The joke that is 'underdog' Alabama

Media day for the College Football Playoff championship game is Saturday in Tampa, and I fully expect it to be a theater of the absurd.

Why? Because Alabama is somehow being gifted with underdog privileges.

That’s the same Alabama team that is undefeated, has only once won by less than 10 points, has not surrendered more than 16 points in a game in three months, has been ranked No. 1 every week of the season, is on a 26-game winning streak and is the defending national champion.

Yeah, those guys.

The Crimson Tide players will be asked by some media members how it feels to have a significant number of “experts” and “analysts” now picking their opponent, Clemson, to win the title Monday night.

And if any of those players plays the disrespect card and says, “We know nobody believes in us,” we will have reached peak silliness. So I’m kind of rooting for that.

How did we get to this point? How did Alabama go from seemingly invincible all season to allegedly quite vincible in less than a week?

The most powerful force of chaos and disorder in college football is largely responsible. That force is Lane Kiffin.

He has found yet another way to ingloriously depart a job.

The former Alabama offensive coordinator, current Florida Atlantic head coach and eternal drama queen was run out of Tuscaloosa this week – although Kiffin denied that on the “Paul Finebaum Show” Monday, a few hours after Alabama announced Kiffin’s departure. Kiffin portrayed it as a mutual decision between himself and his boss, Nick Saban. Behind the scenes, nobody in the Alabama camp is portraying it that way.

So the process-obsessed Saban suddenly has procedural tumult on his plate, with just days to prepare for the biggest game of the year, against the best opponent of the year.

Unstable as Kiffin can be, he was a productive and successful offensive coordinator for three seasons at Alabama. Handed a first-year starting quarterback all three years, the Crimson Tide still managed to go 40-3 in that time, win three Southeastern Conference championships with productive offenses and reach the College Football Playoff each time.

Ripping him out of the team fabric at this juncture and abruptly stitching in Steve Sarkisian (himself not the most stable of fellows at times in his coaching career) is a massive, albeit calculated, risk. Sarkisian thinks similarly to Kiffin from a strategic standpoint and has been with the team all year, so the transition shouldn’t be too jarring – but he hasn’t called a game since early 2015 and has never called a game with true freshman quarterback Jalen Hurts.

A lot could go wrong.

But the thinking from Saban seems to be that enough already had gone wrong in the latter stages with Kiffin. Alabama was bad offensively against Washington in the CFP semifinal Peach Bowl – the 24 points and 326 yards were the Tide’s second-lowest totals of the season – and Kiffin’s lack of focus may well have been a key component of that.

Specifically, the lack of reliance on running back Bo Scarbrough when he was slashing through the Huskies infuriated Alabama fans, and reignited old complaints about Kiffin being too enamored with the passing game. That’s an especially risky strategy with this Tide team, which has thrown for the fewest yards per game of any Alabama team since 2009.

With Sarkisian’s sudden elevation to coordinator, it stands to reason that Saban will get as many run calls as he wants. The question is whether they will work.

Clemson allows a fat 4.8 yards per carry on first down runs, but the Tigers shockingly suffocated Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl semifinal. The Buckeyes mustered just 88 rushing yards against an active and athletic Clemson front and were shut out for the first time since 1993.

It’s possible that this was as much a case of Ohio State flopping as the Tigers excelling. The Big Ten East, touted as by far the best division in college football, was a flatly humiliating 0-5 in bowl games. The Buckeyes, Michigan and Maryland all lost as favorites. The Big Ten has had some horrific bowl runs in recent years, but this ranks among the worst.

Still, that overpowering Clemson win, coupled with Alabama’s struggles against Washington, started the ball rolling toward a radical revision of this title-game matchup. Las Vegas lines dropped almost immediately, as early money started pouring in on Clemson.

The Tigers almost got the Tide last year, losing 45-40 in a memorable title game, and they have two big-play receivers (star Mike Williams and underrated Deon Cain) who missed that matchup. In Deshaun Watson, they have a quarterback who will not be overwhelmed by Alabama’s awesome defense. And they have been burning for this rematch for 12 months.

“Honestly, this is the game we wanted,” said Tigers linebacker Ben Boulware after the Fiesta Bowl. “We want our revenge. We want our redemption. I think we’ll be coming with fire for the big game.”

There are a couple of college basketball comparisons to make here.

The year-long simmering revenge is reminiscent of Wisconsin-Kentucky 2015. After losing a heartbreaker in the Final Four in ’14, the Badgers badly wanted another shot at the Wildcats and got it, taking down the undefeated, No. 1 team in the next Final Four.

And if you want to go back to the last major college championship in the Tampa Bay area, the 1999 Final Four offers a parallel. Duke was 37-1, ranked No. 1 most of the year and was being sized for a Greatest Duke Team of All-Time crown when the Blue Devils ran into Connecticut in the title game. The Huskies (who were 33-2) proved to be the better team.

Clemson just might be the better team Monday.

But keep this in mind: bestowing Alabama with any kind of theoretical (if not literal) underdog role is like finding the perfect gift for someone who seemingly already has everything. The Tide has been a Vegas underdog exactly once in the last five seasons – at Georgia last year. ‘Bama won by 28.

If somebody wants to tell these guys they aren’t going to win, I’m betting they’ll gladly accept the motivation.