Alabama LB Will Anderson Says the Tide Are Actually the Underdogs Against Cincinnati (They're No. 1 in the Country and 13-Point Favorites)

You know who hasn't gotten enough respect in college football these last few years? Alabama. I mean, all I ever hear about is what a dysfunctional program Nick Saban is running down there, and yet they somehow defy the odds almost every single year en route to increasingly improbable national championships. I have no idea how they do it.

In what has to be the most insane quote I've heard leading up to the College Football Playoff, Alabama linebacker Will Anderson said Monday that the No. 1 Crimson Tide are actually the underdog against CINCINNATI. But you know, the more I think about it, maybe he's right. Every station I turn to on TV says Bama just doesn't even really have a fighting chance against the machine that is the American Athletic Conference champion Bearcats. I'm not even sure why they're playing the game, in all honesty.

The only semblance of "doubt" about Alabama there has been this season — or in any of the last several, for that matter — was when it played Georgia, who was and probably still is an objectively better team than the Tide. And Alabama still went out there and won. So I suppose you could maybe make the argument that this Alabama team was "doubted" relative to the Saban teams everyone presumed would waltz to an undefeated season and a national title — which is what happened in 2020, the only other team Anderson has been part of — but that's it.

Saban must be able to actually brainwash his players. Bryce Young, the No. 1 overall recruit in his class and Heisman Trophy winner in his first year as a starter in college, said he's been doubted his whole life.

By who, asshole? Show me one person who looked at Young and said, "You know what? I just really don't think that kid's gonna make it."

These guys are the worst. They're going to beat Cincinnati like a drum and then get up in their postgame pressers and talk about how everyone doubted them because they were an underdog in one game — not even this one, mind you — for the first time in six years. It must be nice.