USA TODAY International Edition
Alabama still way ahead of the class
ARLINGTON, Texas – There is rarely a single moment in a football game that so perfectly captures the difference between the two teams on the field, a snapshot image that so completely describes what one team is doing to an entire sport.
When Alabama running back Najee Harris ski- ramped off the turf at AT& T Stadium in the first quarter Friday, hurdling clear over the head of a Notre Dame cornerback on his way to another big gain, another quick score, another Alabama performance that made a hard game look laughably easy, there was only one conclusion to draw.
Nobody else in college football can fly this high.
By now there is nothing unusual or surprising about another Alabama trip to the national championship game on Jan. 11. After the Crimson Tide’s 31- 14 win over Notre Dame in the College Football Playoff semifinals, Alabama will be there for the eighth time in 14 years under Nick Saban.
But what this version of Alabama is doing and how it’s doing it? Not normal; not normal at all.
It wasn’t enough for Nick Saban to lord over college football for more than a decade. He has gone and hacked the sport, broken the matrix and reached nirvana with a team whose best may be the best there has ever been.
“We knew this would be a tough game, and it certainly was, and we’ll learn what we need to learn from it so we have a chance to improve and get better,” Saban said.
This Alabama does not physically impose itself on football games as much as it glides through them, daring opponents to reach a level they’ve never played at before, then sustain it for 60 minutes without making a mistake. Alabama, meanwhile, can take off at cruising altitude and stay there for as long as it wants. The game becomes serene versus strain.
Alabama isn’t unbeatable. There can be lulls and lapses, opportunities to crack open the door. Notre Dame crept toward it for a few minutes early in the second half when it was a 21- 7 game before the stress of trying to play perfect football for that long became too much. In the Southeastern Conference championship game, we saw Florida try to turn it into a tennis match where a punt was like a break of serve. That ultimately didn’t work, either.
“You have to be able to play every style,” Saban said. “I think if people get a bead on you in terms of what is successful against you and you don’t have answers for it, then everyone is going to do it and take a lot of things away.”
We’ll find out in a week whether Ohio State can sustain the kind of level it will take to beat Alabama, not just hang with the Tide for a half or three quarters. But as talented as Ohio State is, it is likely to run into the same problem: For Alabama, everything is just easier.
That’s the luxury of its offense, which has gears on top of dimensions that are impossible to account for. The sheer speed of DeVonta Smith, who was almost always open against Notre Dame and made catches even when he wasn’t, totaling seven for 130 yards and three touchdowns. The durability and physicality of Harris, who left fans gasping at the replay of his hurdle on the scoreboard even an hour after it happened.
The utter chill of quarterback Mac Jones, who seems impossible to make uncomfortable. And the scheme of coordinator Steve Sarkisian, who knows when it’s time to throttle up and go.
“That’s just the basic adage of football is take what the defense gives you, and with our offensive line we have plenty of tine to take shots down the field and hit the quick game stuff to our tight ends, receivers, running backs, and Sark just dials it up and we make the plays for him,” Jones said. “They make me look a lot better than I am. I’m not very athletic, I just try to get the ball to the right people – we have the best offense in the country in our mind but we have to prove that every week.”
Notre Dame had the bravado to take the ball first, hoping to get a jump on the Crimson Tide. Instead, it was 14- 0 Alabama after two possessions, 12 offensive plays and 176 yards.
And it wasn’t even about Notre Dame playing poorly or not belonging in the playoff as some critics will howl after a second semifinal blowout loss in the past three years. The Fighting Irish belonged and for the most part did what was necessary to limit the Alabama offense with an effective running game and some clock- consuming drives.
It didn’t matter because Alabama is utterly unmoved and unstressed by anything that it has faced this season.
With Saban embracing this offensive system and recruiting this depth of skill, the entire paradigm of the sport has been shaken up even as the bottom line seems so normal. Once again, Alabama has leapt over everyone.