After watching the Arizona Cardinals continue their terrible season, and the Alabama Crimson Tide dominate college football, fans are starting to wonder who would win if these two teams were to line up against each other.

A Crimson Tide team, which is well-coached and has yet to play a game where they haven’t won by at least three touchdowns, would seem like the easy choice. They have a definite Heisman candidate in quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, along with a defense that is always stellar and filled with future NFL first-round draft picks. On top of the talent, they have arguably the best college football coach ever, Nick Saban.

However, let’s be real. No matter how talented this team may be, they won’t be able to compare to the current Arizona Cardinals team, despite how bad they are playing, for four main reasons:

1. Alabama is a college team filled with young men from the ages 18 to 24. They may seem big and strong on the college field, but that’s because they are playing against people their age. You put these same players against a professional team where the guys have been pushing themselves to new limits for years, they’ll fail. Their opponents won’t be so easy to bully around.

2. The experience of the Cardinals’ players would be a big factor. A big role in Alabama’s success is their dominate defense, normally led by star defensive linemen and linebackers. However, most of these guys haven’t reached their full potential. They tend to rely on what they have used the majority of their career to succeed. In other words, these basic moves wouldn’t work against an NFL athlete who has seen the same moves over and over. Yes, there will be times where Alabama will win the fight, but for a majority of the game the Cardinals will control the line of scrimmage, ultimately winning the fight.

3. Play calling in the NFL gets more complicated. Now that you have coaches with higher IQ’s, plays tend to be hidden better. This is why there have been so many quarterbacks who have had great success in the NCAA, but it never translated to the NFL. In no way am I saying that Tagovailoa wouldn’t play well in this match-up. However, I highly doubt the amount of success he has against an NFL defense will be the same as he currently is having weekly in his college games.

4. Lastly, Larry Fitzgerald, in 15 seasons, had several different quarterbacks and had only dropped 28 career passes. This shows that when the ball touches his hand, it’s a sure catch almost every time, even going against some of the best corners in the NFL. Alabama has good corners, but no corner of theirs is ready for that match-up. Once that weakness is exploited, the Cardinals would be able to pull away whenever they want.

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