On to Miami: Alabama, Ohio State set for national title game after big semifinal wins
The college football national championship game is set.
Jan. 11. Miami Gardens’ Hard Rock Stadium.
Alabama vs. Ohio State.
The top-ranked Alabama Crimson Tide routed No. 4 Notre Dame 31-14 in the Capital One Rose Bowl at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, while No. 3 Ohio State upset No. 2 Clemson 49-28 in the Allstate Sugar Bowl in New Orleans on Friday.
It’s a matchup of the only undefeated teams from Power 5 conferences — Alabama is 12-0, Ohio State 7-0 — and the first time college football’s champion will be crowned in South Florida since the playoff format began in the 2014 season.
Familiar spot for Alabama
The Crimson Tide wasted no time jumping ahead of Notre Dame in the Rose Bowl to cement their spot in the national championship game for the fifth time in seven years of the College Football Playoff format.
Heisman Trophy finalist Mac Jones threw for 297 yards and four touchdowns. Three of those touchdowns went to Heisman Trophy finalist DeVonta Smith, who had seven catches and 130 yards. Running back Najee Harris, who finished fifth in the Heisman Trophy voting, tallied 125 yards on 15 carries. That included a 53-yard first-quarter run that included Harris hurdling a Notre Dame defender.
Alabama also held Notre Dame (10-2) to 375 yards, 180 of which came on three drives in the fourth quarter when the Fighting Irish were already down by 24 points. Notre Dame only scored on one of those three drives — a 1-yard quarterback sneak by Ian Book with 56 seconds left capped a 14-play, 80-yard drive for the final score of the game.
Notre Dame’s only other touchdown drive: a 15-play, 75-yard, eight-minute march down the field in the second quarter that ended with a Kyren Williams 1-yard rushing touchdown to cut Notre Dame’s deficit at the time to 14-7. Alabama scored again less than three minutes later to go back up by 14 and maintained its multi-touchdown lead the rest of the way.
Fields day for Ohio State
Meanwhile, the Sugar Bowl looked poised to be a more competitive game ... for the first quarter.
And then Justin Fields and Trey Sermon stepped up their game on offense and the Buckeyes defense slowed down Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence.
The result: Ohio State avenging its previous two semifinal losses to Clemson and making its first title-game appearance since winning it all in 2014 in the first year of the playoff format.
Fields completed 22 of 28 passes for 385 yards and six touchdowns, four of which came after taking a hard hit in the ribs by Clemson linebacker James Skalski midway through the second quarter. Skalski was ejected for targeting on the play. Fields was visibly in pain after the hit but missed just one offensive snap. He threw a 9-yard touchdown to Chris Olave on his first play back on the field and then orchestrated a 12-play, 80-yard drive capped by a 12-yard touchdown pass to Jeremy Ruckert to turn a 14-14 tie at the end of the first quarter into a 35-14 Ohio State halftime lead it wouldn’t relinquish.
Sermon ran for 193 yards and a touchdown of his own. Olave caught six passes for 132 yards and two touchdowns, including a 56-yard strike from Fields in the third quarter over a pair of Clemson defenders.
Lawrence, projected to be the No. 1 pick in the 2021 NFL Draft, completed 33 of 48 passes for 400 yards and two touchdowns while running for a third. Clemson finished the season 10-2.
