MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — The coach no longer wears houndstooth. The result is the same. Another Alabama dynasty.
Quieting the Irish by the first play of the second quarter, Eddie Lacy, AJ McCarron and the No. 2 Crimson Tide rolled past top ranked Notre Dame 42-14 for the BCS championship Monday night, locking up a second consecutive national title and third in four years with another laugher of a title game.
Paul “B ear ” Bryant would’ve been especially proud of this one - Nick Saban and the Tide romping to the second-biggest rout of the BCS era that began in 1999.
“We’re going for it next year again,” said Alabama offensive tackle Cyrus Kouandijo, only a sophomore but already the owner of two rings. “And again. And again. And again. I love to win. That’s why I came here.”
Lacy, the game’s offensive MVP, ran for one touchdown and caught a pass for another in the final minute of the opening half. He spun away from the vaunted Notre Dame defense not once, but twice, to cap a 28-0 first half.
“They just did what Alabama does,” said Manti Te’o, Notre Dame’s star linebacker and Heisman Trophy finalist.
Lacy finished with 140 yards on 20 carries, coming up with two of his best performances in the two biggest games of the year. He rushed for a career-high 181 yards in a victory over Georgia in the SEC title game, and was nearly as dominant against the Irish. McCarron wasn’t too shabby, either, completing 20 of 28 passes for 4 touchdowns and 264 yards, following up his MVP performance in last year’s title game.
“We’ve had a lot of really great football players who’ve worked really hard,” Saban said. “Because we’ve had a great team, we’ve been able to have a significant amount of success.”
Alabama (13-1) scored 69 consecutive points against its title game opponents, going back to getting the final 13 against Texas in 2010, followed by a 21-0 victory over LSU for last year’s crown, then scoring the first 35 points on Notre Dame. Saban’s team made the Irish (12-1) look like a squad that would be hard-pressed to finish in the middle of the pack in the SEC, which has now won seven consecutive national championships.
The Crimson Tide will likely wrap up its ninth Associated Press national title, breaking a tie with Notre Dame for the most by any school and gaining a measure of redemption for a bitter loss to the Irish almost four decades ago: the epic Sugar Bowl in which Ara Parseghian’s team edged Bryant’s powerhouse 24-23.
Bryant won five AP titles during his career. The way things are going, Saban might just chase him down.
Already, Saban is the first coach in the BCS era to win national titles at different schools, capturing his first at LSU during the 2003 season. Now, he’s the first coach with back-to-back BCS titles, and given the youthfulness of his team, Alabama figures to go into next season as a heavy favorite.
Before a record Sun Life Stadium crowd of 80,120 that definitely included more green than crimson, Lacy ran right through Te’o and the Irish on a 20-yard touchdown run before the game was three minutes old, capping an 82-yard drive that was longest of the season given up by the Fighting Irish.
It would only get worse. Alabama marched right down the field on its second possession, this one a 10-play, 61-yard drive that finished with McCarron completely faking out the defense and lofting a 3-yard touchdown pass to Michael Williams, standing all alone in the back of the end zone.
On the first play of the second quarter, T.J. Yeldon powered over from the 1 to make it 21-0, finishing an 80-yard drive that included two long completions by McCarron. First, he went to Kevin Norwood on a 25-yard gain. Then, he hooked up with freshman Amari Cooper for a 27-yard gain to the Notre Dame 6.
By that point, it was clear to everyone that Notre Dame’s hopes of winning its first national championship since 1988 were all done. But Alabama just poured it on.
“We’ve got to get physically stronger, continue close the gap there,” said Brian Kelly, the Irish’s third-year coach. “Just overall, we need to see what it looks like. Our guys clearly know what it looks like now - a championship football team. That’s back to-back national champions. That’s what it looks like.That’s what you measure yourself against there. It’s pretty clear across the board what we have to do.”
Lacy’s 11-yard touchdown reception with 31 seconds left in the half left the Irish fans shaking the heads in disbelief, while the Alabama faithful broke out that familiar “SEC! SEC! SEC !”
Sports, Pages 15 on 01/08/2013