After Domination of Cincinnati, Alabama Football Enters CFP Title Game as Underdogs

If Alabama football has made one thing clear over the last month or so, it's that there's one label in particular that this team does not particularly enjoy to bear: the label of being tagged as underdogs.

Heading into the SEC Championship Game back on Dec. 4 against the then-No. 1 Georgia Bulldogs, the Crimson Tide was a 6.5-point underdog. The result? A resounding 41-24 victory that propelled Alabama from No. 3 all the way up to college football's new top-ranked team heading into the College Football Playoff.

Now, 30 days later, Alabama is the underdog once again.

As a reward for crushing the Cincinnati Bearcats on Friday afternoon by a score of 27-6 in the Cotton Bowl, the Crimson Tide now advances to the College Football Playoff National Championship Game. Hours later, Georgia downed Michigan 34-11 in the Orange Bowl, meaning that an SEC Championship Game rematch for the national title will be the game that plays out on Jan. 10.

Despite Alabama having already beaten Georgia in early December, the opening line to the game was -2.5 in favor of the Bulldogs. While Georgia will no doubt have a better game plan put together for Alabama, it would be understandable that the Crimson Tide would take offense to once again being given the underdog moniker.

After Alabama's win over Cincinnati, Crimson Tide outside linebacker Will Anderson Jr. said that his message to the team will not change much from the last time the team played Georgia.

“The message is going to be the same," Anderson said. "Nobody is going to give us anything. We have to go out there and take it. We have to earn it. We can't relax right now. Right now is not a time to relax. We have to enjoy this game for 24 hours, and we have to go back and get to business. Now we're going to be playing on the really biggest stage of college football now. And we have to be prepared and everybody has to be locked in and all in.”

Since the betting line opened, the points spread has grown to -3 in favor of the Bulldogs. In less than 24 hours, voters have begun to express their confidence even more so in Georgia. While this might give some Bulldogs fans a certain level of confidence, a brief history lesson might be in order for those who have forgotten how the Crimson Tide reacts to not being favored.

Since 2008, the Crimson Tide has been the underdog on just six occasions under head coach Nick Saban prior to this season's CFP title game. Three of those games took place in 2008, with Alabama beating Clemson 34-10 after being a 4-point underdog, downing Georgia 41-30 after being a 6.5-point underdog, and losing to Florida in the SEC Championship Game 31-20 after being a 10-point underdog.

In 2009, Florida was a 4.5-point favorite over Alabama in the SEC title game, which the Crimson Tide won 32-13. In 2015, Alabama once again defeated Georgia 38-10 after entering the game a 1.5-point underdog.

Including the 2021 SEC title game, Alabama has won five of its six games as an underdog under Saban since 2008, with the first SEC Championship Game being the lone loss. With the 3-point line in the upcoming CFP final, the Crimson Tide will once again have a chance to prove that, when it comes to their team, betting lines can be thrown out the window.

After the Cincinnati game, Alabama quarterback Bryce Young responded to the underdog label.

“I feel like adversity has been a big theme for us this whole season,” Young said. “For whatever it may be, we feel like all season there's been times where we've had to face adversity. That's something that translates not on Saturday, I guess Friday in this instance. But that's every day during the week. That's practice, that's meetings, making sure that, like you said, we act and we move with that chip on our shoulder. And we understand what's at stake and it's on us to push ourselves every day to give ourselves the best chance to be successful and accomplish our goals.”

Regardless of the label or the chip on its shoulder, Alabama now has seven days to prepare for its game against Georgia. Should the Crimson Tide win, it will be the program's 19th national title. Should it lose, it will mark the first time since 2008 that it will have lost a game that it was an underdog in.

While the game plan for the Bulldogs was a high-flying, high-octane offense offense for Alabama, it's plan for Cincinnati was quite different with a ground-and-pound, old-school approach. Both games featured incredibly stout defenses, but the means of offensive production couldn't have been more different.

One constant was present in both games, though, that being physicality. With Alabama the underdogs for one final time this season, the physical nature of both the Crimson Tide's offense and defense will likely be on full display.

“We just want to show we're a physical team,” Alabama linebacker Christian Harris said. “That we're going to play four quarters and we know that each team we play, especially in moments like this, big games like this, you know, we have to come with it every single play. It's a 15-round fight. It might not happen the first or second quarter, but you got to keep going, you got to keep pushing. Regardless, if that's the game plan, they put offense on and focus running the ball, then the defense is to focus on them stopping the run, that's what it is. I think it's really just executing whatever coach [Saban] has for it.”