While the face of college football is constantly changing, one thing seems to remain a constant: If you can play good defense and run the ball, you’re going to win a lot of football games.

Alabama has those qualities, which is why its the reigning national champion, and the current No. 1 team in the country.

The Tide fell behind today, but on the back of its defense and run game clawed back into its game with Arkansas and eventually picked up a 24-20 win in front of a raucous crowd in Fayetteville.

Mark Ingram ran for 157 yards, many of which came with one or more Razorback on his back. His counterpart Trent Richardson added 85 more yards, and the team finished with 228 on the ground. It was punctuated with a 2-yard run by Greg McElroy on fourth-and-inches from midfield with under a minute to play. I’d say Nick Saban made a gutty call going for it in that situation, but I don’t know if anyone had any doubt the Tide was going to convert at that point.

The defense gave up some yards to Ryan Mallett, who threw for 357, but they also forced a career-high three interceptions from the highly-touted quarterback. Two of those came in the final 5 minutes, one setting up the go-ahead score. Arkansas isn’t much of a running team, but it was held to 64 yards on 20 carries.

This was just the first game in a really tough three-game stretch for Alabama, but it’s arguably the toughest of the three. Florida is next, but that’s at home, and the Gators’ offense doesn’t seem like it will pose much of a threat. That’s followed by a trip to South Carolina, and while the Gamecocks look much improved this year, I don’t think they’re ready for the Crimson Tide.

I had my doubts early in the year about Alabama’s chances to repeat, but Ingram and Richardson can run on anyone, and that defense — which just passed what will be its toughest test of the season — is only going to continue to get better. At this point, I don’t know who can beat the Tide.

At the end of the day, winning games in college football is the only thing that matters. That’s why Alabama won’t apologize for its 12-10 victory over Tennessee at home on Saturday, even though it needed a blocked field goal as time expired to secure the win.

That said, Nick Saban better figure out a way for his team to move the ball through the air or else the Tide won’t find themselves playing for a national title this year.

The Alabama coaching staff showed little to no confidence in quarterback Greg McElroy today. Either that, or McElroy played too conservatively because he barely threw the ball vertically and his average pass went for a paltry 4.1 yards.

The playcalling was also highly questionable at times for Alabama, especially in on the Tide’s final drive before halftime. Their offensive line was blowing the Vols off the ball and Mark Ingram had gapping holes to run through. Yet when ‘Bama got inside the 10 yard line, Saban’s crew called two straight passes on second and third down, both of which fell incomplete and the Tide had to settle for a field goal.

Why, when you’re completely dominating the line of scrimmage and running the ball at will, would you call two straight pass plays? The calls made no sense and they probably cost ‘Bama six points. Granted, Monte Kiffin’s defense deserves a lot of credit for taking away the run and neutralizing Ingram (he had 99 yards on 18 carries) as much as possible, but the Tide coaching staff flat out blew it before half.

Outside of the final two minutes when they allowed Tennessee to get back into the game, the Tide defense played great. There were multiple times today when the Vols got on ‘Bama’s side of the field and the Tide defense knocked them backwards. Just as they’ve been all season, they were impressive.

But again, if this team wants to play for a national championship then Saban needs to figure out how to move the chains outside of handing the ball to Ingram every play.