College Football

Alabama to defend its belt against upstart Cincinnati

Updated Dec. 30, 2021 1:12 p.m. ET

By RJ Young
FOX Sports College Football Writer

From the sage wisdom of the Nature Boy, Ric Flair, we've learned that to be The Man, you've got to beat The Man.

And Alabama is The Man.

Nick Saban has been here before. In fact, since the inception of the College Football Playoff, no coach has led his team to the national semifinals more than Saban. Friday marks his 12th.

Cincinnati coach Luke Fickell has also been here before. No, he has not led a team — let alone the Bearcats — to an appearance in the CFP before Friday’s Cotton Bowl against the top-ranked Tide at AT&T Stadium (3:30 p.m. ET on ESPN).

But, oh, yes, he has been here before. In 2014, the first year of the CFP, Fickell co-coordinated an Ohio State defense that managed what only two teams in the Playoff era have: They beat Saban.

Of course, that Buckeyes team won the national title, the second of two for Fickell, who, like Saban, is one of just three men to win a national championship in the BCS and CFP eras. Certainly, Fickell is aware of what it takes to beat Alabama, even if his roster doesn’t look anything like that 2014 Ohio State squad or the 2021 Tide lineup.

The 2014 Buckeyes team had generational talent at tailback (Ezekiel Elliott), on the defensive line (Joey Bosa) and in the secondary (Eli Apple, Gareon Conley), as well as a quarterback capable of winning the national title, who "didn't come here to play school," coming in off the bench. (Cardale Jones is immortal.)

This Cincinnati team is not that Ohio State squad. Nonetheless, Fickell has a chance to do the unthinkable again.

"Breaking the Huddle with Joel Klatt"

Joel Klatt shows why Alabama QB Bryce Young is difficult to defend and highlights the defensive players on Cincinnati, such as Ahmad Gardner, who have a chance to stop him.

When Cincy has the rock, the Bearcats have to gash the Bama front seven with (former Alabama) tailback Jerome Ford leading the charge. He has rushed for more than 1,200 this season and will need to go for at least 100 for Cincy to stand a chance in a game of keep-away against Bama.

Limit possessions, and you limit chances for the Tide offense to score.

Quarterback Desmond Ridder has to be timely in completing passes and deadly in a scramble. Simply put, he has to outplay Bryce Young.

And make no mistake: The most talented player on the field in Dallas will be the reigning Heisman winner, who presents the biggest individual challenge the Bearcats have seen this season. His vision, command of the offense and ability to extend plays to find receivers downfield when plays break down will stress the Bearcats' secondary.

However, the Bearcats possess the best tandem of cornerbacks in the sport in Jim Thorpe Award winner Coby Bryant and consensus All-American Ahmad Gardner. Bryant, who changed his jersey from No. 7 to No. 8 to reflect his namesake, understands what's at stake, as does Saban.

"Well, their two corners are good players," Saban said. "They're long, they play a lot of man-to-man, they got good ball skills, they're good man-to-man players. They're aggressive in the way they play, they don't make a lot of mistakes, they're smart, they got a lot of experience. Even when they change it up and play zone, they're ball-hawkers."

The Cincy duo will do its best to smother the Tide’s best receiver, Jameson Williams, and force Young to throw to the No. 3 receiver on the depth chart. (No. 2 receiver John Metchie will miss the game due to a season-ending injury.)

And when he throws, Young had better be accurate. The Bearcat secondary has recorded 18 interceptions this season; Bryant and Gardner each have three.

If Young holds the ball too long, the Bearcats' pass rush has shown an ability to put the quarterback on the ground. It ranks inside the top 10 in sacks this season, with 37, and sixth in the country in tackles for loss, with 96.

Texas A&M sacked Young four times in its upset of Bama this season, and Cincy will have to be just as good to have a chance Friday.

"They fit the runs. They do the things that they need to do to have success together as a group," Saban said of the Bearcats. "They have some very talented guys, they have a good secondary, they have some guys up front that can rush and have some quickness, and their linebackers are very good players."

"Cincinnati forced this"

RJ Young breaks down what Cincinnati did to earn a College Football Playoff berth as the first Group of 5 team to do so. He also looks at what the Bearcats will have to do to make it to the national title game.

While this game could turn out to be a classic, with an outstanding offense (Alabama) facing an outstanding defense (Cincy), there’s also the dreaded possibility that the game could be over as quickly as it starts because of the chasm in talent.

Saban’s team is the most talented in the country, according to the Talent Composite, with 14 five-star players and 60 four-star players. That means 74 of the 85 scholarship players on Alabama's roster were blue-chip recruits in high school.

Fickell’s Bearcats aren’t even the most talented team in their conference. The American counts two teams — UCF (10 four-stars) and Memphis (nine four-stars) — that have more talented players than Cincy (seven four-stars). The Bearcats don't have a five-star player.

That’s the reason Fickell won the Eddie Robinson Coach of the Year Award. He has done more with less than any other coach in the country — not just this season but last season, too.

In fact, since becoming head coach at Cincinnati, Fickell has lost just 14 games in five years, and he hasn’t lost a regular-season game since Nov. 29, 2019, which means his team has overachieved for more than two years.

The Bearcats have had to. With Cincinnati the only undefeated team left among the 130 that play FBS football, the CFP selection committee saw fit to rank the Bearcats no higher than No. 4, and they were no shoo-in for this semifinal.

Even with a win on the road against one-loss Notre Dame and a conference championship, the Bearcats had to sweat out a loss by Oklahoma State in the Big 12 title game and hope the committee didn’t leap Notre Dame over their heads. (Ask Oregon if head-to-head matters to the committee.)

Now, as the first team outside the Power 5 to receive an invitation to the CFP, Cincy faces the best program of the past 15 years, the reigning Heisman winner and the best coach in the history of the sport. A win for Fickell would be one of the most improbable of the season; Bama is favored by nearly two touchdowns.

Is Alabama too big a favorite in the CFP semifinal?

Clay Travis and Cousin Sal weigh in on whether Nick Saban and Bama can cover the two-TD spread against Cincinnati.

But that doesn’t matter to Cincy. The Bearcats want Bama.

"If you want to have a shot at the title, you got to beat the champs, and this is what we have. We have a shot to beat the champs," Fickell said. "And regardless of what the line is of any sorts, you know, we've said it all year long, that the best team doesn't always win the game. It's just a reality. The teams that play the best win the football game."

But even if Fickell has been here, his players have not. Saban will coach his team to lean on Cincy, to make the Bearcats feel the weight of the defending national champions.

A win for Saban, at this point in his career, with this team, is all but expected — though if his players read that, he’d call it "rat poison." He’d remind them that no one is so good that they can’t be beaten. He’d ask how embarrassing it would be for the vaunted Tide to be the first team to lose a CFP semifinal to a Group of 5 team.

No, this game needs to be a statement, not just for Alabama and Cincinnati but also for those crowing for an expanded playoff and for those who believe that a team such as Cincinnati not only deserves this shot at a chance to play for the national title but also can win it.

And that’s what a win for Alabama would mean: the Tide's continued dominance and one more hammer to shatter the idea of fairness and parity in the sport.

RJ Young is a national college football writer and analyst for FOX Sports and the host of the podcast "The No. 1 Ranked Show with RJ Young." Follow him on Twitter at @RJ_Young, and subscribe to "The RJ Young Show" on YouTube. He is not on a StepMill.