Will Alabama contend for the College Football Playoff? Joel Klatt will have to see it to believe it.
No one could believe that Alabama lost to the Vanderbilt Commodores last weekend. The then-top-ranked Crimson Tide suffered one of the program’s most stunning and startling losses. Vandy hadn’t scored a victory over Alabama in a long, long time. The loss became illuminating for some when evaluating the Crimson Tide in its current state.
The Fox analyst discussed the shocking loss on The Joel Klatt Show this week, and boldly predicted that the loss was a sign of things to come for mighty Alabama.
Klatt likened Alabama to the Oklahoma teams under Lincoln Riley. “They’re a team that is elite on offense and the defense is not very good. The defense is just not very good,” Klatt argued.
“The problem and question for Alabama were on the defensive side … this team is going to be in some shootouts that are going to be surprising,” he said. “That’s exactly what happened this season for Alabama.” He noted that the issues the defense showed earlier this season continue to occur.
“Tide fans, I’m telling you right now, this team is going to be in several more shootouts,” Klatt said before remarking it’s a good thing that Alabama has so much offensive firepower and how it reminded him “so much” of that era of Oklahoma teams.
“Those Oklahoma teams, if you remember, they would get to the Playoff, and we’d all say the same thing. ‘They don’t have a good enough defense to win the National Championship. And guess what? At this point, that’s the truth about Alabama,” Klatt said, all but predicting that that’s what Alabama’s future is.
The Fox analyst argued that the Crimson Tide must be perfect on offense going forward if it wants to contend and that it’s harder to do so without a sound defense.
