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2010 BCS Championship - Texas vs. Alabama
By Pete Fiutak/CollegeFootballNews.com

And to think, had Hunter Lawrence missed his bomb of a boot in the Big 12 Championship, you’d now be reading the breakdown of the Alabama vs. Cincinnati BCS Championship matchup.

After Boise State and TCU played a mediocre game (with a little bit of excitement thrown in at the end), and after Florida decided to start the 2009 season in 2010 with its dismantling of the Bearcats in the Sugar Bowl, everything has played out perfectly for the BCS lovers (and there are one or two out there, and they’re weird) to claim that the system worked. But it doesn’t take a college football die-hard to know that Texas vs. Alabama just sounds big-time.

For Texas, a 2010 BCS Championship win would finally mean Mack Brown deserves to be respected by one of the greats among college coaches and not just a phenomenal recruiter who had Vince Young. A win would settle some unfinished business after last year, and it would allow the school to make a claim of having the Program of the Decade.

Texas will win if ... McCoy works the entire field, spreads out the Tide D, and isn’t afraid to take a few midrange chances. He doesn’t have to hit any home runs; the Bama defense doesn’t get loose. However, McCoy has to be able to keep the offense moving and keep the Tide on its heels, and even on the plays that don’t work, the offense has to hurry up, let McCoy make a quick presnap read, and let him have just enough time to find a second receiver. Getting on the move would be a plus as that seems to play better to his baller mentality and tends to provide a bit more of a rhythm to what Texas likes to do.

Alabama will win if ... McElroy doesn’t worry about interceptions. No, he probably can’t throw three picks if Alabama wants to win this game, but he can’t be afraid to take some chances and he’ll have to rely on his defense to clean up a few mistakes. Muschamp will fool McElroy a few times, but that doesn’t mean the Alabama offense should stop spreading the ball around. No, McElroy isn’t McCoy, but he’s every bit as good, or at least every bit as effective, as Oklahoma’s Landry Jones, who was able to combine with Sam Bradford (before getting hurt) to throw for 327 yards on the Longhorn D. Taylor Potts of Texas Tech threw for 420 and three scores, and Texas A&M’s Jerrod Johnson threw for 342 yards and four scores. Outside of the Nebraska game, which took on its own life, those were UT’s three close calls and they just so happened to be the three games that the D gave up the most passing yards this year. No one else came close to throwing for 300, and neither will McElroy, but 250 effective yards might be enough for the win.

What will happen: McCoy will be special. Lost in the SEC Championship debacle was that Tim Tebow really wasn’t that awful; he didn’t get anything out of his receivers. Tennessee’s Jonathan Crompton was able to move the offense through the air, and South Carolina’s Stephen Garcia had a nice game and got the offense in a position to score several times before struggling to close. McCoy is a smarter passer than anyone Bama has seen all season long and he’ll come up with over 300 yards of total offense.

CFN Prediction: Texas 23 … Alabama 19 ... Line: Alabama -4

I wanted to try and pull in some commentary about the game and I figured SI.com and ESPN were the same old shlock so I pulled the College Football News breakdown. Much to my dismay CFN has picked Texas to win the game. I couldn't disagree more. I know I'm biased and I understand the points that Pete Fuitak made here but I can't just ignore what happened in Texas' last two games of the season. After what A&M did to Texas' defense and what Nebraska did to Texas' offense I find it hard to believe that Bama won't do many of the same things, especially with a month to prepare.

Do we not expect Bama to stretch the field against Texas? Maybe we've forgot about Julio Jones, one of the mosty explosive receivers in the country and his quarterback Greg McElroy who was a Heisman candidate for half the season and has never lost a game (high school or college). And I don't think I'm just swallowing the storyline stew on this game, mostly because I'm the one who has been serving it up for weeks. At the risk of falling into the obvious trap I'll still take Bama by 10. I'll take Alabama 27 Texas 17.

P.S. - Here's a pretty cool scientific breakdown of how Mark Ingram gets yards after contact.