Alabama vs North Texas Preview

There are bad teams, and then there's North Texas. Coach Todd Dodge, who was Greg McElroy's high school coach in Texas, will be without his son and starting QB for the 11:20 C.S.T match up in Tuscaloosa. The younger Dodge injured his shoulder last week in an overtime loss against Ohio. It could be a very long day for the Mean Green of North Texas. If Alabama has trouble scoring on this team, however, we are in for a long SEC season as well. The North Texas defense allowed 47.6 ppg in 2008, dead last in both the Sun Belt Conference and the nation. The possible absence of Julio Jones and Roy Upchurch due to injury will go unnoticed.

Shouldn't be too much to this one, fellas. Alabama will maul North Texas like Taylor Swift fans at a Kanye West show. Thus far, Bama's defense has allowed just 1.14 yards per play. Now I wouldn't read too much into that stat if we started the season with Auburn's schedule, but even a decent Virginia Tech team had trouble moving the ball on offense.

My main question concerns our kickoff coverage. Alabama has allowed two kickoff returns for touchdowns in their first two games. If the offense puts up numbers like the first two games (avg 500 ypg), we should have plenty of opportunities for in-game special teams practice. Hopefully, Coach Saban will have fueled the fire under the increasingly-warming rear of Special Teams Coach Bobby Williams. There has been a consistent drop-off in performance since Ron Middleton left for Duke at the end of 2007.

Let's hope for an injury-free, exciting, but lopsided victory for the Tide. I'm calling 49-13 Bama.