The formula of super-sized defense and a physical running game is a common one in the history of college football powerhouses. In that sense, we’ll look back one day at the career of Alabama’s Little Napoleon, Nick Saban, as the current era’s most successful practitioner of the grind-it-out game.
Watching Saban’s teams at LSU and Alabama play, however, such a reductionist definition doesn’t seem to do Saban’s philosophy justice. A proper analogy finally came to me last night during the Crimson Tide’s 38-10 pasting of the Florida Gators.
Wrestling fans from the 1980s may recall a period around the middle of the decade when the sleeper hold was all the rage as a finishing maneuver. Sleeper gurus would wear down their opponents in the ring until they could apply the famous choke hold. Once some grappler, usually a stiff, found himself in the clutches of a properly applied sleeper, it was night night time.
Was it an entertaining style? Hardly. It was nonetheless effective.
(Which raises an interesting question: Given that wrestling is scripted, why would you want your talent pulling the sleeper?)
Arguably the most famous of the sleeper devotees was Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake. Beefcake generally followed the same sleeper strategy as contemporaries such as Adrian Adonis. However, the barber part came in after his opponent had been choked out. At that point, Beefcake would strut around the ring making a snipping motion with his fingers before shearing the sleeping chump’s coif.
Like The Barber, ‘Bama doesn’t so much trade blows with opponents as grind them down, then open the flood gates when they submit.
An early 65-yard touchdown pass from Florida quarterback John Brantley to wideout Andre Debose probably gave everyone rooting against ‘Bama hope that the Gators would have enough firepower to penetrate the Tide’s seemingly impenetrable defense. Likewise, Florida went 55 yards on its next possession, with the drive ending in a field goal.
Then, the Tide applied the death grip.
UF could only muster 102 total yards for the rest of the the night, as Alabama’s big front seven started throwing its weight around. With Brantley sidelined by a leg injury after a sack in the second quarter, the Florida O futilely flailed away at Bama’s stout D, to no avail.
Florida was out cold by halftime. The second half was nothing more than the Tide playing to the crowd. When all was said and done, Saban was still standing, holding a few clumps of Gator hair.
