Jumbo Package: Alabama favored by 21 over Arkansas

Happy Monday, everyone. After a reasonably successful win over New Mexico State, the Tide will now move on to Arkansas as 21 point favorites.

Needless to say, the lack of depth at running back is a major concern.

“We moved Demouy Kennedy from linebacker, who had played some running back in high school,” Saban said. “He’s kind of a big, heavy, athletic guy that has made progress there. And Christian Leary’s a wide receiver, smaller, quicker guy but still has played running back in his past. We’ll need those guys. Obviously, Trey Sanders is gonna have to step up now. This is our third running back that we’ve lost this season, so we’ll be a little thin, but we’ve gotta keep the guys that we’ve got improving and get those other guys even more ready to play in the future.”

Leary and Kennedy combined for 10 carries and 38 yards.

Have to admit, Kennedy in particular looked pretty competent out there. Still, no offense to him, but let’s hope we don’t need much from him other than mop up duty.

The Tide moved to #2 in the AP.

Cincinnati remained unbeaten after winning at South Florida 45-28 on Friday night. It was the fourth straight week the Bearcats played a team with a losing record and found themselves in a competitive game in the second half. That tipped a few more voters to drop Cincinnati.

“It was an evaluation of their overall resumes,” said voter Ryan Aber from The Oklahoman. “Alabama’s win over New Mexico State didn’t do much on the surface, but other factors — Ole Miss’ win over Texas A&M as well as Cincinnati’s less-than-dominant performances against lesser competition in recent weeks — led me to raise the Crimson Tide ahead of the Bearcats.”

The playoff committee already knew the score. The fact that Cincinnati stays in the top five week after week is absurd.

Steve Sarkisian may well be available soon.

Tom Herman was 7-3 last year and got fired. He never lost to Kansas. These Longhorns need to win their last two just to go to a bowl game.

It would be easy to sum up Saturday’s 57-56 loss by saying Sark isn’t working out. Actually, it seems like nothing is working out at Texas. That includes the decision to go to the SEC. Even before Saturday, if those big cigars thought moving to the nation’s best conference was going expedite what now is a massive makeover, well, they were wrong.

You don’t bring your Prius in for a tune-up at the Indianapolis 500.

Oof. Sark has now presided over the first five game losing streak in Austin since 1956. Kansas had lost 56 consecutive conference road games and ruled out their starting QB the day of the game, then proceeded to hit their highest point total since 2007. Sark also gave a very, very bad answer to a logical but tough question.

That does not instill confidence that the coach is in tune with the pulse of his program, does it?

We’ll see what happens with Sark, but that wasn’t the worst comment made by a coach this weekend. Imagine watching your team allow 42 points in the first half, the most allowed in any half in school history, to a 4-6 FCS team.

Oh, Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling. The invitation to come ye back is probably not.

This little recruiting nugget is interesting.

Five-star cornerback Domani Jackson decommitted from USC on Sunday after being committed to the Trojans since January.

Jackson is the No. 6 recruit overall and a 6-foot-1, 190-pound prospect from Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana, California. After USC fired Clay Helton, Jackson’s original plan was going to be to wait to make a decision on his commitment until the school announced a new head coach, but that changed after he took visits to programs including Michigan and Alabama.

Come on down, Domani. The water is fine.

Alabama has to tackle Arkansas first, but they will be facing TJ Finley to close out the season.

Auburn suffered the worst collapse in program history over the weekend, but the Tigers were dealt an even bigger blow during their 43-34 defeat at the hands of Mississippi State.

Quarterback Bo Nix is out for the remainder of the regular season after sustaining a broken ankle in the second half against the Bulldogs. Nix confirmed the news on his social media accounts, announcing he will undergo surgery Monday.

I mainly just wanted to include that bit about the worst collapse in program history.

Nick Saban spoke about his time with Bill Belichick yesterday.

Last, NFL notes. Mac Jones got lots of attention after leading the Pats to a 45-7 win over Cleveland.

The college quarterback who completed 77.4 percent of his passes for 4,500 yards and 41 touchdowns (against just four interceptions) while leading the 14-0 national champions that averaged 48.5 points a game was drafted 15th overall and fifth among his position group.

Yeah, it doesn’t make much sense now. It probably shouldn’t have then, either.

Mac Jones tried to tell the NFL, or show the NFL, but the NFL didn’t think things like 19-for-23 for 198 yards and three touchdowns were all that likely out of him.

Not in a few years, certainly not 10 weeks into his rookie year, as he showed Sunday as the team that was smart enough to pick him, the New England Patriots, improved to 6-4 via a 45-7 humiliation of one-time Super Bowl contender Cleveland.

Now, of course, will be the challenge of handling expectations. If anyone can do it, Mac can.

Jalen Hurts and DeVonta Smith hooked up twice, including this bit of Bama on Bama crime.

Wonder how many times those two fought for 50/50 balls at Alabama practice?

Levi Wallace got himself a nice pick.

And, of course, Trevon.

Beautiful.

That’s about it for today. Have a great week.

Roll Tide.