We sit just two days away from the contest folks have been looking forward to since the Alabama Crimson Tide and LSU Tigers passed the Oklahoma Sooners for the top two spots in the polls. There’s been plenty said about how good each of these teams are and how they are not just the class of the SEC but, at least for the moment, the best teams on the college football landscape for the 2011 season. LSU and Alabama.

The Tide and the Bayou Bengals. Les Miles and Nick Saban.

At this point they have been talked to death as having separated themselves from the masses. These two SEC West foes have morphed into dominant teams with great defenses that are head and shoulders above the rest of the college football world. Both have big time coaches, big time defenses and offenses with weapons. Statistically, both are so similar in their rankings that passing this off as a mirror match is easy to do.

However, glossing over their differences doesn’t do the true intricacies to this match-up much justice. If we’re talking big time teams with big time schemes, the most interesting part of their dominance isn’t the act of dominating itself, rather it is the different paths that each take to reach their elite status. This showdown on Saturday is far from a mirror match once we go from the “on paper” look at the numbers.

This game is a juxtaposition of two ball clubs running parallel paths with totally different routes.

The offensive differences are quite intriguing entering this game. LSU is a dynamic run-pass combo with a lot of capable ball carriers toting the rock and receivers on the edge capable of going the distance. With Alabama we’ve got a true run-dominant, pro-styled approach, where Trent Richardson is the true featured back and the receivers get targeted as needed. LSU can explode out of plenty of formations and is tough to prepare for because of its two quarterback system and big play ability. ‘Bama is simple and basic, but even when teams know what’s coming, stopping the offensive line from dominating and Richardson from forcing the issue makes them a capable unit.

There’s a lot to be said about the offensive contrasts, but this game is about defense at its heart and soul. That is where you see the biggest differences entering this contest. “Different” doesn’t mean worse or better, but it does speak to how teams can achieve at a high level by taking different routes.

Two teams. Both at the top of the nation in so many defensive categories, but a look at the schemes prove they are so far apart on the spectrum of defensive football.

In Alabama you’ve got, much like their offense, a pro-styled 3-4 defense. The players, as is the way of their head coach Nick Saban, all fit their physical prototypes. Big linebackers who can run. Longstick defense ends can hold the edge. A nose tackle that can hold the point. Corners who can be physical but are long and rangey. Safeties who are heads-up ball players and can mix it up in run support but also cover distance in the back end.

The Tide have all of the physical types that you’re looking for when you set out to run an aggressive, hard-nosed, physically imposing 3-4 defense.

Then we’ve got LSU, run by the longtime Tennessee defensive mastermind John Chavis, and the Tigers are nothing like Alabama. In fact, LSU’s defense is nothing like any team out there. There are plenty of other 3-4 defenses out there that push to resemble Alabama, but there isn’t a defense in the nation that even remotely resembles the Bayou Bengals. This unique quality is not because of an “exotic” base defense; Chavis still sticks to his deep roots in the 4-3 system. It is because of personnel.

Alabama has prototypes; LSU has talented bodies who get the job done. Smaller defensive linemen than Chavis has worked with as a collective unit in the past. Linebackers all coming in under 230 lbs. Defensive backs that just crack the six-foot mark – or not, in the case of Tryann Mathieu. It’s an undersized defense at almost every level, but there are two commonalities within this LSU collection of bodies: speed and aggression. Real speed for days. Real speed at every level. Real aggression. Real aggression at every level.

That’s the initial difference between these two units. Bama is prototype power with speed to get the job done, while LSU is a bit undersized, but the Tigers have so much speed and unbridled aggression that they make teams pay.

Scratch beneath the surface and you’ll find more differences. Before the snap, Alabama is going to make things look quite uniform to their base, vanilla 3-4 defense. Disguising blitzes, not showing the opposition where the pressure is coming from and not allowing quarterbacks to read the secondary to figure out what coverage the back end is playing. This squad lines up, they know what they’re playing and they do their job.

With LSU, before the snap, you’ll see well orchestrated moves: 11 men lined up on the line of scrimmage; two high safeties with corners pressed; one high safety with corners off; linebackers walked up to the tight end; defensive ends standing; and tackles shifting before the snap. Thanks to the movement and the different sets, “what defense are they in?” starts as soon as the quarterback walks to the center.

The scary thing is both methods are effective. Alabama, on the snap of the ball, brings pressure from depth, rolls out of a cover two shell and into man-to-man, cover three or plays cover two. A quarterback who reads a cover two but then gets man-to-man is going to be in a world of trouble as the defensive pressure confuses the offensive line into miscues. That same quarterback against LSU has bodies moving before the snap, coverages being walked up, linemen shifting, linebackers standing in holes and walking out. Without a clue as to what coverage, stunt or blitz the defense is doing, the team really is playing blind, whether they’re dropping back to pass or trying to call the correct run option.

When you get into the playing styles we really are talking about different beatdowns, both administered in surgical fashion by these teams.

Alabama – the punishing, physical killers. The Tide beat you down, first mentally by shutting down your attack and then as the game wears on it turns into a physical knockout. By the middle of the third quarter, after nothing they’re doing is working and these big monsters are out-hitting them at every position on the field, teams break. They have nothing in the tank left to give. The Tide are a sledgehammer; they beat opponents into submission with blow after blow after blow.

LSU? The Tigers are fast and aggressive. They don’t deliver kill shot after kill shot the way Alabama does. Instead they’re flying around to the football, breaking up passes, getting penetration to stop backs in the backfield. Their defensive players are feasting on quarterbacks. They’re blitzing from every level of the defense, and they are a gambling, aggressive unit that forces teams into mistakes and turns offense into defense.

While Bama is a sledgehammer that beats teams into submission, the Bayou Bengals are a “death by 1,000 knives” defense that cuts teams with tackles for loss, sacks, forced fumbles and big interceptions. They slash you open and leave you bleeding out, demoralized from their ability to attack from all over.

Different approaches but similar results: suffocating defenses that take the life out of an offensive unit. When these two teams are on the field, it is pick your poison. Either way, the opposition ends up battered, bloodied and disappointed.