Paul Finebaum explains why Alabama, Nick Saban are in a critical part of the season

It’s no secret that the Alabama Crimson Tide have not been as dominant this season as they’ve been in recent history, but they’ve still taken care of business in conference play, defeating Arkansas 24-21 on Saturday to extend their SECC record to 4-0 on the season.

Whatever perceived steps back the Crimson Tide have taken this season can be said for the entire SEC, whether it’s viewed as a drop in talent and firepower across the conference or as more parity and competitiveness from within. Regardless, the state of the Southeastern Conference made ESPN’s Matt Barrie proclaim to analyst Paul Finebaum that there isn’t a single team in the conference that can’t lose on a given Saturday.

“Oh there’s no question, and not to obsess over Alabama but on consecutive weeks against unranked teams, they’ve won by six and by three [points], and Nick Saban seems pretty happen because he knows his team is capable of giving it away,” Finebaum said.

The Crimson Tide defense has been impressive this season, holding opponents to just 16 points and 292.4 yards per game this season, which both rank within the top three in the conference. Their offense on the other hand has been a different story, averaging just 30 points per game for the first time since the 2008 season following years of offensive dominance in the conference.

Alabama is not a perfect team this year, but there seem to be no perfect teams in the SEC this season. But the Crimson Tide will definitely want to play their best brand of football in their next two weeks of the season, as they square off with the only two opponents that handed them losses from a season ago.

“He has now finally reached that part of the season, everybody’s talking about the five-game winning streak,” Finebaum said. “Ole Miss might be the only impressive win of the five, but he’s got Tennessee at home and LSU at home, these are the two games that wrecked his season last year.”

Despite being dominant last season, Alabama fell in close games to the Volunteers and Tigers last year losing on the road in both matchups by a combined four points on the final play of each game. This season the Crimson Tide now hosts these teams and will look to get revenge on them in Bryant-Denny Stadium despite not looking quite as polished as last year’s team.

Their first guest is Tennessee, who like Alabama looks much different this season as well, as the two teams will square off this Saturday at 3:30 p.m. ET in a game airing on CBS.