Alabama, Saban reign as college football ends most trying year
This was more than the College Football Playoff national championship game that crowned the Alabama Crimson Tide on Monday night to close a season like no other.
Hard Rock Stadium was hosting a coronation, too. Oh, and an audition.
The coronation was to anoint Alabama coach Nick Saban his sport’s king by historical measure, and not less than that.
’Bama’s convincing 5224 steamroll over the Ohio State Buckeyes minted
Saban’s seventh career national title, breaking a tie with fellow Tide legend Paul “Bear” Bryant for the most ever by a major college head coach. It came 14 years after Saban became a figure of lasting notoriety in South Florida by stating he would not leave the Miami Dolphins for Tuscaloosa — and soon after doing exactly that.
The national trophy was Saban’s sixth with Alabama to augment the one he’d won with Louisiana State.
Hey, you don’t have to like the guy, Dolfans. But respect him you must. For all time.
(And maybe even admit, after all this time, that Saban made exactly the right decision by trading the grind of the NFL for the Tide dynasty that awaited him).
As for that audition that happened Monday night?
That involved the Dolphins, too.
See, in the Fins’ home stadium, in their backyard, Alabama wide receiver DeVonta Smith did everything but virtually guarantee he’d better be Miami’s top pick, No. 3 overall, in the NFL Draft this April. He’d been a near-certain top-five selection before Monday, but that became assured when he chased last week’s Heisman Trophy win with 12 catches for 215 yards and three touchdowns.
In the first half he did that, unstoppable, as the Tide rolled to an 18-point lead, ’Bama quarterback Mac Jones thoroughly outplaying his OSU counterpart Justin Fields in a five-TD performance. LeBron
James, Patrick Mahomes and other sports stars took to social media to rave about Smith, who injured his right hand early in the second half and did not return, but Jones’ excellence most steered the result.
Jones led a triumph thatcapped No. 1-ranked ’Bama’s season at a perfect 13-0 and cemented its place atop the Southeastern Conference.
No. 3-ranked Ohio State wraps up this pandemicshrouded season at 7-1, after starting more than a month late and seeing three games, including the Michigan rivalry, canceled for COVID-19-related reasons. The Big Ten conference at first planned to not play at all, but relented, and sent the Buckeyes on to the CFP final — a fitting team to represent the hardships that had put even Monday night’s game at some risk of being postponed.
“This whole season has been a balancing act,” said CFP executve director Bill Hancock. “Right through to this game.”
OSU had clobbered Atlantic Coast Conference power Clemson to reach the final — Clemson, the ACC roadblock the Miami Hurricanes somehow need to find a way to get past. Then,’Bama.
It’s on a night such as this, with the Tide dynasty on full display, that one truly wonders how close the Canes are, if at all, to that long-elusive sixth national title.
The night’s triumph belonged to Saban and Alabama, but college football, Ohio State and every other school that toughed out positive tests and doubts to reach the finish line can feel some sort of victory from the one-of-a-kind perseverance this season demanded of all.
That included fans, who weren’t allowed at all in some stadiums and could go in limited numbers at others. Monday night, about one-fifth of Hard Rock’s 65,000 seats were occupied, with fans scattered for safety and behind masks.
Miami-Dade was as fitting a region as any to host the end of this strangest of seasons. In a state that has lost some 23,000 lives to COVID. At a stadium that has served as a testing site throughout the pandemic and now is a site for vaccinations.
Miami-Dade and this stadium were hosting their fifth college football national championship game this fifth-century, after earlier title matchups following the 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012 seasons. Monday night’s was the first since — and the first for the region in the College Football Playoff (CFP) era.
The pandemic-rules crowd was limited; still, it was a game that appealed to South Florida fans, beyond the blueblood heft of the two programs. Tickets on the secondary market were going in the $1,300 range early Monday.
Miami’s long animus with Saban bubbled forth. Dolphins fans certainly know the name of ’Bama cornerback Patrick Surtain II, whose father was a popular Fins fixture at the same position for years.
Now, it is the ’Bama wide receiver Smith who is widely speculated as the Dolphins’ top 2021 NFL Draft pick at third overall, presuming a rumored Deshaun Watson/Tua Tagovailoa quarterback mega-trade does not transpire to mess with that. (Tua, of course, arrived here with a Saban/’Bama pedigree in the 2020 draft).
Hard Rock Stadium seemed to suit Smith’s talents quite well.
It’ll be his home field for a good while moving forward, if the Dolphins are smart.