College Football - in Just Two Years Nick Saban Has the Crimson Tide No. 1 in the Nation

Copyright © 2008 Ed Bagley

Goodbye Texas. Hello Alabama. It is now the Crimson Tide that have become the No. 1 coveted target in the nation for big-time college football programs in America.

The Texas Longhorns, who were No. 1, took on their 4th top-ranked team in consecutive weeks and came up short on the road Saturday (11-1-08) in Lubbock to No. 6 Texas Tech 39-33 on a scoring play that never should have happened with 1 second left.

In a Texas-style shootout, the Longhorns trailed 19-0 and rallied to take a 33-32 lead on Vondrell McGee's 4-yard touchdown run with only 1:29 to play. That gave just a little too much time left for the Red Raiders' Graham Harrell and Michael Crabtree, two gifted athletes on a mission few others would dare to take.

With virtually no time left and 28 yards from pay dirt, Harrell found himself surrounded by nasty Longhorns and out of time with Crabtree in double coverage and no room to even turn around. So what does a great quarterback do? He throws high into double coverage, hoping his All-American wide receiver is as great as Harrell thinks he is.

Michael Crabtree does not disappoint either his teammates or himself. He rises to the challenge, grabs the rock with sure hands, breaks the wannabe arm tackle of a sophomore cover back trying to strip the ball, and takes a couple of steps into the end zone and the game clock shows 1 second left.

Amazingly, Crabtree stays in bounds as thousands and thousands of screaming, delirious fans pour onto the field of play. It is sheer bedlam as fans begin to rip down the goal post at one end of the field, and the officials on the field try to restore order for the extra-point attempt and final kickoff to Texas to eliminate the one second left on the clock.

This is college football in America on a Saturday afternoon. A major university with thousands of fans who have suffered through the dominance of Texas and Oklahoma teams for too many years. This is their moment of glory and they will not be denied. It is the competitive spirit of America in its finest hour, their years of hardship and agony are over and their 15 minutes of fame and glory have arrived.

All of the Texas Tech fans, players and coaches need to party down big-time because Texas Tech's season is not over. The Red Raiders will now run a gauntlet somewhat similar to the one that the Longhorns faced as 8-1 Oklahoma State and 8-1 Oklahoma lie ahead and a lesser-light Baylor team lurks in the background.

The drama of this game could not have been higher. Texas Tech only needed a field goal to win the game, but could not rely on its kicker to convert from some 40 yards out. Not only was Harrell's pass into double coverage over the top, and even though Crabtree made a great catch, had he been tackled short of the end zone or gone out of bounds, it is unlikely in the moment that the Red Raiders could have called a time out and still had enough time to set up for a game-winning field goal try.

"All we needed was a field goal, but a touchdown's even sweeter," said Raider quarterback Graham Harrell after the game. "If you're a quarterback and don't want to be in that situation, you should change positions." Harrell finished with 474 yards passing and 2 touchdowns while completing 36 of 53 attempts.

Was this really THAT big of a win for Texas Tech? Yes it was. The Red Raider win over Texas was the biggest win in Texas Tech history and its first win against a No. 1-ranked team. The victory gave them command of the Big 12 South and put them smack in the middle of the race for a spot in the national championship game.

And just how close was Texas to winning? How about 1 second among 60 minutes of play? Or the fact that on the play prior to Crabtree's winning 28-yard TD catch, freshman safety Blake Gideon dropped what would have been a game-ending interception on a tipped pass. That single drop meant Harrell could make the dangerous decision to throw into double coverage to Crabtree. The rest is now history.

The win vaulted No. 6 Texas Tech past Penn State, Florida and Oklahoma into the No. 2 spot in this week's AP Top 25 Poll. For Texas Tech fans around the world, this rise to prominence came none too soon.

The reason Alabama vaulted from No. 2 in the AP rankings to the top spot is because the Crimson Tide shut out Arkansas State Saturday 35-0, scoring in every quarter and looking every bit as if they should be No. 1.

Coach Nick Saban has quickly become better than the gold standard in Alabama. Saban has taken the Crimson Tide to the No. 1 ranking in the nation in only his second year at Tuscaloosa.

Saban is the highest paid coach in college football ($32 million for 8 years). Many fans and boosters at Alabama believe Saban is worth every penny of it and now you know why.

Saban turned around Michigan State's program in one year and went to 3 bowl games in his first 3 years. He turned around Louisiana State's program in one year, won or shared 3 SEC titles, went to bowl games all 5 years and won the National Championship in 2003. He turned around Alabama in his first season last year and went to a bowl game. Now his Crimson Tide players are 9-0 and in the hunt for a spot in this year's national championship game.

No. 5 Florida recorded a huge win on the road at No. 8 Georgia, putting some major hurt on the Bulldogs, 49-10. Since their unexpected lack of focus and 31-30 loss to Mississippi, Coach Urban Meyer's Gators have gone ballistic croc hunting, ripping apart Arkansas 38-7, LSU 51-21 and Kentucky 63-5 before hosting Georgia.

Apparently the Gators have become so savage that they will rip apart their victims but also drink their blood in their quest to get into the national championship game.

Both Texas and Georgia lost to top-ranked teams. Texas Tech, Alabama and Florida were among 13 of the 20 AP Poll teams to win this week, 7 others—including Texas and Georgia which played top-ranked teams--lost and 5 teams were idle. No. 3 Penn State, No. 13 Ohio State, No. 18 Ball State, No. 21 North Carolina and No. 25 Maryland were all idle.

The other ranked teams which won big and made a statement included:

No. 4 Oklahoma at home in a waltz over Nebraska 62-28 (the Sooners led 62-21 after 3 quarters), No. 7 Southern Cal on the road shut out Washington 56-0 (the Huskies are dead and waiting for fired head coach Tyrone Willingham to get on down the road), No. 9 Oklahoma State at home over Iowa State 59-17 (the Cowboys scored in every quarter), No. 11 Boise State at home shut out New Mexico State 49-0 (the Broncos scored in every quarter against what we think is a team in the southwest), No. 12 TCU on the road over UNLV 44-14, and No. 15 LSU at home over Tulane 35-10.

Four other ranked teams won but were hardly impressive. They included:

No. 10 Utah on the road over weak, unranked New Mexico 13-10 (the 9-0 unbeaten Utah Utes are overrated big-time and may find that out this week when they clash with 9-1 TCU), No. 14 Missouri on the road over unranked Baylor 31-28 (the now toothless Tigers take down a 3-win Baylor team), No. 17 BYU on the road over weak, unranked Colorado State 45-42 (the Cougars are hardly ferocious, they gave up 32 points to TCU, 35 to UNLV and now 42 to Colorado State after beating a winless 0-8 Washington team 28-27 earlier in the season), and No. 22 Michigan State at home over Wisconsin 25-24 (it's true that Wisconsin may well be the best 4-5 team in the country, but the Spartans should have won by two touchdowns).

Five other ranked teams committed the unpardonable sin of losing to an unranked team. They included:

No. 16 Florida State lost on the road to Georgia Tech 31-28, No. 19 and unbeaten Tulsa lost on the road to Arkansas 30-23, No. 20 Minnesota lost at home to Northwestern 24-17, No. 23 Oregon lost on the road to California 26-16, and No. 24 South Florida lost on the road to Cincinnati 24-10.