As Alje-Najee Harris runs backwards, jumps outwards and drives upwards, Nick McCloud, the corner of Notre Dame, is confronted, facing him with his shoulder down.
Does not matter. Harris, a 6-foot-2, 229-pound senior, treats McCloud like a big fire hydrant, jumps over him with the clean, synchronized step of an Olympic hurdle and gallops down the sideline.
The play was the highlight of Alabama’s 31-14 victory over Notre Dame in a semifinal of the College Football Playoff on Friday night in Arlington, Texas – Harris’s elegant athletics show how effortlessly the Crimson Tide sent the Fighting Irish.
The win strengthened the legitimacy of Alabama’s return to the top of college football after missing the four-team playoffs for the first time last season. The best-ranked Crimson Tide has reached a Southeastern Conference-only schedule, surpassed an outspoken Florida team in the conference game and has now advanced to the Jan. 11 championship against Ohio State, beating Clemson by 49 -28 in Friday’s other crowded. semifinal.
This game would not have been a huge surprise last summer – the teams were at numbers 2 and 3 at the start of the season – but the presence of the Buckeyes in the playoffs is particularly fitting.
In this isolated pandemic season, their coach, Ryan Day, and their quarterback, Justin Fields, were at the head of a campaign that persuaded the ten major presidents to reverse their course after canceling the season in August.
Which finalist can better imagine how disruptive the coronavirus was as a team that played only five games in the regular season – three were canceled due to outbreaks – and as a result dispensed with the Big Ten needed to play for the conference title?
This shortened schedule, just over halfway through the second semifinal season, has led some coaches to doubt whether Ohio State should be selected for the four-team playoffs – including Clemson coach Dabo Swinney, who finished 11th in the Buckeyes occupy the last coaches. poll.
The state of Ohio may have considered it a bit, but it had more and more organic motivation in Friday’s game – it avenged a crushing 29-23 loss to the Tigers in last season’s semifinal when Fields intercepted a late in throw the Clemson end zone.
That throw was then one of the many regrets. It was difficult for the Buckeyes to find a serious one in New Orleans on Friday night.
Perhaps the only major problem is the persistent physical pain – Fields moved wildly but cautiously after having a crushing shot in the ribs of Clemson lineman James Skalski, who was pointed out for targeting.
“The hit really took a toll on me,” Fields said in a television interview, adding later that he received one or two injections into the medical tent along the sideline during the game. “My ribs killed me the whole game.”
The Buckeyes (7-0), who rolled 639 yards in total offense, will need all the firepower (and good health) they can muster in 10 days.
Alabama’s dynamic attack, which involves quarterback Mac Jones, receiver DeVonta Smith and Harris – who all finished in the top five in the Heisman Trophy poll – has been kept below 40 points for the first time since the season. . Yet, during the first three drives, it ripped off the field for touchdowns, and Notre Dame never really threatened the Crimson Tide.
Although Harris, who rushed a total of 125 yards, played the highlight, Smith showed why he is the supposed favorite to win the Heisman. With his first touch, he takes a quick pace at the line of scrum work and uses a textbook block by John Metchie III to kick 26 yards for a touch. He finished with three touchdowns under his seven catches for 130 yards.
All the while, Jones was usually flawless and completed 25 or 30 passes for 297 yards.
About the only person on the Alabama sideline who looked uncomfortable was coach Nick Saban, who drafted a late unsportsmanlike penalty after tipping over officials.
“We did not finish the game the way we wanted to,” Saban said in a television interview, saying with a knowing smile, “I still have something to complain about.”
After a year away from the playoffs, he was still satisfied.
“These guys really deserved the opportunity to play in the national championship game, so we’ll see what we can do with it,” he said.
If Alabama (12-0) removed the notorious efficiency of Notre Dame (10-2), it was not difficult to be reminded of the circumstances under which this game – and the entire season – took place, amid a pandemic what upward sports.
The logo in the middle of the Dallas Cowboys Stadium was announced on New Year’s Day – the red-styled Rose Bowl Game logo, which usually adorns its named stadium in Pasadena, California.
But after Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly threatened to boycott the Rose Bowl because health rules in California do not allow families to attend the game, the Rose Bowl was moved to Texas – the first time since 1942 not played in Pasadena. , when it was moved to Durham, NC, shortly after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor.
A crowd of 18,373 was allowed to watch.
They witnessed a familiar ending under the bright lights for Notre Dame.
The Fighting Irish have lost seven consecutive major matches in the kitchen or play-off since 2000, of which nothing was closer than 14 points.
“We just need more power, to be honest. That’s it, ”Kelly said, pushing back against criticism of the program’s recent history. “There is no other broader story than what we made of a few plays.”
Clemson (10-2), despite winning two national championships and winning two other title games since 2015, ended his second consecutive season when his defense was cut. The Tigers surrendered 628 yards in a 42-25 loss to the state of Louisiana in last season’s title game.
Fields, who ran 385 yards and passed six touchdowns, and Trey Sermon, who chased the Tigers for 193 yards, ran back, things may not have been quite as easy against Alabama.
The Crimson Tide tried to reconcile its own disappointment last season, and in this season of attacks and unexpected obstacles, it has managed to remove every obstacle.