Alabama Football: Who has best shot to dethrone the Crimson Tide?
Outside of Clemson, no team has an easier path to the playoff than Notre Dame. The only ranked team left on the schedule is Syracuse, and the Orange come to South Bend. This weekend’s road tilt at Northwestern could prove to be tricky, but the Irish are 9.5 point favorites.
The relative weakness of Stanford and Virginia Tech diminished the quality of a pair of Notre Dame wins, but they still have an impressive win over Michigan on their resume that looks better every week. I suspect the Wolverines would be favored over the Irish in a neutral site rematch, though.
Brian Kelly’s offense has been humming since handing the keys to Ian Book. The junior has been efficient, but has thrown four interceptions over the team’s last three games. He’ll need to avoid turnovers this week against an opportunistic Northwestern defense in order to keep the Irish perfect.
How they could win
Notre Dame’s offensive numbers are middling, but they’ve cranked it up with Book taking the snaps. After averaging just over 23 points-per-game with Brandon Wimbush starting, the Irish have averaged 40 points-per-game since Book took over.
They’ve been a lot more explosive under Book and could hit some chunk plays against the Alabama defense that would allow them to stay competitive.
Their defense also ranks 14th in Success RT+, and 17th in ISOPPP+, meaning the Irish don’t give up a ton of successful plays, and when they do, they make adjustments and don’t allow for a lot of sustained success. They rank 10th in standard downs, meaning they are good at keeping offenses off of schedule downs and behind the chains, which is something you have to do against Alabama.
Why they won’t
Unfortunately keeping the Alabama offense off schedule hasn’t really hurt that much as the Tide lead the country in passing down success rate and in third-down conversions. Third and longs over the last couple of years was a death sentence for Alabama with Jalen Hurts, but Tua seems just as comfortable in those situations as he is on first downs.
That would seem to be especially problematic for a Notre Dame defense that isn’t great at getting after the passer. The Irish rank 60th in the country in sacks, and Alabama’s offensive front has done a remarkable job keeping Tua upright throughout the year, giving up just five sacks in eight games. Part of that is attributed to Tua’s ability to work the pocket like a magician. The other part is due to a pair of dominant tackles in Jonah Williams and Jedrick Wills.
Notre Dame’s defense gives up over 220 yards-per-game through the air and that’s without facing an offense that ranks higher than 30th in passing. Alabama currently sits in 5th, and no team is averaging more yards-per-attempt through the air than the Crimson Tide.