Joel Klatt, Colin Cowherd reveal odd aspect of Alabama's 2021 season

For the first time in a long time, as Colin Cowherd argues, the Alabama Crimson Tide are being underrated.

The FOX Sports analyst acknowledged that Alabama “doesn’t have Georgia’s defense, nor do they have Ohio State’s offense,” but he also points out that “between the two, they’re pretty good.” Yet, despite being a seemingly complete team, Cowherd thinks the public isn’t giving Alabama the respect they deserve given Georgia’s undefeated run, Alabama’s midseason loss and Alabama’s close games in the past several weeks.

“This has never happened in 10 years — (but) we’re sleeping on Alabama,” Cowherd said, before explaining all the reasons why it makes sense to bet on Alabama. “I still (have) the best coach, I get a terrific young quarterback, it’s a young team. I get the best left tackle, so [Bryce Young] is going to have time to throw. It’s a younger team because they’ve lost so much talent, but Saban’s teams get better over time. Everybody looks at Arkansas and said, ‘Well, [Alabama] struggled against Arkansas.’ Arkansas is a real time now.”

Cowherd’s take was met with disagreement from Joel Klatt, and perhaps rightfully so. Klatt’s counterargument was twofold — first, the Crimson Tide allowed over 300 passing yards to KJ Jefferson in last week’s narrow win over Arkansas, and Jefferson seems like a shell of the quarterbacks Alabama would face in the College Football Playoff. But secondly, and perhaps more importantly, Klatt implied that the Ohio State Buckeyes, who recently jumped Alabama for the No. 2 spot in the committee’s rankings after a blowout win over Michigan State, might be the team that’s overlooked.

Then, Cowherd posed the simple question: if Alabama were to play Ohio State, who would you pick?

“Where is the game [being played]?” Klatt said, prompting laughter from Cowherd.

“It’s that close,” Cowherd said.

As it stands, FiveThirtyEight projects that the Ohio State Buckeyes have a 51 percent chance of making the College Football Playoff, as well as a 17 percent chance of winning the national championship. Alabama, on the other hand, has a 58 percent percent chance of making the playoff, with a 19 percent chance of winning the national title.

“I think that it’s pretty clear that Alabama, Georgia and Ohio State are the three best teams in college football,” Klatt said, hesitantly agreeing that he’s sleeping on Alabama. “Georgia has separated itself out a little bit, and Ohio State is clearly great at its top end when it plays like it did last week. And Alabama being interesting. This is the point you’re trying to make: we’re sleeping on the fact that they’re not potentially dominant. But that doesn’t mean that they’re going to lose. This is not Bama last year, but that doesn’t mean we should think they’re going to lose to Georgia.”

Klatt also clarified that he’s not quite sleeping on Alabama. He actually believes that Alabama has a clear path of making it to the College Football Playoff, and perhaps even doing some damage, even if the Crimson Tide manage to lose two games.