COMMENTARY

No frills as Lacy tramples Notre Dame

Alabama running back Eddie Lacy pulls away from Notre Dame’s KeiVarae Russell during the second half of Monday night’s BCS National Championship Game. Lacy led Alabama with 20 rushes for 140 yards, including a 20-yard touchdown run. He also caught an 11-yard touchdown pass from quarterback AJ McCarron. Lacy had more rushes than the entire Notre Dame team.
Alabama running back Eddie Lacy pulls away from Notre Dame’s KeiVarae Russell during the second half of Monday night’s BCS National Championship Game. Lacy led Alabama with 20 rushes for 140 yards, including a 20-yard touchdown run. He also caught an 11-yard touchdown pass from quarterback AJ McCarron. Lacy had more rushes than the entire Notre Dame team.

— The Notre Dame Golden Domers had waited 24 years, and then the better part of six weeks, to flock here in anticipation of cheering their team on to a national title.

But quickly they sat with their arms folded, their caps lowered, slouched in their seats, despondent.

They can thank Eddie Lacy for that.

He ran at will, through arm tackles, over defenders, past Manti Te’o. Lacy made it look easy as he knifed through Notre Dame’s defense, making certain the Fighting Irish would not go through Alabama, at least not this year, to win their first national championship since 1988.

Like Mark Ingram and Trent Richardson before him, Lacy had his night atop college football as Alabama’s lead running back. Lacy made this title game his own, racking up 140 yards rushing and two touchdowns, one rushing and one receiving, as the Crimson Tide rolled to a 42-14 victory that left Notre Dame spinning from the start and sealed the Tide’s third title in four years.

Lacy wasted no time in keeping the Irish off balance, scoring on a 20-yard run on the Tide’s first possession of the game to set the tone.

He then he caught a short pass in the red zone, spun tightly enough around two defenders to escape another converging attacker and scored with 31 seconds left in the first half. That touchdown put Alabama ahead 28-0, and left Notre Dame wondering what it could do to stop him.

“That is a grown man,” Alabama lineman D.J. Fluker said. “You do not want to get in his way.”

He seemed to favor the left side of his offensive line, barreling behind 311-pound left tackle Cyrus Kouandjio and his 320-pound left guard, Chance Warmack. Behind them, he finished the Crimson Tide’s opening drive with his 20-yard touchdown run, right up the gut, defenders diving at his ankles.

The Notre Dame defense had not allowed a touchdown in the first quarter all season. By the end of the quarter, Lacy had 72 yards, averaging 9 yards a carry, and Alabama had out gained Notre Dame in total yardage by 202-23. Alabama led 14-0, and it would soon be 21-0, then 28-0, then more and more.

“Eddie’s always at his best, man,” Warmack said. “He was feeling it just like everybody else was. We all had a mentality tonight to not be denied.”

The Notre Dame defense that had won 12 games, that had allowed just 10.3 points per game, had already failed. Louis Nix III and Stephon Tuitt had been moved. Te’o, the Heisman Trophy runner-up, had been a nonfactor. If that ever seemed plausible, on this night, it was. Not even he could slow Lacy and Alabama by himself.

With Lacy in his backfield, Alabama quarterback AJ McCarron simply needed to fake hand offs to find his receivers open deep down field. There, Kevin Norwood and Amari Cooper found themselves a step ahead, the Fighting Irish two steps behind.

“It was kind of easy because they were so predictable,” said Fluker, adding, “They ran the same things they did on film.”

McCarron, who has won two titles now with the help of a healthy run game, threw four touchdown passes.

Cooper, whose freshman season rivaled that of T.J. Yeldon, had 105 yards and two touchdowns.

Sports, Pages 20 on 01/08/2013

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