Paul Myerberg

USA TODAY Sports

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Alabama and Auburn are two in-state siblings separated by 150 miles and generations upon generations of hatred, animosity and antipathy. They are, in other words, bitter rivals.

College football is unpredictable, and never more so when rivals are involved. That’s true even in this year’s Iron Bowl, pitting the No. 1 Crimson Tide, the undisputed top dogs in the sport, and No. 16 Auburn, which has scraped together a satisfactory regular season from the dregs of a sour start.

Maybe that’s one reason why the first half unfolded as it did: Auburn trailed just 13-9 at the break despite just a single first down and a measly 31 yards of offense.

“At halftime, I guess everybody thought I was going to throw a fit,” Nick Saban said. He didn’t, surprisingly enough. Instead, Saban preached execution: Do your job. Control the line of scrimmage. “Trust and believe in what we do and everybody’s got to go do our job.”

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Maybe the inherent nuttiness of these rivalry games is to blame for a pair of uncharacteristic breakdowns by Alabama’s secondary. Saban and the team’s defensive coaching staff had drawn those same Auburn offensive plays on a whiteboard, preparing the defense what may come. We expect them to go here, the coaches said.

“And they did,” Saban said. “And we didn’t defend them very well.”

But it was a game of two halves, of two stories. The first of Alabama sloppiness, with the four-point lead pockmarked with misplayed balls, inopportune fumbles, interceptions and errors. The second of Alabama dominance, with the Tide pulling away for a 30-12 win to remain unbeaten heading into next weekend’s SEC title game appearance against Florida.

“It’s really all about you,” senior tight end O.J. Howard said. “Your opponent, they’re not going to hide stuff. They’re going to do what’s on film. And it’s your job to execute.”

But the most meaningful takeaway is something far grander, and it’s something the rest of college football — and the Tide’s competition for the national championship in particular — needs to consider heading into the College Football Playoff homestretch:

There’s only one team that can beat Alabama, and it’s Alabama itself.

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The only way Alabama is going to lose this season is by turning the ball over, or by failing to prepare, or by leaving its game on the bus, or by failing to show up at all, period. This is the best team in college football. The best program.

Teams circle Alabama’s orbit like planets circling the sun; some have come close to knocking off the Tide this fall, such as Mississippi, but this is a still the lone unbeaten team on the Power Five ranks. Auburn benefitted from Alabama’s sluggishness for 30 minutes before being crushed, worn down and spit out.

It all seems so familiar. All that’s missing from Alabama’s 2016 season is a grizzled, seen-it-all policeman waving bystanders aside … There’s nothing to see here, move along, move along.

“Alabama is our strongest competition,” junior linebacker Shaun Dion Hamilton said. “We hold each other accountable. Coaches hold coaches accountable. Coaches hold players accountable. Players hold players accountable.”

This isn’t new, but rather a bedrock of the program’s dynastic run that began the second the ink dried on Saban’s contract in 2007. It’s seen in how the Tide practice. It’s obvious in how the program approaches the very idea of competition: Alabama feels its strongest battle is internal, not external. It’s seen in how senior linebacker Ryan Anderson speaks to the media; a year ago, Anderson said, he realized just how much he sounds like his head coach.

“I feel like it’s been like that for a long time around here,” he said.

And the Tide’s near-constant battle is one against complacency, which explains why Saban said after a September win against Western Kentucky, “I don’t know I’ve ever been this disappointed after winning a game, maybe ever,” or why he said at halftime of last week’s win against Chattanooga, “I’m embarrassed, the way we played.”

It may be that none of his teams — and there have been many, many great ones here — has so clearly won this battle.

There has been one moment when they seemed mortal: Alabama trailed the Rebels by 21 points late in the first half on Sept. 17 before pulling out a 48-43 win. That remains the only game decided by a single-digit margin.

Alabama’s defense hasn’t allowed a touchdown since Oct. 22, a month-long stretch of mind-boggling stinginess. In total, this scoreless streak spans 267 minutes and 54 seconds — four-plus games and counting. The offense, led by true freshman quarterback Jalen Hurts, has now cracked at least 450 yards in 10 of its 12 games.

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Other teams have crumbled under the weight of expectations, even as no program has grander and greater expectations than Alabama. Oregon, Notre Dame, UCLA and Michigan State are the latest examples, but they join a litany of teams that have been crushed by unrealized potential. Meanwhile, the Tide have cruised.

“I’m proud of our players, to have an undefeated season, especially in our league,” Saban said. “I’m really, really proud of the way these guys have competed and the resolve that they’ve showed in some difficult circumstances.

“That’s the most difficult thing for any team, especially college players, to be able to sustain that for the season. We’ve had some really difficult games against some really good teams. It’s not going to stop here. We’ve got other challenges.”

The first is Florida, winners of the SEC East Division, in a game the Tide likely don’t even need to win to crack the Playoff field. (“Well, I hate it when you say that. I hate it when they put that on TV, radio, internet, any kind of communication,” Saban said of the game’s potential meaninglessness in the championship picture.)

Then comes a national semifinal against any one of a slew of contenders: Clemson, Washington, Ohio State, Oklahoma and the rest, with none projected to be favored in any hypothetical matchup with the Crimson Tide.

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But that’s not new — it’s the normal M.O. for Alabama, which has conquered this sport in a way few have in its history. Alabama should be favored in any game against any opponent. Alabama shouldn’t lose to Florida, to Clemson, to anyone. They may lose, but they shouldn’t.

“We prepare our guys the best we can to go out there and play well,” Saban said.

It’s a disheartening fact for the rest of the Football Bowl Subdivision to consider. But there is a silver lining: Catch the Tide on the wrong day — or catch the Tide in a bad half, as happened on Saturday — and anything can happen. It’s happened in the past against the Rebels, against Oklahoma, even against Auburn.

But it’s a fact nonetheless. This is Alabama’s world; the rest of college football has paled in comparison. And as the SEC championship awaits, with the Playoff just around the corner, Alabama again looks unbeatable. The Tide’s greatest competitor is right there at home, in-house, internal and not external.

“The legacy of our team still lies ahead, in terms of what they can accomplished and what they can do,” Saban said. “There’s a lot more out there for this team in terms of an SEC championship, which we still hold in very high esteem. That’s our next focus and that’s the next thing that we’re going to focus on. And what happens from there happens from there.”

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