The Blue Board

I was looking at their offensive efficiency. Bama is scoring nearly 12 ppg more than ND, and though the yardage is close, the Tide are #1 in the nation in passing efficiency, while ND is just 74th. It's not about yards; it's what you do with those yards that counts. Alabama is incredibly efficient with their offense; Notre Dame is not.

The same Michigan team that "wasn't any good" played Notre Dame down to the wire .. Oh .. and thanks for admitting the barn sucks

I don't recall saying "manhandle", or win going away, but I felt that a top defense going up against an inexperienced offense at night would be a mismatch in MSU's favor. My prediction was MSU 27, ND 21. That's hardly a man-handling and I actually predicted that ND would score 1 point more than they actually did.

Little did I know how good Notre Dame's defense would end up being and how horrific MSU's offense was; they ended the year 107th in scoring O.

Given that MSU was ranked in the top 10 heading into that game and Notre Dame had just escaped a so-so Purdue team, I don't think my analysis was out of line given the information I had at the time. I was obviously wrong about your defense, which set up your offense quite well that night.

It's been a long time since then, and there's much more info now about both Notre Dame and Bama. I can only make predictions off of what I've seen on the field (and heard off of it), and I'm wrong from time to time. Anything I state on here is my opinion; I could very well be wrong again.

What's your point? MSU was not a good team this year. I got an up-close look at Notre Dame in person and have watched a lot of both ND and Alabama. In my opinion, Notre Dame is in for an uphill battle.

Instead of insulting MSU, why not try and counter my points? Though Notre Dame's defense is very good, they're going up against a very efficient offense. Alabama, who's defense is on par with, if not better than Notre Dame's in some areas, is going up against a less-efficient offense. That tilts the O-D match-ups in Alabama's favor: Bama's O vs. ND's D is close to a push, but Bama's D vs. ND's O is advantage Alabama. Now, that difference could be neutralized by special teams, but ND is sitting at 115th in punt returns and 84th in kick returns. Alabama, on the other hand, is at 39th in punt returns and 14th in kick returns. That puts the return games squarely in the Tide's corner.

So I see the 3 match-ups being:

Bama O vs. ND D - Even

ND O vs. Bama D - Bama

Special Teams - Bama

I'm open to opinions to the contrary, with reasons why.

Biggest problem for the tide their strength is running the ball haven't faced a DE as good as Tuitt or NIxx stopping the run all year, and def no 1 close to Te'o at LB..

thanks for that bro.

I do what I can

Question for 'bama fans, will Chance be the guard doubling Nix or do y'all use the lesser guard and leave Warmack(sp?) on his own?

Brian Kelly has built that program the right way. Strong up the middle, run and stop the run, balance on offense, and a willingness to stick to his game plans whether it's close or a blowout. I can't see them panicking or rolling over. They have very good personel in the front 7.

To me, and this is assuming 0 turnovers..a vacuum if you will..this will be physical warfare. I think Alabama will win (I should have my alumni status revoked if I said otherwise). But I think these are the reasons:

1) Alabama's offensive front can match ND's Front 7 in terms of personel, physicality, and experience.
2) I believe ND will still have to walk some safeties up from time to time, and I don't think their secondary can man up on Cooper (this is only a slight advantage because of injuries to Bell and White)
3) Defensively, I don't think ND has seen anyone that is as good as Alabama (Stanford is similar but not as fast/deep), even though Bama isn't as good as the past few years. The depth in the front 7 for Bama will not let ND wear them down.

Alternatively, I think ND can win if:

1) Gholson can thread the ball to receivers who have 1/2 a step on the DB.
2) They can run the ball for 150 yards plus.
3) They can hold Bama to under 150 yards rushing.
4) Be at least +1 in TO margin.

All in all, I expect a very good football game. I don't know what ND's depth is like on the DLine, so I'm holding off on score predictions, but I'm sort of expecting a classic.

To be honest, I don't know. I would imagine using Steen to double because they love pulling Warmack. Steen is a very, very good run blocker. He will play on Sundays like the rest of them, but he is the least heralded of the bunch. Pretty good chance Nix won't get doubled a lot unless he's just blowing everything up.

There's no question had Bama beaten Purdue, Mich, BYU and Pitt by 7,7,3,3 they'd be criticized as well so how that part of the discussion conveniently gets thrown out when discussing ND is beyond me. Either way, this will be a great game and anything can happen. I'm just happy that Bama made it to this game. Not an easy thing to do after losing 5 starters and being as young as we are in key positions. I'm proud of these boys.

You have to look beyong just total yardage or YPG. One thing to keep in mind is explosiveness and efficiency. ND has done a very good job of controlling the ball and moving chains which has also helped their defense. Basically, ND has run more plays(839 plays to Bama's 825) in 1 less game(ND played 12 games to Bama's 13). Here is what I am getting at:

Bama is averaging 6.92 yards per play which is top 5 in the nation. ND averages 6.02 which is middle of the pack nationally. Bama has scored 65 TDs this season to NDs 36. 36 TDs is incredibly poor...hard to believe they are undefeated. That stat is truely remarkable. There are only about 20 teams with less TDs than ND and I would bet none of them are even bowl eligible.

It is incredibly important for ND to play from ahead and control the clock in their favor. It will be interesting to see if they can move the chains and keep their defense fresh. I expect it to be a hard fought game though.