Alabama Crimson Tide looks for better outcome in College Football Playoff this year
Quarterback Jake Coker leads the Alabama Crimson Tide offense this season as they prepare to meet Michigan State New Year's Eve. (Kent Gidley/UA Athletics)
You’ve probably heard the back story about University of Alabama head football coach Nick Saban and Michigan State head coach Mark Dantonio.
Dantonio was an assistant on Nick Saban’s staff in East Lansing when Saban coached there in the mid to late ‘90s, and he considers the Alabama coach to be one of his professional mentors.
On New Year’s Eve, what is now Dantonio’s team will square off against Saban’s in the College Football Playoff Semifinal at the Cotton Bowl in AT&T Stadium.
Dantonio’s success over the past nine seasons has turned Michigan State into a national powerhouse, and the program has won seven of their last eight matchups against a Top 10 team. And while the Crimson Tide’s defense gets the majority of the national accolades, the Spartans are outstanding on that side of the ball as well.
Yards and points in this game will be hard-earned. Michigan State has not surrendered more than 16 points in any of the prior four games and Alabama has only given up 15 or more points in only two contests this year.
For the Spartans, the defensive key to victory is pretty simple. They must corral the running attack spearheaded by the prolific, record-setting, Heisman Trophy winner Derrick Henry. So far this year, however, no one has succeeded in stopping Henry; Bama’s battering ram of a running back has amassed 1,986 rushing yards and 23 touchdowns while averaging a robust 5.9 yards per carry. He alone has outrushed Michigan State’s backfield corps of L.J. Scott, Gerald Holmes and Madre London. Combined, the three have accumulated 1,614 yards and 22 touchdowns this season.
Both offenses are similar in how they butter their bread – with big, strong offensive lines and bruising running backs. It’s old school football at its finest.
Henry grew stronger as the season progressed, rushing for 189 yards or more in five of the last seven games. But if there’s a group that could prove to be his kryptonite, it’s the Spartans defense, which has one of the top units in the country when it comes to stopping the run.
They’ll have to replicate what they accomplished against Ohio State’s outstanding running back Ezekiel Elliot, when they held him to only 33 yards on 12 carries in the Spartans’ 17-14 victory Nov. 21.
Michigan State is not expected to have success of their own running the ball, as the Crimson Tide sport the best run-defense in college football, limiting opponents to a measly 2.4 yards per attempt. The Spartans’ hopes rest in the lively arm of their excellent 6-foot-4 quarterback Connor Cook, who is the only two-time MVP of the Big Ten championship game. But his offensive line and pass protection better be at its best, because they’ll be squaring off against a big, fast, mobile and talented defense that led the country with 46 sacks.
Cook has completed 57 percent of his passes this year for 2,921 yards and 24 touchdowns. He does a great job of taking care of the football and has only thrown five interceptions all year. He did his best work against Michigan’s and Penn State’s pass defenses – units that were ranked among the nation’s best.
In the Spartans’ crazy last-second 27-23 victory over the Wolverines, Cook was splendid, throwing for 328 yards and one touchdown, with no interceptions. Against the Nittany Lions he completed 73 percent of his throws for 248 yards and three scores in the 55-16 blowout victory.
To beat Alabama, you have to do it through the air, as Ole Miss proved in their 43-37 win in Tuscaloosa in the season’s third week. Rebels quarterback Chad Kelly carved up the Crimson Tide secondary for 341 yards and three touchdowns. Cook and his best playmaker, Aaron Burbidge, who has caught 80 passes for 1,219 yards this year, will have to have a huge day to replicate the Alabama-Ole Miss outcome.
Alejandro Danois is a senior writer and editor with The Shadow League. The former senior editor of Bounce Magazine, he is also a freelance sports and entertainment writer whose work has been published by The New York Times, Sporting News, Baltimore Sun, The Associated Press, Los Angeles Times, SLAMonline and Ebony Magazine, among many others.
