MIAMI GARDENS, Florida – At the end of a long, tiring, awkward and uncomfortable season for college football, we finally achieved a little bit of normality as the final seconds ticked the clock on Monday night at Hard Rock Stadium: Alabama, hoisting one more national championship trophy after winning dominantly and historically.
Only a few spectators were left to see the celebration, a small fraction of the nearly 14,000 fans allowed at the facility, considering all restrictions in effect. In any other year, the field is packed with friends, family, media, photographers, event staff in a big celebration that stretches for 10 meters along the makeshift stage. On Monday night, a lone player made snow angels out of the fallen confetti while his teammates hugged only the staff.
Alabama’s victory seemed like the inevitable end, of course, as the most dominant coach in the sport joined the most dominant team with the most dominant players. For those who just attended the National College Football Playoff Championship presented by AT&T against Ohio State on Monday, believing that they could just to see a competitive game, they saw exhibition # 13 showing why the Buckeyes simply didn’t stand a chance.
There was the Heisman Trophy winner, DeVonta Smith, owner of Ohio State so completely that he snatched several game records for the title before the break and would have broken more if he hadn’t dislocated a finger from his right hand. There was the running back Najee Harris, destroying the Buckeyes with such force that their collective wills inevitably broke. Leading it all was quarterback Mac Jones, orchestrating yet another almost perfect offensive performance while, yes, breaking his own championship records along the way.
Crimson Tide could not be stopped during the season. They couldn’t be stopped in a 52-24 championship winning performance that no one will soon forget.
“For me, this team has won more than any other,” said Alabama coach Nick Saban, who won the seventh record national title. “I played 13 games, I didn’t lose with all the disruptions we had this season. I think there is a lot to write about when it comes to the team’s legacy.”
This Alabama team will have its special place in history, and with good reason. What this team has achieved goes beyond the extravagant points and statistics and Heisman. Players across the sport have sacrificed more than ever; they endured more than ever; they have been challenged both physically and mentally in ways that remain difficult to understand.
They played football during a pandemic.
You may not discover how remarkable this season really was much later, perhaps years later, with time to reflect on the extraordinary circumstances in which it all happened.
“It was an unprecedented year with a lot of adversity,” said Alabama striker Alex Leatherwood. “But we just kept going. We tried to stay focused and we took everything day after day and we really got everyone to believe what we wanted to achieve – and we came out victorious.”
Ohio State also pushed for that opportunity, believing it also had a champion team, with Justin Fields leading. Although the Buckeyes started their season after Alabama, they dealt with a myriad of coronavirus problems to get to this point – and even discussed whether they should postpone this championship game because they had more problems with COVID-19 last week.
It all talks about the uncertainty that filled this season. No one really knew if college football would make it to the finish line, as coaches basically said to anyone who wanted to hear: “You are as good as you were on your last test.” The season seemed precarious each day, with coaches, players and coaches holding their breath waiting for the results of the coronavirus tests.
This only increased the pressure on the players, as they did their best to follow all the security protocols to continue playing. While SEC teams dealt with outbreaks and Saban dealt with the coronavirus itself, only one team felt really safe: Alabama, thanks to Smith, Harris, Jones and everyone else. Yes, there were some problems along the way. But this is a team that failed to score 40 or more points just twice and had three players finishing in the top five for Heisman – and you could make a very real case today, they should have finished 1-2-3.
This is not just an accident, of course. Saban recruits the best players and then develops the best. But that kind of offensive performance was also not predetermined. Saban saw the changing landscape in college football to open and scoring offenses at will and changed with that – reinventing Crimson Tide into an unstoppable offensive force. Consider the first two times he won a national championship with Alabama: The Tide scored 58 points – just six more than on Monday night.
Alabama’s offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian has once again called a game master. Knowing full well that Smith would be involved in every move, he put Smith in new and different formations to take the ball to him. But most of the time, Smith just got behind Ohio State supporters and overtook them. At the end of the first half, Smith had 12 receptions for 215 yards and three touchdowns, broke three career records at the SEC, set a BCS / CFP championship game record, drew another and set a school record.
“He does a great job calling the game,” said Saban of Sarkisian. “He knows what the other team is doing, he knows how to attack, he knows where to put the players to put them in position to be able to make those plays against what the other team is doing. He just did a fantastic job this year. “
Jones, meanwhile, shot for 464 yards – breaking Joe Burrow’s BCS / CFP championship record and leveling Burrow’s passing touchdown record with five.
A year after college football experts declared Burrow’s LSU team to be the biggest offensive ever, Alabama claimed the crown. None of this should come as a shock: Alabama lost the playoffs a year ago and saw the Tigers division rival pass by in a similar way. Did anyone think Saban would just accept that?
Jones, who limped with an injured leg for a good part of the second half and still made a perfect pass after another, went one step further than declaring Alabama the biggest attack.
“I think we are the best team to ever play,” said Jones. “There is no team that plays with a SEC schedule like this again. But at the same time, we are very happy to win this game and put the icing on the cake. There was not much pressure; we just wanted to go out there and play. the game we’ve all played since we were 5 years old. “
Despite all the unknowns about how this season would play out, Crimson Tide has committed to each other.
“We had a mission,” said Smith. “Everyone wanted to finish things the right way. We all went to work every day and just worked. We got the result we wanted.”
And finally, the result that we could all see coming.