Alabama light years ahead of Florida, rest of SEC, maybe entire country

ATLANTA — The SEC Championship Game was interesting for a quarter or so, but in the end Alabama played like Alabama and Florida played like Florida.

As a result, the Crimson Tide destroyed the Gators 54-16 to secure the conference, move to 13-0 and guarantee the top spot in the final College Football Playoff rankings. Most likely, ‘Bama will be back at the Georgia Dome on New Year’s Eve.

UF took the opening kickoff and drove 64 yards on 10 plays in 5:09, which resulted in a 5-yard touchdown pass from Austin Appleby to Antonio Callaway. Appleby was 6-of-7 on the march — he ran the previously scripted plays beautifully — and gave hope to a stadium half full of Florida fans who had made the trip.

Said hope was erased before the two teams went back to the locker room, as Appleby set a dubious SEC title game record with three first-half interceptions.

While Appleby’s first pick only resulted in a 31-yard field goal from Adam Griffith, his second was returned 44 yards for a TD by Minkah Fitzpatrick to give the Tide their first lead at 10-7. They never trailed again.

The first period got even more bizarre on the ensuing possession for the Gators, as Johnny Townsend had a punt blocked by Alabama’s Derrick Gore — Joshua Jacobs scooped up the ball and returned it 27 yards to paydirt. But then UF blocked the Crimson Tide’s extra-point attempt and took it 98 yards to the house for the oddest of two-pointers.

‘Bama wrapped up the initial 15 minutes with minus-7 yards of total offense. Nevertheless, the Tide still led 16-9.

The game returned to some sense of what was expected in the second stanza, as Alabama’s Jalen Hurts engineered a pair of touchdown drives wrapped around another field goal from Griffith. First Hurts (below) found Gehrig Dieter on a 6-yard TD strike — through a tight window, too — and then Jacobs scored for the second time on a 6-yard run.

Credit: John David Mercer-USA TODAY Sports

Credit Appleby for not going into a shell, even after being credited with his third INT in a quarter and change.

UF closed the first half with a 25-yard touchdown pass from Appleby to DeAndre Goolsby to make it 33-16 at intermission. A rare coverage breakdown from the Crimson Tide allowed Goolsby to break into the open on a wheel route.

But the goofiness that transpired in the first half was largely gone by the second. ‘Bama is the premier program in the West — and in America — for a reason. Florida is little more than the best of a bad bunch in the East. Poke fun at the Gators if you must, but nobody else in the division would have given the Tide a game, either.

Any chance the Gators had disappeared when a fourth-down try from the Alabama 2-yard line came up empty midway through the third.

So the Crimson Tide have now made it through Championship Weekend unbeaten, and they’re the only Power 5 team in the land to do so. Aside from digging a deep hole early against Ole Miss back in Week 3, they’ve been relatively unchallenged.

Even if the SEC is down to some degree in 2016, ‘Bama has already faced eight ranked squads, with a ninth — and possibly 10th — on the way once the Final Four kicks off in four weeks. The Playoff field will be set Sunday, but one thing is for certain: The Tide will be No. 1 by a wide margin and overwhelming favorites to win it all again.

Among coach Nick Saban’s (below) greatest strengths is his ability to keep players hungry despite all the success during this decade of dominance.

Auburn won a national title in 2010 and ended up firing its coach just two years later. Florida State and Ohio State won it all in 2013 and 2014, respectively, but had complacency issues the following campaign.

Credit: John David Mercer-USA TODAY Sports

Alabama, conversely, is coming off its fourth national championship in seven seasons. If anything, this team is better than a year ago. It’s not just the on-the-field product, though — there’s zero contentedness. There’s always a desire for more, more, more. They’re too busy hunting rings to show off the ones they’ve already won.

Players leave for the NFL. Coaches bolt for better-paying jobs. Yet every spot on the roster seems to have been upgraded nonetheless.

Hurts is a clear difference maker, of course. Any limitations the offense might have had last season with Jake Coker at the controls are long gone. While Hurts wasn’t his typical dual-threat self in this one, he’s been one fabulous freshman.

We’re simply running out of superlatives for Saban’s dastardly defense. A brick wall against the run. Opportunistic against the pass. A touchdown waiting to happen — Fitzpatrick’s TD was No. 10 for the D this year, which is borderline comical — if the opponent gets a little too loose with the football.

I keep writing that the Crimson Tide can’t be beaten unless they throw up on themselves with four turnovers and a dozen flags.

‘Bama played far from a clean game in Atlanta. There were mistakes on offense, defense and special teams. UF dominated time of possession 2-to-1 in the first half. The nimble Hurts was bottled up on the ground, as well.

But the Tide didn’t turn it over. They committed a forgivable two penalties. A Florida team that came out swinging and took control early was eventually — and predictably — trampled under the tremendous weight of Big Al. There’s little reason to expect anything different in the Peach Bowl, presumably against Pac-12 champ Washington.

Saban mercifully ended the contest by emptying his bench. It was time to get his blue-chip reserves ready for 2017’s inevitable championship run.

John Crist is the senior writer for Saturday Down South, a member of the FWAA and a voter for the Heisman Trophy. Send him an e-mail, like him on Facebook or follow him on Twitter.