Instant Analysis: Alabama-Georgia

Remember the hobnailed boot Georgia used to break Tennessee’s nose in 2001? Nick Saban, John Parker Wilson, and the rest of the Alabama Crimson Tide found that sucker Between the Hedges and whaled away Saturday night. The force of the blows enabled Bama bash the Bulldogs to death, and turn the home team’s black-out into the long funeral service the Tide talked about in the days before kickoff.

Apparently, Georgia’s all-black uniforms work wonders only against half the state of Alabama. Auburn succumbed to the charcoal charms of Mark Richt’s men last season, but Nick Saban’s Tide weren’t fooled by the shift in attire. Blood, after all, runs red when spilled, and Bama caused a Crimson flood to cover the Sanford Stadium turf, making it appear that Georgia was wearing its regular home red jerseys.

Bama’s funeral service—a lavish liturgy exceeding three hours in length and witnessed by more than 90,000 worshippers, most of them mourners—stands tall for many reasons, chief among them the fact that the Tide finally throttled a foe with legitimate national-title credentials. With this five-star, top-of-the-line victory—the kind that decides difficult BCS debates on the first weekend of December—the boys from Bama announced to the college football world that this signature program has firmly and forcefully returned to the ranks of the sport’s elite.

Make no mistake: Alabama has thrown down the gauntlet and told the rest of the SEC that it’s going to be a Bear trying to take down this terrific team, which is playing with a Tidal wave of confidence at the moment. Far more than merely “beat” Georgia—which would have ranked as a massive enough accomplishment in its own right—Nick Saban’s boys summarily dismantled the No. 3 team in America on its home turf, in a game that was far more decisive than the final 11-point margin could ever hope to indicate. Yes, on a night when Dawg fans everywhere missed the classic tones of the legendary Larry Munson, the Tide stole Georgia’s thunderous fury, stealing the beloved boot Munson evidently left behind in the press box. Alabama carried that weapon to the field and, after the opening kickoff, immediately commenced using it with brutal and lethal efficiency.

The first five times Alabama touched the ball, the Tide posted four touchdowns and a field goal to roll to a 31-0 halftime bulge. Quarterback John Parker Wilson—a senior who is hitting his stride, thanks to newfound maturity and a lot of detail work under the tutelage of Saban’s staff—smartly and surely directed sustained scoring drives throughout a fabulous first half. Never wavering in a daunting road environment, Wilson’s icy calm carried over to his tunnel-vision teammates, who existed in the rarified air known as “the zone,” the lofty place athletes always dream of reaching. There was nothing more to this game than pure, unadulterated domination by Bama at every position on the field. Comprehensively, coldly and cruelly, the Tide made the words “Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer” come alive in real time, pounding Georgia into perplexed submission at every turn. With the Dawgs still not able to shrug off the penalties that had nagged them in previous weeks—one kept alive Bama’s first touchdown drive; another aided Bama’s second scoring march; and a holding penalty prevented Georgia from converting a 4th and 18 early in the fourth quarter—an already-struggling outfit from Athens had no shot at making a comeback.

There’s a ton of season left, and no responsible pundit should be wasting any time, ink or breath anointing anyone as being particularly likely to play in the BCS title game. But one thing can be said at the end of September: With the possible exception of Oklahoma, no one’s playing better football in the United States than this team from Tuscaloosa.