which surprised the Tide a bit. Who knows what Kentucky, Ole Miss, Tennessee, LSU and Auburn might dream up.

“Do people think they’re for real? Absolutely,” said yahoo.com analyst Terry Bowden, the former Auburn head coach (1993-98) who is the son of Florida State coach Bobby and brother of Clemson coach Tommy. “The fact that they had two big national games, played really well and were motivated made a big impression. I think the biggest question is are they that good?

“I’m dying to watch them to see if they keep it up.”

Reach Christopher Walsh at christopher.walsh@tuscaloosanews.com or at 205-722-0196.