Alabama Football: Can Bryce Young put career exclamation mark?

Happy Friday everyone. I trust everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving capped off by a stunning Tide Hoops win in Portland. When the turkey meal blew your mind too soon to catch this. Tune in tonight at 8:30 as they take on the UConn Huskies in an undefeated match. We’ll follow up with a full preview later as usual

Of course tomorrow the football team has its annual duel with Cow College from across the state. Your preview:

This season’s Iron Bowl will be dramatic. When not on the field, it will at least be interesting to see what happens on the Auburn touchline. Cadillac Williams will be head coach for this game, but will Lane Kiffin lurk in the shadows with dreams of ass chewing and sugar bowls dancing in his head?

Will Alabama be able to bring enough energy to match what Cadillac has put into the Auburn program? If that game were on the road, Auburn’s caretaker coach would have a big win on his young resume. Because it’s in Tuscaloosa, I think home field will be just enough for Alabama to walk away with a win and another 10-win season under Nick Saban.

PREDICTION: Alabama 28, Auburn 24

Alabama 27, Auburn 10: It could well end up closer considering this is the Iron Bowl, but on paper the Crimson Tide should win by a couple of touchdowns. If this is Young’s last game in an Alabama uniform, he doesn’t want to end on a lackluster performance.

SP+ Prediction: The projection model created by ESPN’s Bill Connelly estimates that Alabama will defeat Auburn 41-15 by a 26.5 point margin with a 94 percent chance of winning the game outright.

FPI Prediction: Alabama has a 94.5 percent chance of winning the game, according to the Football Power Index computers, which predict winners by simulating a team’s season 20,000 times. Auburn has the 5.5 percent advantage in the game.

Alabama 34, Auburn 10: This marks the 50th anniversary of the 1972 Iron Bowl, in which the Tigers scored two touchdowns on blocked punts to upset the Tide 17-16. The game was appropriately nicknamed “Punt Bama Punt”.

Though Alabama’s current team has only lost twice, it will likely be remembered for too many penalties, too many dropped passes and two last-second losses.

But even if Auburn blocks two punts for touchdowns, Alabama quarterback Bryce Young will still find a way to win the game — just like last season.

The “Cadillac factor” under caretaker coach Carnell Williams has made a big difference for the Auburn Tigers, but that’s a different beast. This is the Iron Bowl against an Alabama team that is far more talented and has a quarterback in Bryce Young who is likely to make his last home start before moving to the NFL. I fully expect this to be close for two and a half quarters, but things will come sideways late and Young will go out with a bang. Choice: Alabama (-22)

Since firing Bryan Harsin, the Tigers have taken a decent Mississippi State roster into overtime, beating Texas A&M and Western Kentucky. The atmosphere around the program under interim coach Cadillac Williams is on another level.

Alabama is at a different level of talent and production, but the flood in 2022 was incredibly vulnerable. Nick Saban’s squad has won three games by one point, including a field goal against Texas and stopping Texas A&M at the goal line. Last week, The Tide picked up just 17 halftime points against FCS opponent Austin Peay. Alabama isn’t Alabama this year, and a souped-up Auburn team could benefit. Choice: Maroon +1050

Phillip Marshall: “It’s the Iron Bowl, so you can throw the records out the window, right? Not really. Significant surprises are rare in the Auburn-Alabama series. For the road team, they are even rarer. In fact, the last time a street underdog won the Iron Bowl was in 2002, when an injury-plagued Auburn team won 17-7 in Tuscaloosa.

I don’t think this Alabama team is anywhere near as impressive as it has been in recent years. Auburn has been rejuvenated by interim head coach Cadillac Williams, but Alabama still has significantly more firepower. The Tigers need to run the ball successfully to have a chance. I expect they will have some success, but not enough.

Alabama 31, Auburn 20

As you can see, even well-known Auburn homer Phillip Marshall can’t quite get Auburn upset. The weather in Tuscaloosa is set to be bleak tomorrow with an 80% chance of rain, so don’t expect many passing fireworks. Will the rivalry be enough to get this group of high schoolers to put together an entire game against a bowl-eligible Auburn team on the line and for an interim coaching job?

Your guess is as good as mine. I’m going somewhere close to 27-9 with an ugly slog ending in a Tide win.

Of course that’s just my opinion. Vote and give us yours in the comments.

Mississippi State lost the Egg Bowl, and Lane Kiffin said after the game that he plans to stay with Ole Miss.

Lane Kiffin kept it short when asked about his future at Ole Miss after his team wrapped up their regular season schedule.

After the Rebels lost 24-22 in the Egg Bowl on Thanksgiving night, Kiffin was asked if he planned to be Ole Miss’s coach next season, even if he was offered the job at Auburn. His answer was two words.

“I do,” he told reporters in Oxford, miss.

Guess that’s the end of it.

Most recently, as we mentioned, Tennessee threw Jeremy Pruitt all the way under the proverbial bus.

Tennessee is defending itself against the NCAA’s Level I charge of failing to oversee the football program, saying former coach Jeremy Pruitt and nine others fired “repeatedly deceived” administrators and compliance staff who oversaw the program.

“The university respectfully states that it is unrealistic to expect an institution to prevent or promptly detect the willful and covert misconduct that has occurred in this case,” Tennessee wrote in Monday’s 108-page response, which was first received by Knox News on Thursday.

Tennessee launched an internal investigation following a Nov. 13, 2020 tip, finding what the university chancellor described as “serious violations of NCAA rules.” Pruitt and nine others were fired for cause in January 2021, nullifying Pruitt’s $12.6 million buyout after going 16-19 in three seasons.

If you think this is seriously a case of no one else knowing what’s going on, and not a mere scapegoat to have the takeover nullified in court while avoiding the dreaded “Lack of Institutional Control” penalties, then I have a beautiful ocean view land in Idaho to show you.

To think that the nation briefly embraced this disgusting program.

That’s it for today. Have a nice weekend.

tide roll.