National Championship Pick

As you get ready to watch the National Championship game tonight, think about one thing first. No matter what you may think about the BCS, consider this- I think that most of America would agree that Alabama and Texas are the two best college football teams in the country (Florida has an argument, sure, but they had a playoff of sorts by playing the Tide in the SEC Championship game). And for all that the BCS does NOT give us, one thing it does is that it tries to do just that, to play the 2 best teams in the country against each other for the championship. I would argue that such an occurrence is rare in sports. I would charge you to look back over the NCAA Tournament over the past 10 years and look at how many times you think the 2 best teams over the entire season played in the final. I can think of one time- 2005- when I think that was the case. Is the BCS fair? Certainly not. But does it give us one heck of a game to watch tonight? Absolutely. So let's enjoy that.

National Championship Game, Alabama (-4.5) vs Texas

When you look at these two teams, I think that Alabama is the type of team that you know what you're going to get from. They're going to run the ball well, they're going to have strong line play, and Nick Saban is probably going to structure his game plan such that Greg "Tin Cup" McElroy isn't put into too many situations where he can lose the game for them. Texas, in my opinion, though, has the higher ceiling. They have who I consider to be the best college football player on the field tonight- Colt McCoy- and because of that they're a threat to score enough tonight that Alabama just won't be able to keep up. On the other hand, Texas' offense has yet to click this season against a truly elite defense- they put up just 16 points against Oklahoma and 13 against Nebraska in the Big 12 title game. Then there's a small part of me that thinks that maybe Alabama put a lot of emphasis of beating Florida in the SEC championship to avenge last season's loss, and now there could be some trouble with getting too fat and happy in the month off, especially with so many people loving up on how good they are. I know, it's the national championship game, they should be focused, but there had to be some reason why Saban was so uptight about his players hearing the word "national championship." Also, the SEC is 5-0 in national championship games, which means they're clearly due for a loss, especially at the hands of Mack Brown, who also beat USC in 2005 after Sportscenter had matched up the Trojans with the "greatest teams of all time." In the end, in 50-50 games I like to side with the better quarterback, and here that means Texas. I don't know if I'd pick them straight up, but giving McCoy points? Hook em' Horns. Big Bob's pick: Texas.