Written by Christian Corona at 24/7Sports.com
The last two weeks Alabama has been as dominant as we have ever seen it under Nick Saban.
In their first two games in SEC play, the Crimson Tide have outscored Vanderbilt and Ole Miss by a combined score of 125-3 — and it could have been worse. Alabama held leads of 52-0 and 59-3 at the end of the third quarter in those games, mercifully only scoring once in each of those two fourth quarters. The Tide converted 16 of 30 first downs (53.3%) while allowing only one third-down conversion in 24 opposing tries (4.2%).
Only one other time since Saban took over as Alabama’s head coach a decade ago has a team scored more than 120 points and allowed fewer than 10 in back-to-back games against FBS teams. That was when Ohio State put together consecutive 62-3 victories over Maryland and Nebraska last season.
The stat that may best encompass just how overpowering Alabama has been these last two weeks: the Tide have scored 16 touchdowns — two more than the number of first downs they’ve allowed. If Alabama were to play by twisted rules of letting its opponents score seven points every time they moved the sticks, it still would have won the last two games by a combined 24 points.
Alabama outgained the Commodores and Rebels by a combined 1,290-331, averaging more than twice as many yards per play (7.7) as their two helpless opponents (3.5). The Tide ran for a whopping 861 yards in those two games while holding Vanderbilt and Ole Miss to a collective 128. Only three other times in the last 10 years has a team ran for more yards and allowed fewer in back-to-back games, Oklahoma and Appalachian State in 2014, along with Texas in 2011.
Further highlighting Alabama’s recent dominance is the Game Score metric measuring unadjusted team efficiency on a 0-100 scale, where 50 is exactly average. The Tide posted a 96.54 Game Score in their 59-0 romping of Vanderbilt, the eighth-best against a Power 5 team since 2007 and the 28th-best by an FBS team against any squad out of more than 15,000 team-games over the last decade.
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