Being the head of all appointment college football in Atlanta, it behooved Gary Stokan to show up here Saturday for Alabama’s latest show of force.
There’s every reason to believe that the two parties will become regular partners in many future economic impact studies. Because by the looks of it, Bama is fixin’ to spend so much time in Atlanta it may have to open a branch campus there.
In fact, when Stokan, who as CEO and President of Peach Bowl Inc. runs the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl and Chick-fil-A Kickoff games, began ticking off the possibilities, it was a little stunning.
How about the Crimson Tide playing in, oh, five high-profile games in Atlanta in the next 15 months?
All it has to do is continue its winning by rote — the nation’s longest streak went to 20 on Saturday with its 33-14 victory over No. 6 Texas A&M — and the Crimson Tide certainly will keep an appointment for the Dec. 3 SEC Championship game at the Georgia Dome.
That’s the first step in the Alabama Takes Over Atlanta Project, and it seems more a done deal today than ever. The last three weeks, it has played three consecutive ranked teams. In becoming the last unbeaten standing in the SEC on Saturday, the Crimson Tide won those three by a combined 131-54.
It has an off week now before a trip to LSU. Its coach, Nick Saban, wasted no time delivering the message for the bye week. “I want the players to get some rest, relax and get healthy. But we can’t be relieved,” he said.
Already people are beginning to try to rank this team with Saban’s best. It is hard work, like trying to number the sunsets in Key West. But it is a chore that likely will follow the team to Atlanta.
There, the No. 1 Tide cruises through whoever the East props up in the conference championship. Then the top-rated Tide get a spot in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl national semifinal Dec. 31. Saban would consider such a long-range projection the vilest sacrilege, but you know a lot of his flock already is making plans.
By that time, Alabama will have, what, three dozen non-offensive touchdowns to its credit? It may have even invented a few more, never-before-witnessed ways to move the scoreboard by then.
What has distinguished this Alabama team from its royal line is its diverse appetite for points. Coming into Saturday, Alabama had scored 11 non-offensive touchdowns (eight on defense, three on special teams). No one else in its class had more than four.
The Tide was little off its game Saturday, requiring nearly three full quarters before it was able to convert a defensive play into a touchdown. With 21 seconds left in the third, A&M’s Keith Ford fumbled, and 290-pound end Jonathan Allen scooped up the ball and made a surprisingly nimble 30-yard scoring run.
“That was a huge play in the game. I really thought that was the turning point in the momentum of the game,” Saban said. The Aggies actually owned a lead, 14-13, early in the second half, but they would not score again.
If Alabama keeps this up this kind of nonsense, it will return to Atlanta on Sept. 2 for the Chick-fil-A Kick-off game in the Mercedes-Benz Stadium against FSU as the defending national champion. A rather profound christening, don’t you think?
And then it gets really speculative — but not ridiculously so when working with a dynasty of this magnitude.
Dare you pencil in Bama for another SEC Championship game Dec. 2, 2017? And then book a spot for it in the national championship game to be played in Arthur Blank’s new place Jan. 8, 2018?
It’s just a little scary for everyone else in the conference — and in the whole college football — to think that Alabama hasn’t really even grown up yet. Ask Georgia, it will tell you that playing a freshman at quarterback comes with growing pains. Yet Alabama gets away with throwing Jalen Hurts out there and looking unbeatable. It doesn’t hurt that the kid has more moves than an entire chorus line.
The attitude around here can be summed up by the big red button sported by an Alabama fan on the sidelines Saturday. It simply read, “Beat Everyone.” That is the working philosophy around here, and one that will be in place as long as Saban is. Which prompts the rest of football asks the 64-year-old, “Getting tired yet, coach?”
Given the volatility of the college game, perhaps it is a fool’s errand to project Alabama being such a big part of the Atlanta football scene over the next two seasons.
But it might not be a bad idea to begin work now on that houndstooth lane on I-20, the one dedicated for Alabama fans traveling east to Atlanta.
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